Black performance of Jewish music

Many of these Black artists claim to feel a connection to the Jewish songs and people from their shared desire for freedom and sadness from leaving their ancestral lands.

Robeson also famously performed, what he called a "Hassidic Chant", which was a version of the Jewish prayer, the Kaddish amended by the Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, at [1] Carnegie Hall.

Robeson not only performed the chant, but connected it to his African and family roots, saying that it was a personal song that linked him to his late father, since the Kaddish is said when mourning a parent, who had been born a slave and was a preacher.

[1] "Eli Eli" was also famously covered by artists, such as Duke Ellington, and Ethel Waters, who said "that history of their age-old grief and despair is so similar to that of my own people that I felt I was telling the story of my own race too.”[2] The song discussed here should not be confused with the traditional Jewish hymn of the same name recorded by Belle Baker in 1919 (see https://www.loc.gov/resource/ihas.200196253.0?st=gallery) and included in the 1931 show "Rhapsody in Black (see https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/rhapsody-in-black-11364 ) Cab Calloway was a famous black American Jazz singer who drew heavy influences from Jewish music,[3] even going so far to be considered an "Afro-Yiddishist.

[4][3][5] Calloway also said he learned about Jewish music when he was a kid and would go to hear the cantors sing in synagogues, which he claims directly influences his notable "''Hi-De-Ho' style," exemplified in his hit song and later famous animation, "Minnie the Moocher.