Neil Diamond.

Wednesday is Tishrei 10, 5783, which was Yom Kippur.

I’m not Jewish. I’m not anything, really, as I tend to not really be a joiner and most groups would rather not associate themselves with me. Thus, I’m not going to make myself look foolish and probably offend people by trying to explain what Yom Kippur is. I do know it’s one of the Jewish high holidays and is the day of atonement, and even that may be either wrong or an oversimplification.

Fortunately this is not a theology column, so I can just tell you to look it up yourselves. It is, however, a music column, and I do know a lot about that. So please enjoy the these five Jewish musicians in honor of the holiday.

Simon & Garfunkel — “The Boxer”

This one’s a twofer, as both Simon and Garfunkel are Jewish. Both grew up in New York City and are of Hungarian and Romanian ancestry, respectively.

They met when they were both in a performance of “Alice in Wonderland” when they were 11 and started singing together at 13. The two performed as Tom & Jerry until they signed with Columbia Records, who presumably didn’t want to get sued, so in 1964 they became Simon & Garfunkel and started releasing classics. It’s hard to overstate how consistently good their music is.

The partnership lasted for nearly 20 years until, by 1970, they couldn’t stand each other and broke up the duo. After that, they reportedly only spoke a couple times per year. Time healed old wounds and they did have a tour together in 1993, but that just reminded them why they broke up and they went back to disliking each other.

That said, they have played a few times since, until Garfunkel’s vocal cord issues made it difficult. That means they’re in better shape than the Gallagher brothers from Oasis, who knew each other for even more of their lives.

The Shangri-Las — “Leader of the Pack”

All four original members of the Shangri-Las were Jewish. They’re two sets of sisters; Mary and Betty Weiss and identical twins Margie and Mary Ann Ganser. You may note that in the album cover above, there are only three women. Betty Weiss quit for a while in 1964 when this one was released, so they became a trio. Of course, she’s on this song so, you know, burn on Betty.

My favorite part of the Shangri-Las is that, originally, they were meant to be edgy bad girls. Like the Runaways of their day. Look at those boots, for example. Edgy! And those sweaters are, for the early ’60s, scandalously tight. That makes the entirety of the late ’60s even more amazing. It was five years between this and Woodstock! That’s a pretty huge culture change in half a decade.

Neil Diamond — “Cracklin’ Rosie”

My favorite Neil Diamond fact is that he wrote a bunch of songs for The Monkees, but I’ve gone over that at length and this is supposed to be about Jewish musicians, so I’ll go with something that amuses me about his religion.

I don’t know how devout Diamond was—whether he was religiously Jewish or culturally or ethnically or which combination of those. But I do know that any of those make it pretty funny to me that he released not one, not two, but three Christmas albums: 1992’s The Christmas Album, 1994’s The Christmas Album, Volume II and 2009’s A Cherry Cherry Christmas.

That said, who can blame him? There’s a reason just about every musician releases a Christmas album at a certain level of popularity. They sell incredibly well and don’t require all that much effort. I’d totally release a Christmas album and I can’t even sing or play any instruments.

KISS — “Detroit Rock City”

This one’s got a pretty big caveat.

On the one hand, half the founding members of KISS are Jewish. Paul Stanley’s family fled the Nazis and Gene Simmons, well, he was born Chaim Witz. Pretty unambiguous, even if their culture and heritage aren’t really parts of their public lives or careers.

On the other hand is the rest of KISS. In his memoir, Stanley accused the other half, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, of racism and antisemitism. That seems strange! If I was antisemitic, I probably wouldn’t join a band where half the members are Jewish, or if the band came first I probably wouldn’t talk about it. Then again, antisemites are, as a rule, incredibly stupid, so I’m probably giving this more thought than they ever did.

Coincidentally, Frehley and Criss both left the band due to “creative differences.” Uh-huh.

Dick Dale — “Hava Nagila”

I’m not 100-percent sure the King of the Surf Guitar was Jewish. Wikipedia doesn’t say anything conclusively, and the rest of the Internet mostly just speculates. So I may be wrong on this one and I’m sure someone will rip me apart in the comments if I am.

That said, man do I love his version of “Hava Nagila.” I love all surf rock, so I’m biased in that regard, but that one specifically just flows. Great song. So I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that if Dale was familiar enough with this Jewish folk song to arrange a version in the style he pioneered, he at the very least had some Jewish ancestry. Right? I’m not crazy here?

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