Jewish Music - BOJAC

It's an odd looking acronym at first from it's initials, but BOJAC (short for The Best of Jewish A Cappella), is probably one of coolest experiences I've had listening to Jewish music. This was the standalone unique pick in our class that I absolutely had to get and talk about for many reasons. Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of traveling to New York with Indiana's premiere Jewish A Capella group, Hooshir (notice the clever Hebrew wordplay...get it?), for which I am a proud member of, and participated in the Jewish Collegiate Festival of the Performing Arts (appropriately named, JCFPA) at The Jewish Theological Seimnary. It was a fantastic experience observing and performing in front of so many people that not only were apart of very talented Jewish A Capella groups across the country, but shared the same passion for Jewish music and performing arts as well.

I have a certain knack for A Cappella muisc in general because it's so incredible to hear what the voice, or in this case many voices from across each range wokring together to create something so extraordinary out of nothing with no help from any other instrumental, except from each other group members voices. BOJAC digs deep to find the best arrangements and performances of Jewish A Capella groups from all over the country.

For starters, Best of Jewish A Cappella is, as it states in the title, Jewish music in A Capella. No other instrument is there to help out with except for the groups voices for melody, harmony, and vocal percussion. BOJAC features many many premier collegiate and professional Jewish A Capella from around the country covering certain songs of Israeli Pop songs, or doing their own original arrangements of songs of Jewish prayer.

The range of styles that BOJAC connects to in terms of Judaism is actually wider than one thinks, due to it's wide range of Jewish music. Each group fires up every style of Jewish music, from religious melodies of Jewish prayer (Six13's Yigdal and Beat'Achon's doo-wop version of Lecha Dodi) to Israeli pop (Tufts University's Shir Appeal's poppy cover of Ani Ohev Otach), in English (Sam Glazer's Shabbas and Sean Altman and Kol Zimra's We Stand As One) , Hebrew (Rutgers' Kol Halayla's rendition of Yaron Hadad's Zodiac)and a bissel of Yiddish (Binghamton's Kaskeset beautifully original parody of Queen in Bohemishe Rapsody, singing about kashered food rather than the journey of a poor boy).

Each Jewish A Cappella group brings something to the table for this and their experience with their own media and performances show it. Many of these groups (such as Kaskeset, The Shabbatones, Shir Appeal, Pizmon, and Six13, just to name a few) have very well structured websites and mention their long history of discography (with sound clips!) and great past performances, along with their own assorted media of past performances from YouTube. The album cover is very appealing to the listener as it shows which group performes which song, as well as let the listener know which university or city each group comes from, as it's always interesting to know that information. In terms of it's corporate structure, a lot of these groups are starting to become, if not already are pretty mainstream on their respective campuses. The collegiate and professional acapella groups are framed under that name, and the music reaches out to basically any Jewish music lover, let alone an A Cappella fan, thanks to their name on campus or in the world.

Each group uses their own style of Jewish A Capella to help promote Judaism through their performances of their arrangements of songs. And every performance is usually very gratifying. I know this through personal experience with Hooshir. We have put some amazing work into the pieces that we've rehearsed for peformances, and each keeps topping the next one.


And for those of you wondering about our performance at JCFPA, I can't even begin tell you how exhilarating it was to be up there in front of friends, family and lots of others who appreciated Jewish A Cappella at JTS. Many people noted that we were one of the best performances in the entire festival. It made the entire trip, regardless of how crazy it was to make a giant step forward onto the map of Jewish A Cappella, worth all the while.


I leave this post with a video of one of our songs performed at JCFPA. This is a cover of Sarit Hadad's K'shehalev Bocheh (A Crying Heart). Apologies in advance for the minor shakey camera.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8RQuYWDfD8


Enjoy!

Jewish Magazines: Jewish Mayhem

I'll be honest, I chose to look at Jewish Mayhem Magazine because of the Mature Content Warning of being 18 years or older, as mature content often intrigues me to it's exploration. From the get-go, Jewish Mayhem Magazine website is a visual eye-opener from it's header of a collage of wads of cash, shaved mohawks, tatoos in Hebrew, up-close shots of scantily clad womens' breasts and bikini bottoms, and finally a Jewish Star to stick to it's roots of a mature Jewish Magazine. The website's image becomes a lot more disturbing as you scroll down the page to see a cover of the magazine, with a picture of a slit wrist holding a a Jewish Star of David. From all this, it's easy to see that this isn't your typical Jewish Magazine.

Jewish Mayhem's editor Josh Andrews describes Jewish Mayhem as a dedication to the coolest, craziest and most comical aspects of Jewish, Israeli, Hebrew, and Biblical culture, from around the globe, presented in a fresh and sexy, proud to be a Jew, balls to the wall style. With many covers featureing beatiful women who are wearing nothing, but bikinis, or the Israeli flag wrapped around their waists, or just nothing at all. Other covers featuring shots of certain prominant artists in the music industry that have Jewish roots such as rapper Remedy Ross, or the renowned rappers The Beastie Boys. One more thing to notice is that a subscription to Jewish Mayhem is very exclusive to paid members. The Magazine is only featured online to mature audiences do it's content of it's interviews with many well known people within the adult entertainment industry (read: Ron Jeremy, Kinky Friedman, Maxine Extreme), as well as underground hip hop artists such as NECRO and Rivera Regime. Andrews' explanation of Jewish Mayhem is a combination of Ebony Magazine, Maxim and National Lampoon, but about Jews. I'd also like to think that the covers pull out a good layout that is akin to Rolling Stone and has great cover shots and headlines that run down the left and right sides. Despite the content, however mature it may be, the designs are in fact very stylish and appealing.

If you ask me, I think it's a little much to put out there in the Jewish world today with all of it's content. However, if you take another look at it, this mature magazine is a necesisity in Jewish society. It may not be the most celebrated, but it is certaily needed. This is because it reaches out to the very secular more aspect of as well as a much more comical and fast-paced look at Judaism as a whole.

Jewish Culture: Limmud NY

In general, Jewish Culture is a very big thing to get involved in. One of the sites that I found appealing in Jewish Culture is Limmud NY. Limmud NY is "a conference and a festival that has a gathering of hundreds of Jews from all walks of life, all Jewish backgrounds, all lifestyles, and all ages. Limmud is four days of lectures, workshops, text-study sessions, discussions, exhibits, performances and much more—all planned by a community of volunteers." Limmud is Hebrew for "learning" which is exactly what the conference/festival is about. From the rest of it's explanation, Limmud NY is a fantastic opportunity to learn and discover connections to Judaism through ideas and tradition. The five day conference has about 8-12 simultaneous sessions per day that span from morning until late night on topics ranging from Talmud to psychology, from film to Bible, from drama to Israeli politics.

I thought limmudny.org was a great site to look to because of it's opportunities to meet tons new people in the Jewish community, as well as learn with them. It's a wonderful network-connecting tool for the Jewish community because it brings together a large group of Jews from Jewish communities around the world, from any and all denominations and all reaches of Jewish culture.

Jewish Philanthropy: Stepping Up in Hard Times

Jewish Philanthropy, especially at times like this of financial crisis is always plays an important part of any Jewish entity, as it helps raise money for it's own cause or other causes related to it (especially for Tzedakah-acts of loving kindness). All of the websites that I have visited have their respective blogs on the current economic situation of the Jewish communities around the world. As of now, they all have one major thing in common: Bernie Madoff, the man perpetrated the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of finance, sabotaging many Jewish foundations that are considered to be the backbone of the Jewish world. There are major organizations that we as college students have been or are apart of (such as Hillel, or Birthwright Israel trips) that have lost so much money because of this fraud scheme, and the damage to their finances is almost crippling

The site that I found most intriguing to me was the blog of The New Jew, which is an individual Jewish Philanthropy blog. The first, or most recent thing that this person talks about in the blog are the questions that have often been asked at the dinner table concerning the Madoff scheme, the issues of the Ponzi scam as well as the future of Birthwright are brought up, but ultimately the blogger asks questions, essentially opening up a forum for the comment pages. This is great way to help become more interactive with Jewish Philanthropy, because the comments are completely open to public opinion and can hopefully garner more attention to the issue of the economic crisis of the Jewish community.

Chabad

I've always had an awkward feelings toward Chabad until recently since I didn't unsterdant much of their traditons. Some I still don't today, and am looking forward to learning more about the Halakha that Chabad follows in general. But what strikes me is that whatever they do, they do so in a righteous way. And the amazing thing about it is that it is ultra-Orthodox Jews that attracts mainly non-Orthodx news. These Jews are the most traditional out of anyone in Judaism, so the non-Orthodox Jews would be really interested in what they can explore, or find out from Chabad. It is usually a great place for answers if one has a question about anything Jewsih.

As Sue Fishkoff says in her essay, Chabad outreach is nonstop (11). Movement activists are everywhere, and if there's something that is missing Jewishly in your life whether you like it or not, Chabad usually comes in and fills whatever void that it might be. The wierd thing about this all is, Rabbi Schneerson was the last leader of the Hassidic movement, but Chabads infrastructure kept increasing and grew faster in 8 years after his death faster than his lifetime (12). Their ultimate goal is to reach every Jew in the world. And you know something? I commend it. They are absolutely not afraid to do anything, and will never take "no" for an answer. And they do what what they do to get kids to appeal to it, a lot of the times using prominant figures in society as we know it to them

Reconstructionist and Secular Judaism

I've always been confused as to what Reconstructionist and Secular Judaism is. It has made me question it's legitamacy, mainly because I was only so familiar with Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism. Reconstructionism and Secularism take Judaism in a different direction, but that's not necessarily a bad thing at all. These two other denominations help bring out other aspects of Judaism that the first three don't capitalize on as much.

Secularism stresses freedom over commandments and they share this belief throughout the majority of Jews in Israel as well as around the world. Secular Jews beleive in more humanistic values and give a more pluralistic and historical approach the concept of Judaism as a culture. The explanation on the belief of God is a little confusing here. Secular Judaism refers to God a s a "literary hero" who functions in the collective reality and history of Judaism. It doens't really explain so much about God being an authoritative force from above, but it did mention, that he was there throughout all of history (Malkin, 2). However, Malkin notes that Secular humanist Jews live according to their beliefs and judge themselves and others by human values that constitute these beleifs. They may not directly believe in God, but rather they believe that man and woman created God, with the aknowledgement that God is central to the Bible. The Jewish humanists believe that these values of humanism are compatible with what they see is Judaism. They believe their freedom of choice for themselves helps them realize their Jewishness (Malkin, 3).

Reconstructionist Judaism is seen as the product of the collective experience of the Jewish people. It also teaches that Judaism is not just a religion, but a culture, and that without anything that Jewish or Israeli culture provides (such as Hebrew, Jewish literature, history, dance, music and visual arts), it wouldn't be able to survive (Kaplan, 1). The Jewish cultural values make us aware of our belonging to the Jewish people as well as the Jewish and Israeli community, and through that Kaplan considers the Jewish community in Israel central to Jewish life because of it's cultures in the country. Judaism wouldn't be Judaism today without it.

These two denominations focus on something very important: culture. Believing in God isn't always a center staple for practicing Judaism. A lot of it comes from the culture of Judaism itself. So long as the value of Jewish culture is kept to be cherished like it always has, Judaism as a whole, will keep on living a good and long life.

Orthodox Judaism

When I was younger, I often confused Orthodox Judaism with Chabad, and thought the two were one of the same. Throughout my years as a kid, I was pretty intimidated by it all and was usually nervous when talking about the subject, because I just wasn't used to or comfortable with it. Now, thankfully of course, those views that I had as a child are no longer there as I have had experiences with Orthodoxy from my stinit in Israel living on a Kibbutz Dati (religious Kibbutz), and I have a handful of good friends that are also Orthodox as well.

While reading the Heilman artical I saw something interesting that I've come to notice throughout my years in college and in Israel, and that is Orthodox Jews are highly affiliated to all things Jewish, and that Judaism is not primarily a personal matter (2). For them, it's a part of everyday life--the normal routine. I don't think I've ever respected something more than that in Judaism in general.

One thing caught me a little off gaurd that I now comprehend a little better: the two types of Orthodox Judaism that are called "contrapuntal" and "enclavist" Orthodox Judaism. Contrapuntal Orthodox Judaism consists of Orthodox Jews that incorporate and involve their religion to the American Lifestyle in which they live in. Many of these Jews that live in society today, feel that even though they follow strict laws, they shouldn't feel odd or different from others in general society today. Enclavists are at the opposite side of the spectrum, and are much more introverted, and exclusive about their Jewish lives. I understand why such a community would exist today seeing as there are many in Israel today, but in a different society, they are viewed as if they are living in their own world (even in Israel, at most times), and I don't think it's necessarry for someone to exclude him or herself from society just to be more religious. But if more religious Jews make themselves a bigger part of their own society in which we live in, I would like to see more knowledge of Judaism spread to the world because of it.

Conservative Judaism: The Middle

It's interesting to think that Conservative Judaism was born from Reform Judaism and not the other way around. It's an interesting denomination that follows more traditional ways of Judaism than Reform Judaism, but still strays away from Orthodoxy. Plain and simple, it's the middle of the Jewish denominational spectum.

When looking at the website, one can notice that the USCJ website is very organized with plenty of links and other information about Conservative Judaism through Jewish education, leadership, social action, as well as Israel. The Israel section of the website was an especially interesting thing to check out as it featured links to programs such as USY summer Israel programs the Conservative Yeshiva as well as the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center for Conservative Judaism in Israel (where I lived for about 5 months in 2006-2007). It also had a complete guide for making Aliya (the move to Israel) for those who wish to, as well as the bulletin entry for support of Israel througout the Gaza war.

Another thing to take note of from this site is the limited explanation of terms. In order for someone to fully understand this site, one would have to have a basic knowledge of what a certain subject may be, such as KOACH being the Conservative Judaism College Outreach Program, or USY (the USCJ's youth program), or Project Reconnect, which is a reunion program that sends out frequent newsletters on happenings of alumni of programs from USCJ. Still, these links, when explored are very helpful to attaining the needed information related to Conservative Judaism.

As alumni and current member of many programs from the USCJ such as USY (Chicago Region), Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, Nativ, and KOACH, I find Conservative Judaism to play an important role in my life thanks to their own laws of tradition. Conservative Judaism bases itslef on moreso of a religious belief on Judaism through observance of Jewish Holidays as well as a bigger and more restrictive structure of Jewish Law. However the beliefs of Conservative Judaism keeps changing everyday in part of the wide range of figuring out certain beliefs or issues within the religion, such as kashrut, or homosexuality in the leadership roles of Judaism. It is a part of Judiasm that takes a more conservative, right-wing departure from Reform Judaism, but also a movement that is not quite completely comfortable with Orthodoxy. Quite simply, it's the middle of the Jewish denominations.