Is it possible to feel fear in the theatre? Yes it is, if Jeremy Dyson’s and Andy Nyman’s evening of terror tales is anything to go by. It takes the form of a lecture delivered by paranormal expert Prof Goodman (Nyman) who relates stories of ghostly encounters experienced by others, and one that happened to him when he was a boy and called by his schoolmates “Jewy Goodman”. Despite the jibe, it was not he who was the victim there. Take a cushion, and I don’t mean to sit on.

First Matisyahu fused Orthodox Judaism and black music with his kosher version or roots reggae; now an observant hip hop artist is causing a stir on the rap scene. At first glance, Eprhyme - aka Eden Pearlstein - seems an unlikely hip hopper. He comes not from the 'hood but from a middle-class home in Washington state. But he started to listen to hip hop as a child and by the age of 14 (he is now 30) he was rhyming and freestyling. The religion part came later, he says, speaking ahead of his concert at Sandys Row Synagogue in London next week.

When the Beaux Arts Trio announced last year that it was disbanding, music-lovers the world over felt that it was the end of an era. Since 1955, without pause, the Trio had been the life and soul of the chamber music world, playing its way into listeners' hearts with irrepressible vigour and making more than 50 recordings. But only one of its three members remained constant over its entire lifespan - the pianist Menahem Pressler.

Moishe’s Bagel may play klezmer but they are not your typical barmitzvah band. Although all the musicians enjoy performing Eastern European music, their backgrounds are eclectic.

“The fiddle player is a violinist with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the percussionist is a student of tabla and Indian percussion, and the bass player is a jazz musician from Brazil,” says pianist Phil Alexander, the only member with a background in Jewish music.

Many people feel they have a vocation for their jobs but few in showbusiness have actually experienced a calling. But this happened to Daniel Cainer, who had what he describes as “a vision” which compelled him to perform.

Cainer, who for the past two years has been touring with his successful show Jewish Chronicles, says the original idea of writing and singing Jewish-inspired songs came to him in a rather unexpected way.

Vampire Weekend, the four-piece from New York, have been described as “the whitest band on the planet”.

This not entirely flattering label was pinned on them in 2008 after the release of their million-selling self-titled debut album of world music, which sounded like a bunch of young punks playing Paul Simon’s Graceland. Accusations of cultural imperialism were levelled at them for their appropriation of African music idioms.

When Mark Glanville began to put together A Yiddish Winterreise, he had little thought that such a personal project would carry him quite so far. His programme of Yiddish songs, designed to mirror the emotional journey of Schubert’s Winterreise, has now been released on CD by Naxos, and this month Glanville and his right-hand man and accompanist, the Jewish music expert Alexander Knapp, are performing it at the Southbank Centre. But above all, Glanville’s Winterreise has taken him to the heart of his own identity.

Even if the name does not ring any bells, chances are you will be familiar with the work of OK Go. The Chicago rockers’ video for their song Here It Goes Again, featuring the band performing an intricately choreographed dance routine on treadmills, has been viewed almost 50 million times on YouTube, earned the band a Grammy for best music video and was even parodied on The Simpsons.

The lead singer in that video, thanks to his ability to dance and lip-sync simultaneously, was bass player and native of Kalamazoo, Michigan, Tim Nordwind.

A woman stands with a fat sack of bagels before her, selling her wares on an East End Street in the monochrome days of the early 20th century. Little did she know that a century later her image would be called upon for the cover of a new CD of klezmer instrumentals and rediscovered Yiddish song, Whitechapel Mayn Vaytshepl (Whitechapel My Whitechapel).