Alef: The NEXT Conversation
Weekly Pita 8/19/2011
Full Pita this week, what a newsy one.
1. Robby Gringras made a list for The Arty Semite of songs to go with the tent protests in Israel. His top 5 are Lo Frayerim by HaDag Nachash, Millions by Etti Ankri, Everyone’s Talking About Peace by Muki, Rolled Up in a Newspaper by Teapacks, and I Believe by HaDag Nachash.
2. American Jews may struggle with their Jewish identity, but this week the Wall Street Journal shed a little light on the existential questions that the Jewish of Kaifeng, China are facing.
3. This Monday, The Jerusalem Post reported on a different kind of Birthright: Birthright Armenia.
4. And finally, Mazal Tov to Erika Davis! Erika, who once wrote for Alef about being Black, Gay, and converting to Judaism, blogged on Jewcy this week about her conversion ceremony.
Pita photo by VirtualErn, licensed under Creative Commons.
Thank You, JDub
When JDub Records – home to such interesting and innovating Jewish musical projects as Deleon and the Sway Machinery – announced they were shutting down, people were shocked at the sudden closing of what was seen by many as one of the premier venues for for cutting edge Jewish arts. While there is much that can (and has been) said about the significance of JDub’s closing, and what it means for the Jewish community, we at Alef want to use this time to thank JDub for everything they’ve done for Birthright Israel NEXT, for Jewish arts and artists, and for the Jewish world as a whole. Here are a few of our favorite JDub memories:
The Hair Test
By Laura Rosbrow
When I went on my Birthright trip to Israel I expected to have fun like I was on a trip to Cancun, filled with American style debauchery. Well, like a trip to Cancun if Cancun was mixed with intense Jewish religiosity. But much to my surprise, my trip was very meaningful, especially in learning about many Israelis’ desires for peace and a two-state solution. And even more surprisingly, I developed strong feelings for an Israeli soldier named Uri. Even though we grew up across the globe, we shared a love for Radiohead, the film High Fidelity, and pro-Obama/ pro-Peace politics.
I decided to extend my trip to Israel for a week, and stayed with him and his friends in Tel Aviv. The apartment looked like an Eastern European Jewish grandparents’ apartment, with flower patterned corduroy couches, ornate glass dishes, and aged wooden cabinets. It even smelled like onions. I assumed their grandparents furnished the place. Well, the furniture did come from grandparents. But the grandparents weren’t theirs, they died three years ago, and their children leased out the place to Uri’s friends. On their meager military service salaries, they were willing to settle for a furnished place that was still haunted by the smell of onions.
We were sitting down, and they wanted to play music that would put us in the mood to go out. This was the summer of 2010, so I thought maybe they would put on Usher, or Shakira, or some pop Israeli musician that was hot at the time.
Nope. They played the musical Hair! This is about the last thing I anticipated hearing from young Israeli soldiers. They asked me if I liked, “Hair,” and I said I did considering I was from San Francisco and have hippie parents that played it while I was growing up.
Read the rest on Laura’s Blog!
Interested in Israel? Enjoy the rest of Issue # 19: Israel.
Photo by Miss Pupik, licensed under Creative Commons.
Song in Self
By Vanessa Prell
I am deeply fond of the Yiddish Passover songs that are all about repetition. My grandparents refused to speak Yiddish, so I didn’t learn these songs until college; for me they are associated with raucous celebration and friendship rather than some relative droning when you just want to be done already. I love the endless cycling of Chad Gad Ya, the table smacking that accompanies Echad Mi Yodea, and the way both songs increase in tempo and volume until they end in a shout. Perhaps this is why I find it easy to express myself in this format.
I am a young Jew with a deep commitment to my faith and social justice.
I am a young Jew from a non-Jewish mother with a deep commitment to my faith and social justice.
I am a young Jew of color, from a non-Jewish mother, with a deep commitment to my faith and social justice.
I am a young Jew of color who is read as white, from a non-Jewish mother, with a deep commitment to my faith and social justice.
I am a young queer Jew of color, who is read as white, from a non-Jewish mother, with a deep commitment to my faith and social justice.
If you are having trouble following, let me provide you with this . . . transliteration.
I am one of the cadre of 20-somethings who are observant. I am more religious than my parents: wearing my kippah all the time, attending services weekly, keeping a restful Shabbat, (mostly) separating meat and milk, saying the Shema nightly, and serving on the board of my Synagogue. Judaism serves as my touchstone in my busy life and my inspiration for my social justice day job. You have probably seen this narrative in the New York Times or The Forward. Familiar, right?
Now let’s add a layer. I was raised Jewish by my Ashkenazi father and my lapsed Catholic mother. Though I know they had to promise to raise their children Jewish to be married by a reform Rabbi, my parents took their duties seriously. I attended weekly, and then bi-weekly religious school, became a Bat Mitzvah, sang in the Temple choir, and assisted in the religious school. My mother, though she has no Jewish education, lit Shabbos candles in the candle holders I made myself, ate matzo with us on Passover, and presented me with my first Tallis. Though most Jews in the world would not consider either of us Jewish, her devotion to our ritual taught me as much about how to be a Jew as a quarter century of services with my father did. It was my mother who taught me not to be afraid of struggling to find out what Judaism means, and how it is part of me.
But my family is mixed in more than just its faith traditions. I am a Jew of color. My father’s family is from “The Old Country” (i.e. Eastern Europe), arriving in North America in the early 1900s. My mother’s family is Chamorro – native to Guam – with records dating as far back as there was written language on the island (about 450 years). Unlike many Jews of color who were born Jewish, my family of color does not have any Jewish traditions. As far as I know, my brother and I are the only Jewish Chamorros! What does this mean? I struggle with my desire to learn Hebrew and my desire to learn Chamorro. I wonder if I should move to Guam and learn the weaving, food, and the dances of my people. Yet I wonder how I can do this when most of the island food is treyf and Catholicism is central to the community. I am still trying to figure out how to get my two cultures to build on each other instead of competing with one another.
Now take both these cultures and conflicts and put them in a surprising package. I am not who most people think of when someone says “person of color.” My skin color is in the range acceptable to whites, I do not have astonishingly oval eyes, or kinky hair. I am very much my father’s daughter: light-skinned, broad shouldered and squat, with brown hair and hazel eyes. I have my mother’s tiny stature and the Dueñas family behind, but that’s as far as the resemblance goes. Especially now that I buzz my hair and wear mens’ clothes, I’m not the standard representation of Island Girl. My appearance means that most of the world has no idea I’m not white. People assume I’m from a stereotypical Jewish household: the clucking Jewish mother, the academic Jewish father, and doting Yid-ly grandparents. Unless I explicitly say otherwise, the complexity that makes me who I am is invisible. Among other people of color, including Jews of color, there is another kind of invisibility: sometimes my own people don’t recognize me as one of them. I cannot change how I am read, but my appearance frames how I understand my race.
What does all this mean, for me and for Judaism? I cannot say for sure, but I know that it is just part of my journey, and our journey as a people. I hope that in my lifetime I will see Judaism grow to embrace the complexity of all the members of our tribe: Jews of color; queer Jews; Jews with non-Jewish parents; and even young queer Jews of color who are read as white with a non-Jewish mother.
Photo by TheFriendlyFiend, licensed under Creative Commons.
Alef Profiles: Y-Love
By now, most of us aren’t strangers to Jewish hip-hop. Take one look at Yitz Jordan and you might not expect him to be a member of the tribe, but this convert to Orthodox Judaism is making his mark by tapping into his adopted culture and putting an interesting twist on a musical tradition. Not on your radar yet? Take a look at an interview with Y-Love (Yitz Jordan’s stage name) to learn about how this Jew-by-choice-of-color found his way into the American Jewish community to become one of the many voices representing the diversity of the Jewish people.
You can find Y-Love now in Punk Jews, the documentary series about individuals who express their Jewish culture in some pretty unconventional ways.
Punk Jews from Jesse Zook Mann on Vimeo.
“I think ‘Punk Jews’ is a facet of perhaps the most significant movement in Judaism in the past 100 years, that is, a generation of Jews disillusioned with the Judaism they see in their communities but determined to maintain a connection to the Jewish nation, tradition, and Judaism. ”Punk Jews” is a documentary about a movement which is seeking to rebrand G-d and Judaism in the eyes of the future generations of Jews, a movement which I’m very happy to be a part of. I hope that this generation sees the end of disillusioned people “leaving Judaism” and the beginning of people redefining and maintaining their own connections to it.” – Yitz Jordan aka Y-Love
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