Is Leonard Cohen Jewish?

Leonard Cohen was Jewish. The late songwriter was most famous for writing and performing Hallelujah.

Leonard Cohen was born September 21, 1934 and died November 7, 2016. He was a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships.

Cohen was born on September 21, 1934 in Westmount, Quebec, an English-speaking area of Montreal, into a middle-class Jewish family. His mother, Marsha (Masha) Klonitsky, was the daughter of a Talmudic writer, Rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline, of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry.

His paternal grandfather, whose family had emigrated from Poland, was Lyon Cohen, founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His father, Nathan Cohen, who owned a substantial clothing store, died when Cohen was nine years old.

The family observed Orthodox Judaism, and were members of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim; Cohen retained connections to it all his life. On the topic of being a Kohen, Cohen has said that "I had a very Messianic childhood." He told Richard Goldstein in 1967, "I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest."

Cohen attended Roslyn Elementary School and Herzliah High School, where his literary mentor Irving Layton was a teacher, and, from 1948, Westmount High School, where he was involved with the student council and studied music and poetry.

Cohen was described as a Sabbath-observant Jew in an article in The New York Times. Cohen was involved with Buddhism beginning in the 1970s and was ordained a Buddhist monk in 1996; he continued to consider himself Jewish: "I'm not looking for a new religion. I'm quite happy with the old one, with Judaism."

Leonard Cohen was inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, Cohen received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.

Cohen died on November 7, 2016 at the age of 82 at his home in Los Angeles; cancer was a contributing cause. His death was announced on November 10. His funeral was held on November 10, 2016 in Montreal, at a cemetery on Mount Royal, his congregation Shaar Hashomayim confirmed. As was his wish, Cohen was laid to rest with a Jewish rite in a family plot.

Is David Bowie Jewish?

David Bowie was not Jewish. The singer and songwriter was born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947 in Brixton, south London. His mother, Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns), from Kent, worked as a waitress, while his father, Haywood Stenton "John" Jones, from Yorkshire, was a promotions officer for the children's charity Barnardo's. The family lived near the border of the south London areas of Brixton and Stockwell.

Regarding David Bowie's religion, he said, in 2005, "Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always." He added that he was bothered by being "not quite an atheist".

Bowie showed an interest in Buddhism that began in 1967. He frequently studied in London under the Tibetan Lama Chime Rinpoche before becoming a solo artist. During a 2001 interview, Bowie claimed that "after a few months of study, he told me, 'You don't want to be Buddhist ... You should follow music.'"Bowie later wrote the song "Silly Boy Blue" in tribute to Rinpoche on his 1967 album David Bowie. In the 1960s he also studied with the crazy wisdom tulku Chögyam Trungpa.

While David Bowie was not Jewish, he did take classes in the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. David Bowie died on January 10, 2016 from a months long battle with cancer. He was married to the supermodel Iman and the couple has one daughter, Lexi.

Is Peaches Geldof Jewish?

Was Peaches Geldof Jewish? It's debatable. Peaches Geldof died April 6, 2014 from unknown causes. Peaches Geldof had a Jewish grandmother and was married to Tom Cohen, who was Jewish. Peaches' father is Bob Geldof, the founder of Live Aid. He is technically a quarter Jewish.

When asked if he was proud of his Jewish ancestry, Geldof said: "I could not give a fucking shit... I was a quarter Catholic, a quarter Protestant, a quarter Jewish and a quarter nothing — the nothing won."

Peaches was the second daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates. Their first was Fifi Trixibelle, and Peaches has a half-sister, named Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, her mother’s daughter with late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence.

In January 2012, before their wedding, Cohen, whose own parents met on an Israeli kibbutz, told the Daily Mail that “Peaches is Jewish – her grandmother is Jewish – she only discovered it last year.

“It makes a lot of sense to me,” he added. “She seems to me like a Jewish woman, the way she thinks and behaves. The first present I ever bought her was a Star of David from an antiques shop in Covent Garden. She wears and really loves it. I don’t know yet whether we’ll be having a traditional Jewish wedding but my parents did and I am really proud of them for it.”

Is Pete Seeger Jewish?

Pete Seeger was not Jewish. On January 27, 2014 Pete Seeger, died in New York City at 94.

Pete Seger, the American folk singer, was the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" (with Joe Hickerson), "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" (composed with Lee Hays of the Weavers), and "Turn, Turn, Turn!", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world.

Seeger was born at the French Hospital, Midtown Manhattan. His Yankee-Protestant family, which Seeger called "enormously Christian, in the Puritan, Calvinist New England tradition", traced its genealogy back over 200 years. A paternal ancestor, Karl Ludwig Seeger, a physician from Württemberg, Germany, had emigrated to America during the American Revolution and married into an old New England family in the 1780s. Pete's father, the Harvard-trained composer and musicologist Charles Louis Seeger, Jr., established the first musicology curriculum in the U.S. at the University of California in 1913, helped found the American Musicological Society, and was a key founder of the academic discipline of ethnomusicology. Pete's mother, Constance de Clyver Edson, raised in Tunisia and trained at the Paris Conservatory of Music, was a concert violinist and later a teacher at the Juilliard School.

Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement.

Pete Seeger first visited Israel in 1964 and spent time on an Israeli kibbutz -- several in fact. Seeger performed Israeli folk tunes with the Weavers in the 1950s as part of the larger folk revival he was helping to champion. And just two years ago, he recorded a video for the Jewish retreat center Isabella Freedman that recalls the three questions posed by the Jewish sage Hillel.

In 2011, after a report that Seeger supported a boycott of Israel, he acknowledged to JTA.org that he “probably said” he supported such a measure, but that his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were evolving. 

Is Lou Reed Jewish?

Was Lou Reed Jewish? Yes, Lou Reed was Jewish. Born Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed on March 2, 1942, Lou Reed was an American rock musician and songwriter. He died on  October 27, 2013.

According to Wikipedia, after being guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Velvet Underground, his solo career spanned several decades. The Velvet Underground were a commercial failure in the late 1960s, but the group has gained a considerable cult following in the years since its demise and has gone on to become one of the most widely cited and influential bands of the era.

Lou Reed was born at Beth El Hospital (now Brookdale) in Brooklyn and grew up in Freeport, Long Island. Contrary to some sources, his birth name was Lewis Allan Reed, not Louis Firbanks, a name that was coined as a joke by Lester Bangs in Creem magazine. Lou Reed was the son of Toby (née Futterman) and Sidney Joseph Reed, who was an accountant. Both of his parents were Jewish.

Is Adam Yauch Jewish?

Adam Yauch was Jewish. One-third of the rap group The Beastie Boys, Adam Nathaniel Yauch was born to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. Adam Yauch died on Friday, May 4, 2012.

Yauch was a practicing Buddhist and a vegan. His wife is Dechen Wangdu. The couple has a daughter, Tenzin Losel Yauch. He recently lived in New York City. Yauch was treated for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node and has underwent surgery and radiation therapy.

Together with fellow Beasties bandmates Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond, Yauch was inducted into the Music Hall of Fame in 2012 although for dire health reasons Yauch was not able to attend. Horovitz and Diamond, who are also both Jewish, have vowed not to perform live until Yauch is healthy again. He is suffering from throat cancer.

Is Levon Helm Jewish?

Levon Helm is not Jewish. The drummer and frequent lead singer of The Band is not a Jew. He was born Mark Lavon Helm in Marvell, Arkansas.

Elton John's song "Levon" refers to Levon Helm and Elton John named his son Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John.

It was announced on April 18, 2012 that Levon Helm is in the final stages of cancer.

Is Robert Sherman Jewish?

Yes Robert Sherman is Jewish. Robert Sherman died on March 5, 2012 at 88. He died in London.

He was one half of a pair of songwriting brothers who wrote "Mary Poppins" and the Disney theme song, “It’s a Small World.” Robert Sherman and his brother Richard Sherman worked for Disney in the 1950s and 1960s. They wrote the theme song for Mary Poppins and also the famous “Supercalifragilisticexpialadocius” from the same movie.

Robert Shermans was born in New York. He was among the first US soldiers at the liberation of Dachau.