Leonard Cohen – A Hallelujah for the Pop Icon

Hardly any songwriter has shaped pop music as Leonard Cohen did – and hardly any brought so much of the synagogue into it. “Who by Fire” sets a Yom Kippur prayer to music; “Hallelujah” became one of the most covered songs in the history of pop. He recorded his last album with the cantor and the choir of his Montreal synagogue, two weeks before his death.

On the tenth anniversary of his death, the music writer Norman Lebrecht (“Slipped Disc”) talks with Jascha Nemtsov, holder of the first chair in Jewish music history in Europe, about what is Jewish in pop. Paul Brody accompanies them on the trumpet, inspired by Cohen – he has played in that same synagogue himself.