Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music, running in Amherst, focuses on klezmer tradition – and innovationWoodstock 1969, meet Yidstock 2012.

Back in the day, the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in Bethel, New York, may have featured such acts as Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, but today’s Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music, running July 11-15 in Amherst, Massachusetts, will present a who’s who of musicians from the klezmer and Yiddish music worlds, on the grounds of the National Yiddish Book Center.

“The idea behind the festival is to build on what the Yiddish Book Center has been doing and take it to a whole new level — to program a festival of contemporary Yiddish and klezmer music that draws upon both tradition and innovation,’says festival programmer, Seth Rogovoy, music critic and author “The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover’s Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music” and “Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet.”

Priceless Yiddish books that had survived Hitler and Stalin were being discarded and destroyed

The Yiddish Book Center grew out of the work of Aaron Lansky, a 24-year-old graduate student in Yiddish literature who, in 1980, learned that thousands of priceless Yiddish books that had survived Hitler and Stalin were being discarded and destroyed. American-born Jews were unable to read the language once spoken by their parents and grandparents. Lansky organized a national network of zamlers, volunteer book collectors, to save the world’s remaining Yiddish books.

“We weren’t collecting books for too long before we realized it was just the tip of the iceberg,” recounts Lansky, the founder and president of the Yiddish Book Center and the editor of its magazine, PaknTreger. “We didn’t just lose books, but we lost the constellation of Jewish life — language, literature, music, film and theater.”

The Yiddish Book Center has helped ensure the preservation and rebirth of Yiddish language and culture. The 49,000 square foot center is home to more than 1,500,000 volumes of Yiddish books. More than 11,000 Yiddish titles are now available free of charge online through the Center’s Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library, and undergraduate students interested in becoming the next generation of Yiddish language speakers and translators spend their summer learning Yiddish language, culture and history.

‘Through the course of the festival you get a picture of where the music has been, where it is now, and where it is headed’

Yidstock, a more popular front of the center’s activities, will feature such top names in klezmer and Yiddish music as Hankus Netsky and the Hebrew National Salvage, Grammy Award winners the Klezmatics, Josh Dolgin aka “Socalled,” Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars with Eleanor Reissa, and the Michael Winograd Trio. Yidstock will also include a film festival, a klezmer instrumental workshop and a klezmer brunch. Rogovoy will deliver a talk entitled “Rockin’ the Shtetl: The Essential Klezmer.”

“Through the course of the festival,” notes Rogovoy, “you get a picture of where the music has been, where it is now, and where it is headed.”

Hankus Netsky, scion of a klezmer dynasty, one of the original klezmer revivalists, and founder of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, shares Rogovoy’s appreciation for the Yiddish Book Center.

“The Yiddish Book Center exists because the mainstream world neglected, then discarded, Yiddish literature and everything else too. The revival and revitalization is a major triumph of the last 30 years — this festival celebrates that.” Netsky, who holds a PhD in ethnomusicology and is director of the Itzhak Perlman “Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul” Project (to be released in the Fall of 2012 on Sony), speaks passionately about the themes of “salvage,” rescue and revitalization (he will be performing with a group known as Hebrew National Salvage).

The Klezmatics (photo credit: courtesy)

“We found Jewish culture discarded in the dumpster and are doing what Jewish business people have always done — we are finding a new use for it. My father was in the rag business so I am familiar! We are putting it back into circulation. We are reclaiming it.”

Netsky refers to his work as “salvage ethnography.”

He adds, “Jewish music is the same as Jewish literature — it builds on what came before it and is eminently creative.”

Netsky relates that the entry for klezmer in the 1975 Dictionary of Jewish Music read, “The klezmer tradition died out in the 19th century.”

“Huh?” asks Netsky, “That’s interesting! All my grandfathers and uncles were klezmer musicians!”

In a summer, 2011, PaknTreger article entitled, “But Is It Klezmer?” Rogovoy explores this latest wave of Jewish music, which continues to borrow from many sources. He playfully reports on the types of comments he hears when he exits concerts by performers like the ones who will play at Yidstock.

‘Klezmer has always spoken in the idiom of its time. And that time is now, and the fusion of hip-hop, funk, and jazz is our musical currency’

“If I had a dollar for every time I hear someone saying ‘I don’t know what you call that, but that’s not klezmer,’ I’d be, as the saying goes, a rich man,” says Rogovoy. “I hate to disappoint you, but yes, it is klezmer. And not only is it klezmer, it is part and parcel of the klezmer tradition. Indeed, it is traditional klezmer, because klezmer has always spoken in the idiom of its time. And that time is now, and the fusion of hip-hop, funk, and jazz is our musical currency.”

(Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com)

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Book review: “Esau’s Blessing: How the Bible Embraces those with Special Needs” by Ora Horn Prouser, Ben Yehuda Press, 2011 Teaneck, New Jersey. Reviewed by Howard Blas.

All rabbis and educators have incorporated the story of Moses and his speech difficulties (aral sfatayim) into divrei torah and lessons about overcoming obstacles, achieving greatness (despite being imperfect in some way), and being created b’tzelem Elokim, in the Image of God. With God’s backing, Aaron’s support, and with Moses own ability to compensate for his weaknesses, Moses became a great leader of the Jewish People. But as Ora Horn Prouser points out in Esau’s Blessing: How the Bible Embraces Those with Special Needs, there are other biblical models besides Moses (who we only meet in chapter 6) and his speech impairment. Prouser discusses biblical characters with ADHD, mental retardation, giftedness, gender issues, conduct disorder, physical disabilities, and depression.

Prouser begins both the preface and chapter one with a most unlikely biblical figure, Esau, noting, “I have always felt great compassion for Esau.” Prouser acknowledges that traditional interpretation paints Jacob as the “wonderful son and Esau as the black sheep.” How did Prouser discover her interest in Esau? A lecturer in a Genesis class described Esau as impulsive, which fit right in to literature Prouser was reading at the time on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She leaned over to a friend and whispered and chuckled that perhaps Esau had ADHD. “Seen in this light, Esau no longer appeared an evil man with misplaced priorities, but rather…as someone with learning issues who had never received the gift of being understood.” This November 17th, when you are sitting in synagogue listening to the reading of Parshat Toldot, you will never see Esau, Jacob or their parents in the same light as before; you will bring new found understanding and compassion to the text and to its characters.

Prouser has spent her life studying and teaching bible. She holds a PhD in bible from the Jewish Theological Seminary of American, is the executive vice president and academic dean at the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York, and she happens to be both the wife and daughter of rabbis. Prouser points out that biblical interpreters and midrashim have developed a critical picture of Esau and view him “as a man with nefarious motives and an evil character.” Prouser views him ‘through the lens of special education,’ and sees a different Esau-a hunter with both intense concentration and easy distractibility (“qualities of good hunters and also symptoms of ADHD”), impulsive decision making without thought to long term consequences (he was hungry and wanted stew), inability to understand proper and appropriate social behavior (he didn’t understand the problem of marrying two Hittite women), and a person in need of special accommodations. Prouser, deals with Esau’s father, Isaac in her next chapter, shockingly titled “Isaac and Mental Retardation.” She notes that Isaac, perhaps intuitively, “seems to understand Esau’s deficiencies and makes an attempt to accommodate his son’s special needs.” For example, Isaac takes Esau’s learning and behavioral style into account by giving him explicit, detailed directions for his hunt. Prouser feels the Esau story is here “to sensitize us” and serves as “a cautionary tale about the improper approach” (to ADHD).

Prouser sensitively views other biblical characters through the similar, compassionate lens of those with special needs and challenges. Calling Isaac “mentally retarded” is a fresh, somewhat radical view. I have heard Isaac referred to as a “transitional figure;” I have never heard him called “retarded,” a term which has generally fallen out of disuse in favor of such preferred terms as “intellectually disability” and “cognitive impairment.” Some advocates of people with disabilities find the term “retarded” to be so offensive that they monitor what they consider the unacceptable use of the “R word” on Facebook and other places on the internet.

Prouser builds a case for Isaac’s mental retardation: “he is born to older parents, who are close relatives, a genetic heritage than can result in birth defects.” His mother, Sarah, picks up early on Isaac’s limitations and uses her “ferocious maternal attempts to shield Isaac from pain and trouble,” (namely Hagar and Ishmael). Further, Isaac was docile (during the akedah), passive (when it came to marriage and the only patriarch requiring the help of others), and he exhibited “poor social acuity and communication skills,” especially in his dealing with the Philistines. This may also account for how he was so easily tricked by Jacob over the blessing. Despite Isaac’s limitations, which God and Rebecca, his wife accept, he succeeds in agriculture, and he continues the patriarchal line an important reminder that people with special needs often have extraordinary strengths.

While readers may disagree with Isaac’s diagnosis of mental retardation (or even with Esau’s diagnosis of ADHD), Prouser makes a tremendous contribution to the field of biblical commentary. Perhaps Prouser’s greatest insight is in viewing the bible through the lens of special needs. It is unlikely that most readers have considered the possibility that Jonah, Hannah, and Naomi all battled depression. And readers will now be forced to consider the Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son and Saul’s grandson, as a person with a physical disability (he lost both legs). Prouser notes David’s simultaneous pact to show kindness to Mephibosheth and his clear “distaste for the disabled.”

Other chapters address issues of gender (Miriam), conduct disorder (Samson) and an often forgotten special need, giftedness. Joseph exhibits two qualities of giftedness–an ability to generate original ideas and solutions to problems (dream interpretation) and a gap between his intellectual and emotional maturity; for that reason, he came off as showing superiority with his brothers.

Prouser’s unique book is the only one I know which is noted as Bible/Special Education on the back cover, meaning that it is equally “at home” in both the bible and special education sections of libraries and bookstores. And Esau’s Blessing deserves this designation; Prouser draws from classical commentators, such modern day bible scholars as Nahum Sarna and Everett Fox, modern psychological literature, and from her own experience; in her conclusion, Prouser discloses her own personal connection to disabilities. Esau’s Blessing will forever change the way we read familiar bible stories.
Esau’s Blessing is available at Amazon.com

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Nadine Fahoum, a Muslim from Haifa, has become Israel’s unofficial ambassador off the court, and a phenom for Duke on it.

For Nadine Fahoum, serving as an ambassador for Israeli tennis and the State of Israel is a pleasure — though anything but straightforward. The 22-year-old Muslim Israeli-Arab from Haifa recently graduated from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she majored in business administration and received a certificate in marketing and management. While there she also found the time to rank number one in tennis singles and helped the Lady Blue Devils tennis team to a national ranking of number three.

Fahoum also served as a de facto Jewish studies teacher and spiritual adviser to three American Jewish teammates. “They asked me about the Jewish holidays and when the Yom Kippur fast begins and ends,” says Fahoum, who regularly visited the Freeman Center for Jewish Life and participated in campus groups such as “Peace or Pieces?” — a forum for Jewish and Muslim students’ “controversial issues.”

‘I was the only Arab kid in school until my brother enrolled in the same school a few years later’ 

Fahoum got an early start feeling comfortable in the Jewish world. Her parents — mother Wafa Zoabi, a lawyer, and father, Anan, a bakery owner — sent Nadine and her younger brother to Haifa’s prestigious Reali Hebrew School. “I was the only Arab kid in school until my brother enrolled in the same school a few years later.”

Her brother, Fahoum Fahoum, 20, has continued to follow in his sister’s footsteps. Fahoum currently studies economics and plays tennis at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia — the university Nadine transferred from to play tennis at Duke.

“When Fahoum was a junior, I took him and three Jewish kids to play in a tennis exhibition in Boca Raton, Florida,” recounts Shaul Zohar, manager of the Israel Tennis Center in Kiryat Shmona. “We were at a Shabbat dinner and the host asked, ‘Who wants to do the blessing over the wine?’ The three all said no — and so Fahoum did the kiddush!”

Nadine and Fahoum have represented Israel in over thirty countries — starting with her first tournament in France at age 14 and including Switzerland, Portugal, Greece, and India. And they are not told what to say on behalf of the State of Israel.

“I say what I think,” says the polite, soft-spoken Nadine. “I have heard both sides my whole life. We all want the same thing — to live in peace.”

“We need to find a solution as soon as possible. It is a tough situation. We have to start where we are and look forward, not backward, and move forward from here.”

When asked what she would recommend as a solution, she pauses, carefully considering her reply. “We must learn from an early age to live together, when we are not prejudiced. That is why programs like the coexistence programs at the Israel Tennis Center are so important.”

She explains how its initiatives, such as the Twinned Peace Kindergarten, bring children and their families together in meaningful ways. “They go to each other’s houses, do homework together and travel to tournaments together.”

It has not always been easy. Many years ago, at New York’s JFK airport, security officials noted Fahoum’s name and asked to inspect her luggage. Coach Zohar intervened and said, “We are all the same — if you check her bag, you must check all bags. Check all or leave her alone!’”  She was allowed to pass without inspection. Israeli security has subsequently invited Nadine’s mother to offer workshops to security personnel on how to treat minorities.

Nadine recently began working as a development associate in New York City for the ITC. “If there were 10,000 Nadines, the [Israeli-Arab] situation would be different,” says Zohar.

The Israel Tennis Center team: Jacqueline Glodstein, Nadine Fahoum and Shaul Zohar.

“I’m sure there are — we just have to identify them and have them speak up,” adds Nadine.

“We have to encourage them to speak up,” adds Jacqueline Glodstein, vice president of global development for Israel Tennis Center.

Nadine has been living with Glodstein and her family in their Long Island home for the past six months. The family, whose members have all spent significant time in Israel, has found it very enlightening. Glodstein says, “We never had an opportunity to get to know on an intimate basis an Arab Israeli Muslim. It was an amazing opportunity for all of us. Living together, you just begin to know each other in a very special way — you create relationships and bonds.” The Fahoum parents also stayed in the Glodstein home for a e week during a recent trip to the United States.

For now, it is back to work for Nadine. While she will be focusing on her ITC responsibilities, she will still manage to find time for tennis. “I love tennis — I will always play!”

(Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com)

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Walking out of the Bruce Springsteen concert in Philadelphia last week, I heard a yalmuke-wearing teenager exclaim, “If Bruce Springsteen was a rabbi, I’d go to his shul [synagogue]!” The 62-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee had just delivered a three-hour concert—without even an intermission—during which he crowd-surfed across the pit of the Wells Fargo Arena, danced on stage with his almost 90 year old mother during crowd-favorite “Dancing in the Dark,” and pointed heavenward for several minutes during the encore, “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” paying proper respect to “The Big Man,” Clarence Clemons, who died last June. Springsteen kicked off his Wrecking Ball tour on March 18th, to promote the release of his 17th album.

The young fan was suggesting that Springsteen knows how to connect with people and inspire them with his message. Charismatic and caring, he even knows his fair share of Bible.

I overheard another, less-observant, friend confided that he was planning on spending the eve of Friday April 6th—seder night—with Bruce, the E Street Band, and 20,000 close friends at Manhattan’s famous Madison Square Garden!

Many Jews are connected to Bruce. Fans have long speculated on the extent of the Boss’s connection to all things Jewish. Here is a partial list of obvious (though admittedly “long shot”) connections to Judaism, the Jewish People and Israel.

1. His Name

Many have (incorrectly) speculated that the Boss’ last name gives him away as Jewish. Adam Sandler set the record straight in his “Chanukah Song Part II”:

So many Jews are in the show biz/ Bruce Springsteen isn’t Jewish/But my mother thinks he is.

2. Jews in the Band

The Mighty Max Weinberg (drummer), spoke at the American Museum of Jewish History in Philadelphia the night before two gigs at Wells-Fargo. Weinberg played his first bar mitzvah at age 7, attended synagogue at Temple Sharey Tefilo in East Orange, and in a recent email interview with the JTA, reported that drumming “was my way of living a life of tikkun olam.” Weinberg also said, “I was greatly influenced by the poetic approach to leadership by the late Rabbi Avraham Soltes, who made the stories and scripture come alive through music and his charismatic teachings.”

Max’s son, Jacob, briefly toured with the E Street Band when Max was tied up with his commitment to the Conan O’Brien TV show, and Springsteen’s longtime manager and producer, Jon Landau, is Jewish. Pianist Roy Bittan is Jewish. And Suki Lahav, an Israeli post-army violinist from Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar, toured and recorded briefly with Springsteen in the 70’s before returning to Israel. Her then-husband, Louis Lahav, was a recording engineer for Bruce.

3. Biblical References

A former student of the St. Rose of Lima Catholic school in Freehold Borough in New Jersey, Springsteen knows his bible. Aside from the occasional Jesus reference, lyrics contain gems such as these three:

“Rocky Ground”

Forty days and nights of rain have washed this land…
Flood waters rising and we’re Canaan bound

“Red Headed Woman”

Well, push comes to shove
Man, and shove comes to push
And I was Moses standing ‘fore the burning bush

“Adam Raised a Cain”

In the Bible Cain slew Abel
And East of Eden he was cast,
You’re born into this life paying,
for the sins of somebody else’s past,

4. Jewish References

Springsteen’s hometown of Long Branch, long associated with the seaside town of Asbury Park, is a stone’s throw from Deal, New Jersey—home to nearly 5,000 Syrian Jews who vacation in there each summer. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but as one blogger noted, a line in “Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” might have been inspired by the Syrian Jewish Beach Club Casino in Deal:

And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open like Latin lovery on the shore/Chasin’ all them silly New York virgins by the score

5. “Shtick” in Concerts

Generally reserved for klezmer bands, “Hava Nagila” is not the first song you’d expect “The Boss” to play. Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg reports that Rahm Emanuel, President’s Obama’s former White House Chief of Staff, prompted Springsteen to play 45 seconds of the Jewish melody at a Washington, DC area show in May, 2009. Emmanuel spotted a sign made by a hardcore fan, requesting the famous—albeit unlikely—song:

“My daughter (a Jewish day school student) didn’t want to go because of homework, so I figured she needed a Jewish excuse to go to the concert. I made the ‘Hava Nagila’ sign—I’m in the mortgage credit market, so there’s not a hell of a lot for me to do these days—and we brought it to the concert,” he said. “I made it like the Torah, two sticks on each side.”

And, in his Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live in New York City record, while getting the crowd pumped up, Bruce references…a bar mitzvah! He says, “ I’m gonna throw a rock and roll exorcism…a rock and roll baptism and a rock and roll bar mitzvah!”

6. Israel

First the bad news—he ain’t coming to Tel Aviv.  But, back in November, there were articles in several Israeli publications speculating that he might finally perform in the Promised Land. Unlike Elvis Costello and Pete Seeger, Bruce has not criticized Israel or called for its boycott or divestment. When Bruce completes the US leg of his tour in May, he will then traverse Europe before wrapping up in Helsinki, Finland on July 31st—he just doesn’t have enough time to hit the Holy Land. The closest the Boss gets to the Middle East is Lisbon (June 3rd), Milan (June 7th), Florence (June 10th), Trieste (June 11th) and Madrid (June 17th).

But I can’t hold it against him—The Boss is clearly a fan of the Jews! His lyrics, show antics, and band that nearly comprises a minyan point to his connection to Judaism. He  might not be Jewish, but I’m convinced: I want Bruce to be my Rabbi.

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