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Yoni Goldstein: Society should separate complicated artists' lives from their art

Carlebach's music can still be loved despite his inexcusable transgressions, as can Roger Waters'

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Later this month, a film about the life and times of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach will debut at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival titled, “The Darkest Light.” The film promises to examine “the towering and deeply complicated shadow cast” by the man known as “The Singing Rabbi.” Carlebach’s catalogue of Hassidic songs has enraptured Jews for several generations, and his oeuvre continues to heavily impact Jewish music and musicians in Israel and the diaspora more than 30 years after his passing in 1994. Whether you know it or not, you have probably heard his work at a synagogue or a Jewish lifecycle event, from birth, to marriage, to death. It’s hard not to be moved by Carlebach’s mystical voice, his understated guitar work and his message of hope and faith.

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But there was another side to Carlebach, one that was whispered about during his lifetime and that has been increasingly amplified since his passing. As the creators behind “The Darkest Light” describe it, their film “traces a painful reckoning that emerged after numerous women publicly accused Carlebach of sexual abuse” forcing his family and acolytes “to........

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