Joshua Nelson is Black and Jewish and he goes by the nickname “the prince of kosher gospel,”[1] and he has called himself "the KKK's worst nightmare." His grandparents emigrated to the US from Senegal, and he became fascinated with music when he was 8, while living in Brooklyn. His fascination lasted after he graduated from Newark's Performing Arts High School. Nelson was the high school's official soloist for the 4 years he studied there. He went on to do a 2-year college and kibbutz program in Israel studying at the Hebrew Union College as well as at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
While attending Hebrew University, he started blending Hebrew texts with gospel melodies and arranging Jewish hymns in gospel style, resulting in solo CDs like "Hebrew Soul" (2004) and "Mi Chamocha" (2005).
Both of Mr. Nelson’s parents are Jewish, and his family attended temple at a black synagogue in Brooklyn, then switched to Sharey Tefilo-Israel, in South Orange, New Jersey, a reform synagogue with a liberal reputation.[2]
Hopewell Baptist
Jewish Gospel singing
Nelson is both a Jewish Gospel singer in the tradition of Mahalia Jackson, and a full-time Hebrew teacher in the Hebrew school at Sharey Tefilo-Israel, a Reform synagogue in South Orange, NJ, when he is not on the road.[3] He also serves as director of music at Hopewell Baptist Church in Newark, NJ, which is housed in the building of a former synagogue (the former B’nai Jeshurun).[4]
Nelson sang before Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson in 2001, and performed for an audience in Jerusalem that included then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.[5]
Film
A film was made about Nelson entitled Keep on Walking: Joshua Nelson: The Jewish Gospel Singer (2000). It was voted Best Documentary in the Northampton Film Festival, and won the Best Film Award (the Paul Robeson Award) at the Newark Black Film Festival.
The film aired on PBS and affiliate networks nationally in 2003 and 2004. Internationally it aired on the national networks of Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Israel, and Italy in 2003 and 2004.
In 2013, Nelson performed and was interviewed in part four of the BBC documentary The Story of the Jews. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two in September 2013, and in the United States on PBS in March and April 2014.[6]
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch, is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world. Unlike most Haredi groups, which are self-segregating, Chabad operates mainly in the wider world and caters to secularized Jews.
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For the purposes of this article, “contemporary” refers to the period from 1967 to the present day, “Jewish” refers to the various streams and traits of Judaism practiced. Many Orthodox Jews use the term “religious” to refer to a strict adherence to Jewish law. For the purposes of this article, “religious” refers to the content and context of the music itself: liturgical or implicit references to the divine.
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