LOS ANGELES, Calif.--In 1959, Johnny Mathis released “Kol Nidre"--the Aramaic prayer traditionally intoned at the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement--as a 7-inch single. Yes, that Johnny ...

In 1958, when Johnny Mathis was recording an album of African-American spirituals in homage to his black mother, he included a seemingly odd song: “Kol Nidre,” the centerpiece of the Yom Kippur ...

If American Jewish popular culture is any indication, Kol Nidre is the one prayer American Jews happen to know well. Over the years, they’ve encountered it on long-playing records, like those produced ...

Johnny Mathis got up from the mah-jongg table where he was conducting an interview at his Los Angeles home to answer the telephone: “We’re discussing my career as a cantor,” he quipped. The ...

At a time when the relationship between African Americans and American Jews seems largely irrelevant to the national conversation, the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation is directing its gaze ...

Last week I had dinner with Johnny Mathis. That’s right, Johnny Mathis. The third best-selling recording artist of all time, whose open-hearted, sultry voice animated our car rides to Lake Tahoe when ...

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Last year, as the Jewish Day of Atonement approached, I received an e-mail from my brother-in-law in New York, who is both an ardent Yankee fan and avid Web surfer. At the time, he sent me a link to ...

Whoever you are, whatever your year has been, the community proclaims: Anu matirin lehitpallel im ha-avaryanim. Tonight, we permit ourselves to pray together. Next Wednesday evening, Jews across the ...

Every year, during the month of Elul, if not before, cantors return to these ancient Aramaic words in reverential search of meaning and inspiration, for they possess a power beyond any others in our ...

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio - As dusk settled over the Shaker Lakes Nature Center on Wednesday evening, the quiet of the surrounding woods framed a gathering inside the center’s main building, where one ...

Kol Nidre is the most haunting prayer in the Jewish liturgy. I would gauge that more Jews attend synagogue at this moment than at any other time in the year. (You’ve already missed it if you wanted to ...