Published: 15 March 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
THE PAST TWO YEARS have seen a surprising explosion of music from a new generation of young ultra-Orthodox women. While coronavirus has pulled the plug on women-only concerts for now, they are using YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify to inspire other women while staying true to their core beliefs.
And if you look a bit closer, you just may see the cultural revolution taking place underneath.
For centuries, Jewish women have observed—and struggled with—kol isha, the prohibition against a man hearing the voice of a woman singing. The Talmud in “Tractate Brachot”, in a passage discussing the minimal levels of modesty required to recite the Shema prayer, states that a woman’s voice is sexually arousing and therefore forbidden.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3AS7Y0jJfg[/embed]
“As a kid, whenever I told people that I wanted to sing professionally, I was told that it just wasn’t done,” said Nechama Cohen. “People would say it was forbidden, but it was really important to me.
"Then in high school, I went to speak with our family’s Rav [rabbinical adviser] about it to hear what he thought. After a few minutes of hearing what I had to say, he said, ‘you need to sing. The world needs it.’ And then I started figuring out how to do this.”
Cohen released her first album, Heartbeat, eight years ago - when she was 20 - with a note on the cover stating that her music was for women and girls only. “When I first started, I just knew that I wasn’t supposed to sing in front of men,” said Cohen, who lives with her husband in Lakewood, New Jersey.
FULL STORY Music videos—for women only (Tablet)
Photo: Haredi singer Nechama Bloom (Youtube screen capture)
