page_title: Steve Lieberman
section_title: The Jethro Tull / Gangsta Rabbi Connection
hierarchical_section_title: Steve Lieberman / Life and career / The Jethro Tull / Gangsta Rabbi Connection
caption_attribution_description: English: Steve Lieberman plays flute solo with one hand at punk show 2010
context_page_description: Steve Lieberman, also known as the Gangsta Rabbi and The King of Jewish Punk,
  is an American punk rock /metal singer, songwriter, multi-instrumental musician, composer, arranger, producer and former village comptroller residing in Freeport, New York. He is a Hebrew Nazarite, the founder of The Bad'lanim, a minority sect of Judaism and a vegetarian since 1995.
  Lieberman is often considered an outsider musician, described as "walking the line between insanity and genius [sic]". This has been partially attributed to his lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder, which first struck him in 1970 at the age of 11, as well as his decade-long fight with progressive leukemia in his later years, which ultimately was deemed terminal and has become a recurring theme in his lyrics.
  After being admitted into home hospice care in early 2018, Lieberman, during his last years of recording had produced his most prolific and sometimes most experimental music of his career, as he was aware time was running out on him.
context_section_description: Being a long-haired male rock flutist, playing in a similar style to Ian Anderson,
  the connection between Steve Lieberman and British rock band Jethro Tull was established as soon as the 2002 release of Bad'lania Rising. It has songs entitled "Ian Anderson" (1999), "Punk Rock Jethro Tull Song" (2001), "Jethro Tull FantasyKamp" (2004) and "I'm Jethro Tull" (2008), with the A.M.G. placing Jethro Tull as a similar artist on the page of Steve Lieberman the Gangsta Rabbi.
  This connection brought reaction to both sides of the Jethro Tull community, those who hate Lieberman and those who love him.
  The former is evident on one Jethro Tull covers site. A critic says this of Lieberman's covers of Tull's "War Child", "Up To Me" and "One Brown Mouse": "I have no idea what drives Lieberman to release this unapproachable stuff and why he chose Jethro Tull as a target."
  On a site called the Jethro Tull Board which is actually endorsed by Ian Anderson, there is a thread called "Gangsta Rabbinian" saying "I love your innovative and original Jethro Tull-related songs, and your non-Tull songs are great too" and posted the lyrics to two of Lieberman's lyrics which express hope to find a peaceful end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, "Unholy War In The Holy Land" (2004) and "For The Children of the Gaza" (2009).
caption: Steve Lieberman plays one-handed flute solo at a punk rock show 24 April 2010
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