Amy Winehouse: A Jewish Soul Singing the Blues

Camden’s Broken Angel

On July 23, 2011, a twenty-seven-year-old woman was found dead in her bed in Camden, North London. The coroner would rule accidental alcohol poisoning. The world would mourn a voice — rough, tender, soaring, breaking — that had no peer. But in the Jewish community of North London, they mourned something more personal: one of their own.

Amy Jade Winehouse was not just a pop star. She was a Jewish girl from Southgate who sang with the depth of Billie Holiday and the pain of someone who had seen too much too young. Her story is about talent and tragedy, but it is also about roots — the Jewish roots that she never forgot, even as fame and addiction pulled her apart.

North London Jewish Girl

Amy was born on September 14, 1983, in Southgate, North London, to Mitchell and Janis Winehouse. Both sides of the family were Jewish. The Winehouses were East End Jews — descendants of Russian and Polish immigrants who had built lives in London’s Jewish quarters. Mitch’s family included jazz musicians; Amy’s grandmother Cynthia was a singer who had dated the jazz saxophonist Ronnie Scott.

Music was everywhere. Mitch, a taxi driver and sometime window salesman, sang Frank Sinatra songs around the house. Janis, a pharmacist, played Carole King and James Taylor. Amy absorbed it all — jazz, soul, Motown, girl groups — and began singing almost before she could talk.

She attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School on a scholarship, but was expelled at fourteen for “not applying herself” and piercing her nose. She was already writing songs, already performing, already marking herself as different. She wore a Star of David necklace — proudly, visibly, always.

Frank and Back to Black

Amy’s debut album, Frank (2003), released when she was twenty, was a revelation. Named partly after Frank Sinatra and partly as a statement of intent (she would be frank, honest, unvarnished), it blended jazz, soul, and hip-hop with lyrics of startling emotional intelligence. The album was nominated for the Mercury Prize and went platinum in the UK.

But Back to Black (2006) was the earthquake. The album — produced by Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi — drew on 1960s girl-group pop, Motown, and classic soul to create something utterly contemporary. “Rehab,” the lead single, turned her struggles with addiction into a defiant anthem. “Love Is a Losing Game” was one of the most heartbreaking songs ever recorded. “Back to Black” was a masterpiece of romantic devastation.

The album sold over sixteen million copies worldwide and won five Grammy Awards, tying the record for a female artist. Winehouse was twenty-three years old.

The Unraveling

Fame and addiction proved a lethal combination. Winehouse’s relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil was chaotic and destructive. Her substance abuse — alcohol, cocaine, heroin, crack — became public and increasingly severe. Paparazzi stalked her through Camden’s streets. Tabloids published photographs of her emaciated frame. The public watched, fascinated and horrified, as a generational talent destroyed herself in slow motion.

She continued to perform, sometimes brilliantly, sometimes disastrously. A 2008 concert at the Nelson Mandela birthday tribute in London showed she could still summon the voice. A 2011 concert in Belgrade, where she was too intoxicated to perform, showed that the end was near.

Jewish Identity

Throughout her struggles, Winehouse maintained a connection to her Jewish identity. She wore her Star of David necklace constantly. She was close to her family, especially her grandmother Cynthia and her father Mitch. She celebrated Jewish holidays, ate Jewish food, and identified publicly as Jewish.

After her death, she was buried at Edgwarebury Lane Cemetery in North London, in a Jewish funeral service. Her family sat shiva. The Jewish community of North London mourned her as one of their own — a girl who had grown up in their synagogues, attended their schools, and carried their traditions onto the world stage.

Legacy

Amy Winehouse died at twenty-seven — joining the “27 Club” alongside Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain. But her legacy transcends that morbid statistic. She released only two studio albums, but they changed popular music. She proved that a young Jewish woman from North London could sing with the authority of the great jazz and soul artists, could write with devastating honesty, and could move millions of people with nothing but her voice and her truth.

The Amy Winehouse Foundation, established by her family after her death, supports young people struggling with addiction and substance abuse. It is an act of chesed — loving-kindness — in her name. As her father Mitch has said: “She’s not here, but her music is. And that’s everything.”