Edon Pinchot at the America's Got Talent semi final. Photo: Screenshot.

Yarmalke bearing Jewish teen heartthrob Edon Pinchot, who has been labelled ‘ The Jewish Justin Bieber,’ received a standing ovation last night for his performance in the semi final of America’s Got Talent.

Responding to his rendition of What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction the crowd enthusiastically chanted his name following his impassioned performance.

“That was amazing” gushed judge Howie Mandel, “you are the best singer in this competition.”

Feedback from judge Howard Stern was less enthusiastic, “first of all, I imagine a lot of 13 year old girls are going to be voting for you, you’re a really cute kid.” Criticizing Edon’s song choice, he said, “I was a little bit bored by that song.”

“You’re a great pianist, a great singer” said third judge Sharon Osbourne, “I felt the emotion.”

In the lead-up to his performance on the segment, Edon discusses how his life has changed since appearing on the show. “I’ve gotten a lot of messages from teenage girls” he says, “a few marriage proposals.”

In an exclusive interview with The Jewish Channel, Edon and his father Dov Pinchot discussed their initial concerns and decisions regarding entering the competition as an orthodox Jew.

“We we just thinking that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it with my kippa on, and we felt like it would kind of be an experiment to see if I could…pursue this career…with my kippa on,” said Edon.  “So far everyone has been really accepting of it,” he concluded.

“Our initial concerns were logistics and whether it could work, because obviously he doesn’t sing on the Sabbath,” said Edon’s dad. “I assumed that would be a huge issue for the show, and we actually sat down with them and went through the schedule initially, and it actually turned out that it wasn’t.”

Videos of Edon’s performance and his Jewish Channel interview are posted below. In the Jewish Channel video, the segment on Edon begins at 2:40.