A Jew And A Latino Walk Into A Recording Studio...

A Jew And A Latino Walk Into A Recording Studio...
Salsa diva Celia Cruz shows off her award for best salsa performance at the first annual Latin Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2000. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Salsa diva Celia Cruz shows off her award for best salsa performance at the first annual Latin Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2000. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Think mambo lessons in the Jewish summer resorts of the Catskills — real-life Dirty Dancing. Side-splitting "Yiddish rhumba" about Jews falling in love with Cuban culture. Latin musicians playing at bar mitzvahs (and recording fantastic renditions of "Hava Nagila").

In November, The Idelsohn Society For Musical Preservation — an organization dedicated to telling Jewish history through its music — released some of these gems in the form of a double album called It's a Scream How Levine Does the Rhumba — which is, fittingly, a phrase my grandmother would probably use to describe a wild party in her youth.

Before You Go

Soledad O'Brien

Afro-Latinos Who've Marked American Pop Culture

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot