Who is matisyahu

They have two sons, Shalom and Menachem Mendel. Around the same time as his divorce, Matisyahu shaved off his locks and beard, shocking many of his fans. Since then the reggae star has developed his image and his tunes. Matisyahu has also received some harsh feedback from many of his fans when he started dating his now wife. In one Instagram post where Matisyahu showed a video of him teaching Dressler to drive, some fans questioned Matisyahu for dating a much younger woman.

Driving lessons for my sweety taliadres. Regardless of some fans critiques, many have shown support, with just under likes on Zamir's video only a few hours after the big event. Tags reggae Matisyahu. Subscribe for our daily newsletter. Hot Opinion. Most Read. Reporters' Tweets. About Us. Contact us. Advertise with Us. Given the scant evidence, it looked like the BDS chapter had concluded this based in part on Matisyahu's religion, and an assumption that Jews necessarily support all Israeli policies unless they prove otherwise.

It's not a standard, after all, that non-Jews are being held to. At the same time, the hostility to Matisyahu also seemed to reflect a belief that showing any support for Israel or Israelis is tantamount to complicity in all Israeli actions.

That's an odd standard, given that many Americans can oppose certain US policies, such as drones or the Iraq War, without opposing the existence of the United States itself. That standard starts to make more sense, though, if you think that not just Israeli policies, but the existence of Israel itself, is the problem. And indeed that is the position of some, though certainly not all, within BDS. A rally against the Gaza war, which included calls to boycott Israel, in Barcelona. BDS, as a movement, officially has one central objective: to put economic and political pressure on Israel in order to get it to change its policies towards the Palestinians.

That's a cause with mainstream support in Europe, and elsewhere, as a means to end the occupation. But it's also a cause that's attracted support from activists who take a more extreme position. The incident with Matisyahu speaks to that, and to the way in which the movement is at times defined by its most hard-line members.

Yet BDS has also attracted members who want to do more than just stop Israel's occupation of the West Bank and its policies toward Gaza. While the movement takes no official position on how to end the Israel-Palestine, one of its co-founders, Omar Barghouti , has called for unifying them into a single state, which would mean dissolving Israel as a Jewish state.

This has fed suspicions that at least some proponents of BDS do not see it as just a means to pressure Israel to change its policies, but a means to ending Israel itself. Proponents of anti-Semitism, which is rising globally , have also at times gravitated toward BDS. That said, it would of course be wrong and unfair to judge an entire movement by the policy positions of a few of its members, or to judge all of BDS based on the statements of a few proponents in a protest.

And indeed, many BDS proponents stress their support for a two-state solution that preserves Israeli statehood and protects Israeli interests. That includes the European Union, which is considering a measure to label any imports produced in Israeli settlements — a sort of soft boycott of those settlements.

But the Matisyahu incident shows that BDS really can sometimes look like the movement its more hard-line members want it to be.

And the movement really has failed to deal with this. The majority of the BDS campaigns I have followed are non-violent and justice-seeking The issue goes beyond a few cranks.

Kosher is a bigger idea. My view of the halacha changed a little bit. The laws are there hopefully to be a tool. As for my family, they are very accepting of my changes. My kids are learning very different perspectives. I felt that was something very important to teach them all along: bringing them out, getting them out of the shtetl, seeing the whole world, meeting people from different cultures, stressing the humanity of mankind.

Will we see a new Matisyahu a couple of years from now? Critics describe it as more pop and less reggae than the previous albums. Do you agree? But when my team and I went to Israel, we recorded a lot of live instruments, mostly Middle Eastern style. So in the end, we combined this Middle Eastern organic flavor with more modern fresh pop.

In Streetwise Hebrew for the Times of Israel Community, each month we learn several colloquial Hebrew phrases around a common theme. These are bite-size audio Hebrew classes that we think you'll really enjoy. This month, we're learning phrases on the topic of strength and power. Ready to get tough with us? Back at home again, he agreed to let his parents send him to a wilderness school in Bend, Oregon, where he became enamored of reggae and hip-hop, and began rapping at open-mike competitions.

He returned to New York at 19 to attend the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, but also joined the Carlebach Shul, a synagogue where his musical interests were encouraged. Meeting a Lubavitch rabbi, he became interested in the strict Lubavitch Hasidic sect of Judaism and renamed himself Matisyahu. Continuing to perform, Matisyahu assembled a backing band consisting of guitarist Aaron Dugan , bassist Josh Werner , and drummer Jonah David.

The group recorded Shake Off the Dust Arise , which was released by JDub Records in While touring in support of the album, Matisyahu recorded one of his February concerts and released the material as Live at Stubb's , which was issued in April courtesy of Or Music before getting picked up for national distribution by Epic Records. Epic reissued it on August 23, , as Matisyahu toured around the country and prepared a second studio album with producer Bill Laswell.

The final product, Youth , appeared in March and was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Reggae Album. A simultaneously released dub version of the album was made available to mail-order customers. Meanwhile, Matisyahu 's backing musicians chose to release additional material on their own, adopting the name Roots Tonic for the side project.