Miri Ben-Ari (; born December 4, 1978) is an American–Israeli musician, producer, and humanitarian, known as "the hip-hop violinist". Life and career Ben-Ari was born in Tel Aviv District, Israel. She grew up playing classical music; she started training at age 5 and at age 12, she was presented with a violin by Isaac Stern. During her mandatory military service, she served playing for the Israel Defense Forces Orchestra. During her stint in the Israeli military, she heard an album by Charlie Parker and immediately fell in love with jazz; she later said "My soul was sold." Following her service, she moved from Israel to New York in hopes of using her classical training on stage and attended the Jazz department at The New School, but was expelled after two semesters due to poor attendance caused by Ben-Ari playing gigs to pay the rent. She released her first solo CD Sahara in 1999. Her persistence earned her an appearance on BET's 106 & Park; the viewer response netted her a return visit a few weeks later. Her performances caught the eye of Jay-Z, who invited her to play as one of the headliners of New York radio station Hot 97's annual Summer Jam concert in 2001, where she netted a standing ovation. Around the same time, a mutual friend introduced Ben-Ari to Wyclef Jean, who invited her to perform with him at his Carnegie Hall show, the first by a hip-hop artist at the venue. In 2003, she released her second CD Temple of Beautiful, and followed that up with a live CD the following year entitled Live at the Blue Note. She won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song in 2005 as one of the co-writers of Kanye West's "Jesus Walks". In 2005, she released her fourth CD and first to focus on hip-hop style, entitled The Hip-Hop Violinist. As part of the promotion for it, she was part of Reebok's "I Am What I Am" global advertising campaign; Reebok was also part of the video for the first single from the CD, "We Gonna Win". In 2006, she co-founded Gedenk (Yiddish for "remember"), an organization dedicated to promoting education about the Holocaust in the United States. In 2007 she received the International Jewish Woman To Watch of 2007 Award and in 2008 she received the "2008 Israel Film Festival Visionary Award," "The Jewish Federation" award and "the