Jewish Music Last Week Word from: Jake

NYJMH has been covered left and left, and I'll throw in a couple of quick comments too. I only made it out there on Sunday for the Jewzapalooza. David Kelsey bashed Soulfarm's performance that day calling them a wedding band and all such. I know he was trying to be funny, but it came out sounding like a flurry of cheap shots. Even though I myself left the gig 15 minutes into their act I thought they were still ok, and the truth is that it was only after they got on that people really started pulling up to the stage to dance.

Oy Va Voi, who performed right before Soulfarm did not elicit as much dancing, though I was definitely grooving to their excellent reggae-style tune "Gypsy" (the version on their site is not so great - they had a killer female vocalist at the show who doesn't appear on the track). And prior to them, played the band for whom I actually came out to this show altogether, Pharaoh's Daughter. I've written and talked plenty about the band, but one point I'll stress is that despite the style and generally tight song-structure, their jams are more inventive than typical jam-band's. Teitch is a really fine example of it - this song went through many levels of transformation as I've heard it played over the years. Progress is where it's at; all of the derision towards Soulfarm is coming from the fact that they're playing the formulas they used eight years ago.

On that note, check out this downloadable live show of Matisyahu at Webster Hall. I was pleasantly surprised to find a number of new tunes! And this one, Pedal to the Metal is ain't no reggae: it's more like rap or hip-hop, and it's not bad at all.

Ilan Stavans' Challenge Word from: David

Ilan Stavans is a man of letters who has written or edited numerous texts including anthologies of Modern Sephardic Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. An academic whose work is debated in Chicano Studies and 'Commentary' alike, perhaps his best known work is Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language. (Don't confuse it with a movie of the same name starring noted philologist Adam Sandler.) Stavans is also a Mexican of Ashkenazic descent, who feels most comfortable in New York City.

In a recent piece in the 'Forward, he claims 'The absence of well-rounded, ongoing multicultural faces in Jewish depictions of the American scene, and in depictions of the community itself, is indeed disconcerting.' This a question well worth discussing and I humbly offer some thoughts as to why this is the case.

-Works that are iconic on a national level, such as 'Seinfeld' are usually air-brushed free of specific ethnic indentity. Although most of the main actors in 'Seinfeld' were Jewish, technically George was Italian, Elaine had a Czech surname, and I never heard Jerry discuss his mother's Syrian Jewish roots. (Perhaps because S-Y's and Jay-dub's, as Ashkenazim are called in Brooklyn, rarely marry each other.)

-What about the hordes of Ashkenazim who came to New York City after World War II? There is endless material in the Haredi communities, among Russians, Israeli yordim, and Red State Jews who find their way to the Big Apple. The Brighton Beach of Neil Simon now belongs to Gary Shteingart, who did include several Non-Jews in 'The Russian Debutante's Handbook.' It is important to note that writers like I.B Singer may not have paid much attention to American gentiles, but they certainly paid ample attention to the strata of Polish society because they lived among them.

-Is there a parallel construction of New York, say an Irish, Hispanic, or African-American novel that can be cited as a contrast to 'Jewish exclusivity?' Most Jewish writers live and interact with a multicultural world, but retreat to write their books. As they say in hip-hop 'don't hate the playaz, hate the game' ahem, publishers.

-I will make overgeneralize and say that most media today tends to be personal. Have you seen any Jewish-American novels written lately that are not loosely autobiographical? There is less of a collective idenity. There are no stories about the elderly kosher butcher, the anonymous businessman sitting in the next seat at synagogue, let alone other cultural experiences.

-Maybe it's the yarmulke. There are limits, which I am always pushing, in terms what can be shared and experienced. In my four years in Washington Heights, I learned the difference between Juan Pablo Duarte and Rafael Trujillo, watched political parades and street fairs, ate a few tostones and yanquique, heard some bachata and reggaeton, read 'El Especialito' and poem by a local poetess. Yet how would I write a story and create a complex Dominican-American charachter? My experiences as an onlooker are all at the street level rather than the apartment, botanica, and school, and thus smacks of exoticism. After all, why write about someone else if it just becomes a caricature-a lost wax impression showing your perception rather than theirs?

-Perhaps the most important question is how writers outside New York deal these issues. Jessica Sacks of London, Daniella Ross of Los Angeles, are two of the many poets worth noting-check the old journals-or buy a copy.

Katrina Benefit Concert Word from: Mordy

One benefit concert last week featured all the hotshots of the neoJewpop movement. Blue Fringe, Heedoosh, Eden, and Soul Farm. This week at Yeshiva University there is another with the indie bands of the Jewish music movement. Featuring Midnite Remedy and Omek Hadavar. The concert is this Thursday (tomorrow) at 8:00PM in Weissman Hall (Belfer Commons). Suggested donation is $10, and all money goes to victims of the Hurricane Katrina.

I only mention this because it's technically my concert, and I felt I should get a plug in. For more information, email mshinefi@yu.edu.

Sponsored by YSU, YCSA and Stern College.

New Commentator Issue Word from: Mordy

Josh Harrison discusses the dark Magi of Modern Orthodoxy in his article, Are Hermes And the Kabbalah Irrelevent. Daniel Cowen discusses Anti-Semitism as fodder for humor in Commercial Genocide. Mark Hans discusses Jewish Black Metal, Tani Palefski reviews Daniel Zamir, and Eitan Kastner describes the Holocaust Museum in Berlin.

My article starts with, "Rachel is totally the Sylvia Plath of the Bible," and goes downhill from there. It's a review of Chuck Klosterman's new book (I call him sad, Lilit), and a discussion of romanticizing martyrs, in rock music and Judaism. Jewish Worship of the Dead. (It also has my third most favorite picture of Kurt Cobain ever. Yes, that means I have actually rated my favorite pictures of him before.)

Sketchbook: New Orleans Word from: Shlomo

How deep does sorrow take root? how high can prayers fly?

I did this sketch after reading Dena's Poem (thanks to Mordy, who linked to it from the forum). I liked Dena's approach, but was feeling pretty much the opposite at the time, so I guess this image can serve as a counterpoint: We can feel the shock and awe of a heavenly assault, but we can also imagine a heaven in shared mourning, managing its parallel crisis.

Other Film News Word from: Jake

So has anybody gone to see "Everything is Illum"? I had no idea that Eugene Hutz was in the movie. This may tip the scale and and induce me to see it. Eugene spins at the Bulgarian Bar aka Mehanata on Thursday nights, and like a concert of his band, Gogol Bordello, it's all pure unleashed fun. It also happens to be what Alana Newhouse calls "Immigrant Porn" (meaning - salaciously indulgent kitch.) And she's right - but I've never been to any NYC dancing situation as enjoyable.


Anyway, there're other relevant film news to share. Divan is now out on DVD! If you haven't heard about it, def check out the site, trailer, etc. The film is basically a documentary about people who left the ultra-orthodox communities they grew up in, all the trauma and drama of it. The theme is wrapped in a smart, symbolism-filled plot, it's funny and heart-breaking, and features my most favorite Jewish musician ever, Basya Schechter. The film has gone through many versions and reincarnations. I have a lot of reverence for its director, Pearl Gluck, who I first met about six-seven years ago, when she hosted a Jewish poetry slam in CBGB's. You know who else I met at that slam? The illustrious Dan Mobius of Jewschool. Those were the days!

City of Explosions Word from: Alieza

Last week I went to a Mashina Concert at Briechat HaSultan (The Sultan's pool) in Jerusalem. I felt a certain mystical interaction between history and present as I stumbled over the inlayed stone steps that were once the steps into this gigantic man made pool. Yemin Moshe stands above to your left and the Old City to the right. Not surprisingly, all concerts and event at the Sultan's pool must end before 11 not to annoy the deeply ensconced neighborhoods.

We snuck in a bottle of wine to drink. I reminisced with my American friend about the good old days at Tangelwood and Saratoga Springs where they used search your bags to prevent people from sneaking in drinks or glass bottles. Our Israeli companion assured us that they only search for bombs and they couldn't care less about the wine.


Machina is a band whose height was in the 80's and is played obsessively on Israeli radio. Throughout the concert a computer generated background lit up the stage. This might have been the only new thing at the concert: apparently they played their greatest hits album that night, but that was obviously what the audience, who new all the words and all the hand motions, most wanted. The background alternated between sunrises, visions of the world from space, and cascading geometric designs. A couple creative moments caught my eye: a landscape video taken of Jerusalem's sky line, repeating cranes and all, and a silhouette of hesitant man in a purple haze walking, bowing, and tipping his hat.

Also on the visual note, during the concert a display of fire works (unplanned) appeared in a park beyond the stage. And then as part of the finely scripted finale, streamers flew from the stage into the audience and Mashina's own planned fire works exploded low in the sky above. (Better than on Yom HaAtzmaut I was told.) For a city of explosions, I marvel at the number of fireworks displays I hear: three or four a week.

Miscellany Word from: David

Exclusive! You-know-who has entered the rap game. Nu, it was a mistake from a book review in the usually sharp Jewish Chronicle of London. On further reflection, the only Hasid ever to appear in rap video was an anonymous man briefly seen in Jay-Z's '99 Problems.' Producer Rick Rubin makes a cameo appearance and either is channeling the spirit of Flushing Avenue or Z.Z Top.

A final point about N'Awlins. Before Juvenile, Dr. John, even before Louis Armstrong, there was a part-Jewish composer named Louis Moreau Gottschalk who was 'America's first regional and multicultural composer' and precursor to Jazz'. Another local M.O.T is author and poet Roger Kamenetz who is best known for a book called 'The Jew In the Lotus' but I'm partial to him for ripping T.S Eliot in a poem called 'The Lower Case Jew.'

I should also point out that 'Exquisite Corpse', the title of the journal in which Kamenetz's poem was published has nothing to do with the aforementioned Dead Poet or a new film directed by Tim Burton. (Exquisite Corpse is in fact a fun game poets play-where they write a line, their neighbor writes another, then hides previous lines. The results are often deeply profound and hilarious.) Michael Atkison claims that the 'Corpse Bride' "...isn't roughly "based on a Russian folktale" but a knowing thievery from S.Y. Agnon and Sholom Aleichem, who in turn made their careers converting centuries of Jewish mythology into fiction."
Mr. Atkinson has it half right-to be sure, anything Judaic has been banished from this film-perhaps because it would complicate the story. However, the Yiddish writers who really mastered the macabre include S. Anski, author of 'The Dybuk' and collector of folk tales, I.B Singer, and whoever else was featured in 'Yenne Velt' a masterful compilation of Jewish occult stories compiled by Joachim Neugroschel. So fear not, there are plenty of films touching on the Jewish experience being shown in NYC area. The most prominent may be Ushpizin, where a Bratzlav Hasid is visited by gangster friends from his past. 'Medurat HaShevet' or Campfire, Joseph Cedar's film about the founding of a settlement in 1981, is playing in a few theaters. There are less likable Israelis seen in 'Lord of War', Paradise Now, and 'Avenge But One of My Two Eyes. And last but not least is 'Everything is Illuminated.' I'll leave the post about how great it is to the legions of Elijah Wood, Liev Schrieber, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Eugene Hutz fans out there.

Where have all the comments gone...long gone comments...long, long time ago...

Sketchbook: Charles Wright III Word from: Shlomo

Let me try and explain the appeal for me of Wright's focus on landscape. It sets up a focus for our attention, like a canvas, or in terms of psychobiology, all the light information that hits the center of the iris. Yet, its a misdirection, like an illusionist's sleight of hand. He sets up the frame, only to point out that there are things occuring just outside of it. We can't really fully perceive these things, after all we've already commited ourselves to giving our full attention to whats in the frame. Similarly, the light receptors on the periphery of our eyes are noo good for accuracy, but are actually better at percieving the actual occurence of light in general (vs. dark). So on a number of levels, its human nature to have experiences on the periphery/ outside of our ability to rationally dissect. Even when one shifts the frame, or expands it, the problem will remain. But I odnt mean to be pessimistic, recognizing this lack of accuracy, reliquishing out hope for total control and knowledge can be humbling and freeing.

I spoke to Jake about how an optomistic version of Wright's poetry would read, but I think there is also a version 1.1 for how a jewish (maybe misnagdish) version, hence my wordplay with the term "textscape"... Yeah, I know I'm just a Shlocker, I admit it.

Breaking Mima-news! Word from: Jake

The best bit of news of the day: the first two copies of Mimaamakim 2005 have arrived. Chaim says, they're beautiful. I'm sure it's true and I'll see them myself this shabbat. Congrats to all on hard-hard work! We'll celebrate officially on Nov 6th at Cornelia St Cafe, and unofficial rites will be held all over Washington Heights starting next week.

Corrie Feiner who we're proudly publishing in this upcoming issue, is doing a show at Makor on Thursday. It's a poetry perfomance celebrating Rambam - how cool is that?

Lilit and I saw Harold Bloom at NYPL yesterday. He spoke about Walt Whitman. One idea he mentioned was that even though seemingly, Whitman is constantly talking about himself, it's all cosmic global stuff: his personal voice is very elusive. Also, (you should all know!) Whitman's poetry is not homo-erotic. It has a lot more to do with auto-gratification. His proof of this centered mainly on the peculiar usage of the word "twig."

Katrina Word from: Mordy

My guilt over my tapering off in posts is tempered by good deeds. Mostly, I've been arranging a benefit concert for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I feel I can announce it today as I have a tentative date. Thursday, the 22st, from 8:00-10:00. Blue Fringe and Midnite Remedy are booked to play. Now I just need to figure out how to convince apathetic YU students to attend a concert to benefit those suffering in New Orleans. (Random tidbit. When I first got to YU, only two people including me had very liberal listed as their political affiliation. Now there are 7.)


Call me ridiculously behind the times, but Beyond the Pale now has a podcast feed. So you can listen to your favorite radical Jewish politics show whenever you want, delivered right into your iTunes. (And if you've never checked out WBAI, I highly recommend it.)

I know it isn't my job, but no one else is spotlighting interesting poems. So I'd like to point out Dena's amusing, if not blasphemous, account of the destruction of New Orleans in our forums. Check that out here.

New Silver Jews album (Cheer!) New Rolling Stones album (Cheer harder!) New Disturbed album (Uh uh uh!) They respectively got 3 stars, 4 and a half stars, and 2 stars in the newest Rollingstone Magazine. Anyone who can get me David Draiman for an interview gets my undying love.

Rereading Grimms Fairy Tales, I noticed that while the Jews all look bad... everyone really looks bad. It isn't an indictment of Judaism so much as an indictment of humanity. Or at least that's what I tell myself so I don't feel guilty about enjoying it so much. Just like I don't feel that guilty for my lack of posting.

Sketchbook: Charles Wright II Word from: Shlomo

Because I could not stop for death... Word from: David

Respect for the dead and death is an important element in Judaism. It is interesting to note that the Celtic rites of Halloween or Mexico's Dia De Los Muertes, which depict an iconography do not have a sociological parallel in the folk customs of Purim. (Scroll down to see a Trinidadian depiction of a macabre figure at the parade in 2003.) Jewish literature is full of aggadot dealing with demons, evil spirits, and the supernatural, but I challenge readers to name a piece of artwork representing such figures before Marc Chagall or Arthur Syzk.

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Hasidim seem to have absorbed a lust for agitprop more often associated with their hipster neighbors. Most infamous is this poster, but a new candidate for infamy is this sign I spotted on the walls of the Roebling playground last week. Pashkevilim (posters) in Hasidic neighboorhoods calling for adherence to religous law are common and usually ask for modesty laws to be adhered out of respect to local residents and their beliefs. However, this sign seems almost gleeful in it's slogan rhyming and image of smiling skeleton holding suntan lotion. Perhaps the depiction is to make sure that the Hispanic and Polish women who sit on Division Street bridge over the BQE, waiting for a day's work, will not find work as maids if they wear a jeans or a tanktop. One hopes future signs will deal as bluntly and forcefully with metzitzah, obesity, and enforcing housing policy; some of the other health problems plaguing that community.

I have no proof that Hasidim were involved in the making of this sign, since it lacks attribution. But the Department of Parks certainly didn't post it up, and I only saw it in various Hasidic areas. This has been a week that has seen blasphemy-that Katrina was G-d's response to the disengagement from Gaza. This idea, first expressed by a marginal demagogue, then by an assitant rabbi in a New Jersey, has now been echoed by a Rabbi who has spent a lifetime involved with Halacha and Politics at the highest level. Seeing another such sign of insensivity to the world beyond the yeshiva (even if they are exceptions to the rule) is just as repugnant to me.

The words of Michael Burke are relevant (and bring us back to art) here: 'Lacking imagination and courage, artists link themselves to signficant events, not to honor them or unveil their truths, but rather to get attention.' I hope the same is not true for religous leaders and their laymen.

Television and Tragedy Word from: Rahel

I'm feeling uncharacteristically unexcited about the season premiere of The OC tomorrow night, and not only because the show's quality took such a dive in its second season. I'm still in love with Seth Cohen, the hottest neurotic (culturally- if not quite halakhically-) Jewish boy ever to grace my TV screen. But I'm just not in the mood for teen drama right now, especially not one that is picking up in the immediate aftermath of a shooting. I remember in the days after 9/11 my best friend and I, locked down in our East Village apartment, numbed ourselves by watching old episodes of The Gilmore Girls on tape and, in my case, reading and re-reading P.G. Wodehouse books, comforting in their sameness. I haven't found a similarly appropriate anesthetic for the current tragedy. I was reading and loving Richard Russo's Empire Falls when the hurricane hit, and in its depiction of a dying Maine town it was strangely fitting (although I found the ending disappointing). I can't really bear to watch the news anymore, although I've been reading the newspapers obsessively, filling myself with horror and rage that more wasn't done. Anya Kamenetz, writing in the Village Voice, laments New Orleans with the words of Eicha. For me, as a semi-amateur hazzan with a High Holiday gig at my father's synagogue in New Jersey, the words running though my head are those of the U'Netaneh Tokef, especially since I've been learning at the Hadar High Holiday Beit Midrash in an attempt to prepare for the Yamim Noraim with more than my usual frantic listening to nusach-on-tape. In less than 4 weeks I will stand on the bimah and chant, mi yihyeh u'mi yamut, mi va'eish u'mi va'mayim, who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water, and like Rosh Hashanah of 2001, these words take on a new and horrible meaning. The power of the natural world has never seemed more terrifying; human hubris and callous disregard for that power has never wrought such terrible consequences. Ein menahem lah. There is no one to comfort the city. And there is no one -- not even Seth Cohen -- to comfort us as we face the realization of our national blindness to danger and need.

SheAsani K'Rotzono (ft. da phallic lamppost) Word from: Jake

Inspired by Dave's The Writing is On the Wall post, last week I took a few curious photos of Jerusalem graphitti. This one is my favorite. Who painted it - a feminist? chauvinist? secret underground organization a-la Da Vinci Code? I was thoroughly mystified. Moreover, I've seen 2-3 of these around town. Does anyone have an idea? Alieza, is that yours?

In regard to this Mea Shearim photo, aside from the juxtaposition of the narratives, the only thing I could add is that, well, handwriting is quite nice, no? It belongs to a diligent student... who leisurely took his or her time to get these letters out on to the building.

This isn't a graphitti, but definitely, the one word that looks the oddest in a neighborhood like Mea Shearim. You could make all sorts of corny jokes on the subject: "What changes in Mea Shearim? The rate of yen..."


And, I couldn't resist. This one is from Kirovograd, Ukraine. If you enlarge the photo, you can find the building's address: "10 Prospekt Communistichesky". The street name hasn't changed since the days when I attended middle school #34, located right across that alley (prospekt), but the graphitti is spanking new. Who'd expect Hip-Hop to surface in this ghetto?

Carnival In Crown Heights! Word from: David

Yesterday I celebrated Labor Day by visiting Brooklyn for the West Indian American Day Carnival Parade. I took the 3 to Kingston Avenue (pictured) and stood near 770 Eastern Parkway watching the Lubavitcher Hasidim and West Indians interact. What happens when steel drummers and stiltwalkers meet shulchim thinking of sichos? You get a lot of mediocre writing (and movies) using ethnic caricatures, that's what. An essay of mine, hopefully avoiding such typecasting temptations is on the way...and no, it will not mention the 1991 riots or a certain 'Hasidic Reggae Superstar.'

Sketchbook: Charles Wright I Word from: Shlomo

The first of three pages of sketches semi-inspired by the poetry of Charles Wright:

The Shiur as Theater Word from: Alieza

Today I began the intensive Talmud program at Matan, a Midrasha in Jerusalem.

During the intro shiur, I was thinking about the structure of a traditional Talmud classes. The shiur is much like a story, beginning with a set up of the problem, followed by the revelation of further details, and finally a surprise ending. Shiurim save the point for the end, unlike essays (at least the way we are often traditionally taught to write) in which some form of the thesis appears in the introduction to the essay.

Working as a Writing Fellow at Barnard, I learned that Chinese immigrants often burry their thesis because they feel it is rude or presumptuous to thrust your thesis on the reader, instead they gradually weave to the point in the end.

But the shiur structure is not motivated by modesty or the feeling that the respected audience is not to be put upon; rather, there is a sort of pageantry in the revelation of the Chap of a shiur. For example, the person giving shiur often builds up the wrong opinion, supports it, and develops it so that their ability to topple the idea will seem even more miraculous, as a denouement, the powerful aha! Our teachers are actors, magicians who delight in the stunned faces of their audience.

But it doesn't always work. The women in today's class seemed wise to the wiles of the teacher. They stopped him at every step toppling the straw-man before he had a chance to blow in the wind for an instant. I was disappointed that the teacher didn't fully relate to their challenges; he needed to play along with the script that he had prewritten- continue to support the opinion that was clearly to fall until the moment of simulated demise.

This is not the fault of the teacher. Of course all these contradictory texts exist simultaneously and if the students happen to know the cannon, how can you prevent them from jumping to the conclusion. But the wind was taken out of his climax. Now I wonder what would have happened if he had related to their comments. Would the shiur have continued? Could the material itself be interesting sans the pageantry of revelation? If we had eaten dessert first would he have lost our attention for all the other sources?