Planet Hava Nagila: Aly Raisman's Olympic Floor Routine, The Wall Street Journal and Hava Nagila the Movie

It's been a big month for Hava Nagila, that favorite of bar mitzvah's, hockey games, celebrity appearances , and enterprising musicians worldwide. The excitement started on the 19th when director Roberta Grossman premiered "Hava Nagila The Movie" to a sold out crowd at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

"...featuring interviews with Harry Belafonte, Leonard Nimoy, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell, Regina Spektor and more, the film follows the ubiquitous party song on its fascinating journey from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the kibbutzim of Palestine to the cul-de-sacs of America. High on fun and entertainment, Hava Nagila (The Movie) is also surprisingly profound, tapping into universal themes about the importance of joy, the power of music and the resilient spirit of a people."

Hava Nagila (The Movie) - Original Clip from Katahdin Productions on Vimeo.

The film is getting good press and hopefully will be playing soon at a film festival near me. And you, too.

This past weekend, Hava Nagila (the song) showed up in the Wall Street Journal, that bastion of stock tickers and pinstripe, in an article titled "At Some Happy Events, Hava Nagila Isn't Invited." WSJ author Lucette Lagnado claimed that "Hava Nagila isn't in danger of becoming a musical relic. It already is one" and backed up the claim with quotes from from sources including enthomusicologist / musician Henry Sapoznik and Klezmatics vocalist Lorin Sklamberg, Manhattan Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, and Neshoma Orchestra, a NYC simcha band, leader Elly Zomick. Lagnado noted that Hava Nagila will live on in YouTube videos, such as those I linked above, and in new Jewish music bands reinterpreting the song, including Abraham Inc (see below) but that its been retired as a Jewish American favorite. As can be imagined, the article ruffled features around the Jewish world.

Abraham Inc. - The H Tune aka Hava Nagila (Jazz à la villette part5)

Finally, Hava Nagila was the backdrop for some Olympic drama on Sunday night.  Much to the delight of the US Jewish community, Team US Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman used an upbeat Hava Nagila as the soundtrack for her floor routine, an amazing performance that edged out US team All Around favorite Jordyn Wieber and sealed Raisman's position as one of two Americans to advance to the All Around competition.  As Haaretz reports,  Raisman's use of Hava Nagila was both tactical and traditional.  Raisman, a Jew from Needham, Mass, chose the music for it's folksy appeal and ability to get the audience engaged and clapping, something that helps her as an athlete focus and connect with the judges.  As an internationally known folk tune, Hava Nagila has been used a number of times by other gymnasts for similar reasons. A JTA article, cited by Haaretz, includes links to historic videos of gymnasts Gael Mackie of Canada, 2004, and Sandra Izbasa of Romania, 2010, using Hava Nagila for their routines. Raisman repeated her routine today as the anchor exercise sealing USA's team gold medal.  Let's hope it does as well when she competes for her personal All Around medal.

Neither of her two Olympic routines are available yet, but here's Raisman performing her Hava Nagila routine from the 2012 Olympic Trials.

Aly Raisman Floor - 2012 USA Gymnastics Olympic Trials Day 2

Best of luck, Aly. We're rooting for you!

Hat tip to YouTube users richkleban, IgnitedSoul13, schillid, stalkerok, yagul and Anim3Mast3r for posting "Jake's Bar Mitzvah", "Jerome Iginla,""Bob Dylan Hava Nagila," "Indian Hava Nagila," "Rootwater - Hava Nagila," and "Final Fantasy - Avent Children Hava Nagila Techno" respectively. Also, hat tip to YouTube users HQ4Music for "Abraham Inc. - The H Tune aka Hava Nagila (Jazz à la villette part5)" and Susaluda for "Aly Raisman Floor - 2012 USA Gymnastics Olympic Trials Day 2"

The Roots of Israeli Music

Israeli radio producer and personality Danny Orstav recently gave an excellent talk on the early history of Israeli music. I'm listening to it now. You should too.

The History of Israeli Music


Hat tip to VermontTV for posting the video to YouTube.

Rita's Persian Album

As I've mentioned, I have hard time tracking Israeli music. So I routinely run into musicians that are described as "the most famous" in Israel, only to say...who? That happened again this week when I ran across the music of Rita whom, according to wikipedia, "is an Iranian-born Israeli pop singer and actress, notable for being the most famous female singer in Israel." Typically, I wouldn't bite on this sort of thing. Israeli pop is still pop and I usually don't find it that interesting. But Rita's new album "My Joys" is fascinating and, well, awesome. Like Ofra Haza's wonderful Yemeni music recordings, "My Joys" revisits Rita's native Persian language and the folk music her youth...both in a contemporary pop context. The album wen't gold in Israel and this video shows why....
Shah Doomad (Live From Tel Aviv 2012) - Rita


Rita's toured the US before, but not recently. I hope she comes around again soon.

Zion Unit Jerusalem Sound System

Israeli DJ Zion Unit makes trip hop soundscapes I want to live inside. Press play on Jericho.

"ZION UNIT is an art ensemble originally from Reunion Island and based in France, UK and Israël. His musical work is an exotic and disorder opera kitsch, intimate, baroque, tinted soul, funk, trip hop, moods filmesques, colors and ethnic psychedelics."

For more info, check out Zion Unit's Facebook, Reverbnation, and Soundcloud pages.

Back in the Day: Alon Braier's Mizrachi Musician Cards

Alon Braier is a freelance graphic artist and illustrator based in Tel Aviv. I recently ran across his fantastic project "Back in the Day (בזכרי ימים ימימה)" which consists of a boxed set of cards that pay "tribute to the great Israeli mizrachi music pioneers of the 60's and 70's." Looking to get a bit more information, and hopefully score a set of the cards, I contacted Braier about the project.

Teruah: What was origin of the Mizrachi musician card project? Was this something you did as a freelancer for a customer? A personal project? Are you personally a fan Mizrachi music?

Braier: I started working on the Mizrachi musician card project, or "back in the day" as it translates from its Hebrew name, about two years ago. It was my final project before achieving a bachelor's degree at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. On my junior year I spent one semester as an exchange student at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and while visiting New York City on spring break, I stumbled upon a beautiful, illustrated trading card deck named "Legends of Rap". I was blown away by the whole idea of illustrated music related trading cards, It was then that I decided to make my own deck as a final project when I'll get back to Israel.

Mizrachi music was never exactly my cup of tea (at least not before the project). I chose to focus on that specific genre because I wasn’t familiar with it. Back then, it occurred to me that by digging into a subject I know very little about my interest will stay high throughout the process.

I also wanted my project to deal with social matters and I knew Mizrahi music always carried a big social and political baggage. Mizrahi music was created by migrating Jews from the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa who created a unique musical style that combines elements of Arabic, Greek, and Turkish music. At the early days of Israeli radio this type of music was excluded from the airwaves, basically because the people who owned the media and the main cultural institutions in those years where of Ashkenazi heritage and preferred a more European taste. At the beginning of the 80's Mizrahi music suddenly got in to the playlists and became very popular until this very day. The sad thing is that in order to reach this state the genre lost most of its authenticity and unique musical roots. Today it's basically all about simple pop songs on an Arabic scale with some occasional oriental instrument thrown in the mix. My project is focusing on the early days, the 60's and 70's, when Mizrahi music was a special fusion of east and west, a one of a kind blend of rock soul and middle eastern music.

Teruah: Who is included?

Braier: The deck has all the great pioneers of the genre, people who became legends like Zohar Argov (pictured above) – the king of Mizrahi music (5) and Aviu Medina (1) the composer who wrote many mizrahi classics like "Haperach Begani" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcpgpEUlKfk which was Zohar's first international hit. I also included the main producers and representatives of Mizrahi artists, "The Reuveni Brothers" (12) and the most essential Mizrahi bands- Tzlilei haoud (3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9_hY8bhuzc&feature=related and Tzlilei hakerem (11 ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JynC5hxfSZM&feature=related.

Among the well known artists I illustrated some truly underrated ones, like Aris San (10)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-LCj-wGAQI - Filfel al Masri (19) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM-vE9ngljg - The Gang (15) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU301lExnO4 - Jo Amar (17) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xclyyCzMM0Q (my personal favorite). And some surprising rarities like Shechunat Hatikva workshop Theater (8, pictured) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2xNTzlFSk0which includes the very young and talented Ofra Haza.

I really wanted to include Yosef Ben Israel, the first DJ who actually played Mizrahi music on the radio, but I couldn't find any pictures of him.


Teruah: Are these cards available for purchase?

Braier: I'm afraid not, I did have a few of them in a handmade box with a poster in every pack but they were sold out pretty quickly (I have only one complete pack left, which I carry with me to job interviews) but I'm planning to re-print them sometime during this year.

Teruah: Have you done any additional music related projects? Do you plan any?

Braier: Since the Mizrahi project came out I did some editorial illustrations for local papers that had article about Mizrahi culture. I also did the cover art for Lo dubim's debut album http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ADtnkFUV-U&feature=related lately, I began working on another card deck about the Israeli new wave scene of the 80's but I'm still in the research stage.

-----


So no cards for me. At least not yet. But go check out the full set on Braier's website.

As a final treat, here's Braier's favorite, the great Jo Amar, singing Great My Cousin. Amar, who passed away in 2009, was a widely popular Moroccan born vocalist whose 1971 "Shalom le-ben dodi" was one of the first big Mizrachi hits.

Jo Amar Greet my cousin ג'ו עמר שלום לבן דודי

We are all Constellations. The latest from Mikey Pauker

Earlier this week I blogged about NuRootz musician Alison Westerman. Today I've got the latest video from her fellow NuRootz collective musician Mikey Pauker. I got a chance to see Pauker perform at the URJ Biennial and was impressed. He's part of a really select club of people that includes Matisyahu, Y-love, the Moshav band that are equally comfortable in religious Jewish settings and in very secular rock club settings and doesn't change his set list much between the two.

Here's his latest video, Constellations. It's not one of his more explicitly Jewish pieces, but I dig it.

Mikey Pauker & the Joy Machine: Constellations

Pauker's a California guy, but is current living and attending a Yeshiva in Nahalot, Israel and soaking it all in. Here's an excerpt from his blog

"I have fully immersed myself in a super natural, complex, beautiful, mystical culture filled with life!!! I have been living in Nahloat which is a Silverlake/East Village/ Mission District type of community in Jerusalem. The people here are artists/hippies the create sort from all over the world. This is a spiritual community right across from the Shuk which is an open market similar to what you see in movies where people bargain for fresh produce, like in the Disney classic Aladin. Every day I eat fresh barakas, produce, and drink fresh juice. I am still keeping up with my daily yoga and meditation. During the week days I wake up early head to the yeshiva to study Tania. From Tania, I walk over to the Mikveh, (a spiritual bath house), where I cleanse my soul and physical body. From there I walk up stairs where I pray and wrap tefilin on my body. Every morning I pray during the entire Shachrit morning service and then I continue with Shemona Esrei. On the days they have torah service I am finally able to follow along with the hebrew text without using any vowels. I am able to understand the prayers and the intentions behind all of them. Every morning I am able to get VERY present with the universe through morning prayer and I am falling in love with this practice."

Wish I was there buddy. Seriously.

To get more info on Pauker's recordings, tours, and his spiritual adventures in Israel, check out his website.

Yehuda Katz going solo

It's funny. Historically, I've never been a big jam-band, Grateful Dead kind of guy. I'm not sure why I so love Shlomo Carlebach and his psuedo-hippy Chassid protégés so much. But I do. Which is why I was thrilled when I got an email Aryeh Kunstler pointing me to Yehuda Katz new videos and album. Katz was one of the founders of popular Israeli Hassidic music group Reva L’Sheva and in the new album expands on his joyful Shlomo Carlebach / Grateful Dead sound. Love it. Check it out.

Yehudah Katz - Biladecha/Not Without You

For more info on Katz, check out this recent Jerusalem Post article. His other new video, Hudo, is also excellent. You can grab the new album through iTunes and follow Katz on Facebook.

Israel's Visual Art Rockers Eatliz produce dreamy stop-motion animation mini-masterpiece

I love synchronicity. Earlier this week I was going over the lists of Israeli bands that played SXSW over the last couple of years (and fantasizing about going this year to see the next crop). One of the videos that stood out was "Lose This Child" by the Israeli "visual art rock/ complicated prog pop" band Eatliz. A couple of days later I got a note from the bands promoter suggesting I blog about the video. Yep. Good plan.

Eatliz, Hebrew for "butcher shop," has a great bass heavy funk drive and a wonderfully floaty, squawky vocalist. They meet my requirement for a band to continually surprise me while remaining true to a central music vision. They haven't knocked the Israeli rock band Electra out of my heavy rotation band of the week yet. But they just might. For more details, check out their website and this "hi, we're Eatliz" video.

Eatliz recently teamed up with the Grammy nominated directors Yuval & Merav Nathan to produce one of the most gorgeous and haunting music videos I've seen in a long time. The video has been screened at 40 film and animation festivals, winning 14 awards, including in the US, Israel, Australia, Korea, the US and all over Europe.

Eatliz - Lose This Child

According to the band's promoter,

"The making of the video took 6 months. The video utilizes moving sand sculptures, which help make the characters part of their environment. The majority of the video was painstakingly photographed frame by frame at a beach in the early morning hours over three months at night. Each night, the crew had limited time and were up against the elements, but were able to create this mini-masterpiece :)

The song "Lose This Child", is taken from Eatliz band latest album. Eatliz is an internationally acclaimed visual Art Rock band from Tel Aviv, which are known for spectacular live shows that are a visual treat, outstanding genre crossing music, beautiful award winning animation music videos. Recently, Eatliz finished a full North American tour which included several shows at sxsw and Canadian Music Week festivals, followed by a east coast tour and a European tour. In 2012 they will tour China and Japan and will continue to spread their artistic music and animation music videos."

Oleh! Records... Israeli Music Export

Keeping track of Israeli music is much harder than you'd think. Outside of the occasional reviews in Haaretz, Israel National News, JTA, and the Forward, there are few English language websites that provide any regular coverage of the Israeli scene. The only specifically Israeli music focused sites I know of are the online catalog Israel-Music.com and Ben Bresky's excellent Isreal Beat podcast. Until now, that is.

Jumping in to help fill the void is Oleh! Records, "Israel's Music Export Office." Oleh! is not a fannish gossip, releases, and reviews sort of site (though we really need one). Oleh! focused on the business of music and helping promoters and venues outside of Israel make connection, book, and promote Israeli musicians. Wearing my other kippah as (current) co-chair for the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival I'm going to be getting in touch with these folks.

But to the average fan, Oleh! is still a goldmine. Yes it has information about Israeli superstars including Noa, Dana International, David Broza, and the Idan Raichel Project. But did you know that Israel has 7 excellent heavy metal bands? You do now. Oleh! lists Xenolith, Winterhorde, Viscera Trail, Orphaned Land, Midnight Peacocks, Gevolt! and Matricide. Whew. In addition to metal, Oleh! provides information on a range of genres including urban and soul, punk and metal, jazz, middle eastern, instrumental, folk, classical, reggae and funk. While these lists do not capture every band in Israel, it's a fine start for the budding Israeli music fan. I did a quick scan for some of my favorites and found info about Boom Pam, The Teapacks (but not Kobi Oz), Yidcore, Balkan Beat Box, and Hadag Nechash. In bumping around their site I also learned about the Israeli 'psytrance' scene (check out Skazi and Void) and got totally hooked on the "Kasbah Rock" sound of Electra (see below).

In short, where has Oleh! been all my life?

Oleh! just launched recently, so it will be exciting to see what the site matures into over time. For more information, check out the Oleh! website, as well as their Twitter and Facebook pages.

Electra - Coming To Get You! - official video

Update: In the comments Ilan, of the Jaffa Jive radio show, just pointed me to another resource on Israeli music:

"A small addition to the available resources: Audio Montage - a small record label from Tel Aviv (more of a "co-op" label). A hub for some of my favorite musicians.
http://amontage.net/wordpress/

Thanks Ilan!

Ravid Kahalani's Yemen Blues

The excellent music blog Aspara "genre- and tradition- crossing music from around the world" recently ran a nice piece on Yemen Blues, an Israeli group led by Ravid Kahalani. As Aspara notes, Kahalani mixes "blues blended with Yemenite Jewish chants, West African percussion, funk, and much, much more. Great stuff. Check out the Asapra article for the full story.

Um Min Al Yaman - Yemen Blues

You can get more info on Yemen Blues at the usual places including YemenBlues.com, twitter, and their MySpace and Facebook pages. YB is touring North America right now, so check out their gig schedule (this means you NY, Chicago, Calgary and LA).

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra...US-wide live on July 28th

The Israeli Philharmonic will be doing a cool live concert on July 28 that will be broadcast live* to movie-theaters around the US. To promote the show, the sponsors are doing a free ticket giveaway. See below for details.

On July 28th, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta join the extraordinary talents of soprano Renée Fleming and tenor Joseph Calleja to honor the legacy of the great American tenor Richard Tucker. Although the concert takes place in Jerusalem, we are pleased to be able to extend you an invitation through Fathom Events, who will be presenting a live* broadcast in theatres across the country. Fathom is giving away a pair of tickets per participating theatre, which means over 1,000 tickets will be given away to this event! To enter to win, just write the name and location of the participating theater where you plan to attend the live broadcast, along with the phrase “Free ‘Live from Jerusalem’ Tix”, on the Fathom Events Facebook wall (here: http://on.fb.me/FreeFathom Tix You must click “I am Attending” in the upper right to access the event wall). One winner per theater will be randomly selected from the qualifying entries to receive a pair of tickets.

To find the closest participating theater in your area, visit the ticket order page: http://bit.ly/LiveFromJerusalem (no purchase necessary), and enter your zipcode in the “buy tickets” field. You will be directed to a list of the closest theaters. Simply copy+paste the theater name and address into your entry.

*Broadcast will be delayed to play at 7pm in all time zones around the United States.

Sponsors of this event include EL AL Airlines, (who are sending me additional prizes soon), The American Friends of the Isreal Philharmonic, The Richard Tucker Foundation, and Mod 3 Productions.

Enter the contest to get free tix: http://on.fb.me/IPO-tix

Watch a video about the event: http://youtu.be/qIQBiusOdpg

Buy a ticket/see more info: http://www.fathomevents.com/performingarts/event/reneefleming.aspx

Who are we that dream and what is that dream? Kutiman, Lawrence Dermer, and the perils of making music about Israel

Music about Israel is tricky thing. And I don't mean music from Israel. Israeli musicians can grab a guitar or an oud and have at it with no complications. Just do their thing. But music about Israel is fraught with all the tensions and complexities of Israel itself. If the music is written by a non-Israeli, it also comes with all the tensions and complexities of our Diaspora perceptions. Which ends up with writers like me thinking much to hard (or not hard enough) about what it all means.

Israeli mashup-phenom Kutiman recently released a brand new track called "Thru-Jerusalem." Like his previous collection of "Thru-You" videos, "Thru-Jerusalem" stitching together fragments of found sound and video into something brand new. Unlike T-Y, which featured video clips that Kutiman discovered on YouTube, T-J features video clips that Kutiman shot himself. What was found was the musicians and the moments, which Kutiman discovered walking around Jerusalem. Stitched together by Kutiman, they become a moving sonic landscape of a hopeful multi-cultural city. If you dig it, like I do, the track can be downloaded for free from SoundCloud.

Thru Jerusalem



Lawrence Dermer, an American BMI Award winning & Grammy nominated Songwriter and Producer (and Cantorial Soloist) released "We are Strong" back in 2008. I missed it then, but got pointed to it recently. We Are Strong has an upbeat 'We are the World" kind of 'unity through music' vibe and contemporary world-beat sound. This is an earnest, big anthem stuff. If you dig it, which I don't, you can get the track or album from CD Baby.

We are Strong



Of the two I find Kutiman's "Thru-Jerusalem" the more compelling effort. Partially this reflects my personal taste... I'm not a big fan of Dermer's smooth, radio-friendly anthem sound and wish he'd lose whatever effects processing he's using to obscure his voice, but I love Kutiman's sensibility. Kutiman has a great ear for the texture of sound and makes surprising sound combinations fit together beautifully.

This also reflects my read on the song narratives. Kutiman is an insider. His assemblage of Jerusalem musicians reflects both a realistic portrayal of Jerusalem (these are real Jerusalem musicians, after all) and Kutiman's optimistic vision of Jerusalem (this varied group of musicians blending together into a unified, but not homogenized) whole. From the perspective of a Diaspora Jew who's never been to Israel, it sounds about how I'd hope Jerusalem would sound if I could visit and wander around as Kutiman does. I wonder how real and how constructed that vision is. Is it a better version of reality than news reports show, or a delightful fiction?

Dermer's song on the other hand feels jingoistic. When he sings "We are strong" it's unclear who "we" are. He could mean all Israeli's, but I don't think so. Instead it feels inclusive of Jewish Israeli's with only a passing nod at non-Jewish Israeli's. Where Kutiman's videos showing real musicans of different backgrounds being themselves, explicitly acknowledging the complexity of Israel, Dermer's repetition of vague and banal slogans such as "what we believe we will become" and the constructed reality of him mugging in front of children who sing his song on cue, leaves "We are Strong" feeling strangely out of touch. This doesn't seem to be a song for Israelis, instead it seems like a song to raise spirits of Diaspora Jews? If we're strong, all Israel's problems will just go away.

So who are we that dream and what is that dream? Do we (American Jews) fall behind Dermer's sentimental utopian vision of happy children of all (Jewish?) races singing in unison? What dream do this children really share? Or do we (Israeli Jews and Muslims) accept Kutiman's vision of Israeli adults existing together peacefully in a complex shared space? (Remember that this too is a dream. The collaboration of Kutiman's musician's only happen inside Kutiman's mind and computer...they never actually meet in real life).

Maybe the answer is that either way, all we can do for now is dream.

The Feenjon Group - Israeli music in 1960's NYC

NYC is a churning, transient city. In the 1960's, Israel had been around long enough for Israelis to find themselves part of that churn. Menachem Dworman, an Israeli ex-pat, started a folk club called the Feenjon Cafe and it's house band, the Feenjon Group. The group also contained Jewish-American musician Jerry Sappir as well as range of Greek, Turkish, Russian, and Arabic music and musicians. The Feenjon group recorded 4 or 5 albums, the only one of which that is still easily available is alternately titled "Bellydancing at the Cafe Feenjon" and "An Evening at Cafe Feenjon" and is available through Smithsonian Folkways (and, believe it or not, through iTunes). Check it out.

Feenjon Commercial

I love running across albums like this. For someone my age, who wasn't born yet when this album was recorded, it's a bit of lost American Jewish history. Yes, we really did have an Israeli ex-pat scene in the 1960's. And yes, Israeli and middle eastern folk music did exist in the US at that time. And yes, it sounded great.

See the excellent Record Fiend article "The Feenjon Group - Belly Dancing at The Cafe Feenjon (Monitor, circa 1969) for more details." For some great discussion and remembrances of the Feenjon Group, check out this thread at Tribe.net.

Also, hat tip to Tzvi for pointing me to the FeenjonGroup and to YouTube user Village Underground for uploading the video.

Kobi Oz "Mizmorei Nevuchim / Psalms For The Perplexed"

Yesterday, while wandering around the Jewish corner of BandCamp.com, I ran into a recent album from Kobi Oz, lead singer of the popular Israeli group Teapacks. As Yehuda Mirsky notes in his essay in Jewish Ideas Daily "Some mainstream Israeli musicians have recently been turning for material to religious texts; others have become immersed in the musical traditions of Sephardi Jewry. The two trends have come together in a new album, Mizmorei Nevukhim ("Psalms for the Perplexed"), by Kobi Oz." My Hebrew isn't good enough to follow the lyrics, which Mirsky describes as "abound[ing] with riffs on the terrors, longings, and sheer nuttiness of Israeli life, plus a whimsically phrased but dead-earnest questioning of dogmas both religious and secular." Fortunately, all the songs are translated courtesy of "Makom - Israeli Engagement Network."

I love the album's sound which is mixes a capsule history of Israeli pops with mizrachi overtones and archive samples. And the lyrics for the song below, Prayer of the Secular" are priceless. Check it out.

Prayer of the Secular - Kobi Oz

You can get more information on and the album, including translations and a video interview, from the album website.

Shabbat Shalom Detroit

Shabbat shalom, everyone.

Yesterday's Detroit Jewish News ran a really nice full page story on me and Teruah. So when got to the Detroit JCC's music fest meeting last night I got copies of DJN thrown at me and a lot of good natured ribbing. C'mon. The picture does NOT make me look like a grumpy rapper. Very funny. If you're a new reader who saw the article... great to meet you and thanks for stopping by. I'll be giving a talk in Detroit on March 24 as part of the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest, so stop by and say hello.

This been a long week of meetings and family stuff, not much time for blogging or anything else, so I'm really looking forward to Shabbat tonight. So, for my 'get in the Shabbat groove' video I thought I'd share this lovely recording of the Yigdal prayer. When I was a kid, at a Conservative synagogue in Connecticut, we usually closed Friday night services with Adon Olam. Yigdal was saved for special occasions. Because of that I've always deeply loved Yigdal. The melody used in this recording isn't the one I grew up with, it's a Sephardic melody sung by the Israeli musician Avraham Perrera. I honestly don't know much about Perrera other than the few of his songs I've heard on the internet. If anyone knows more about him or has a pointer to any biographical information, please drop me a line.

Avraham Perrera - YİGDAL

Hat tip to YouTube user 2751984 for uploading the video. You can find Avraham Perrera recordings at Israel-Music.com.

Rinat Gutman: Orthodox Woman with a Voice

There's a minor kerfluffle brewing on the Jew music scene lately. Jewish musician Naomi Less has called out the Jewlicious festival for not featuring enough women artists in her blog Jewish Chicks Rock. She basically called the progressive festival an Orthodox front. She got a response today from David Abitbol, aka Jewlicous, politely telling her she's got it all wrong. I'm not sure what to think. From my experience working on the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest there are some many different voices, opportunities, and constraints involved in getting a festival staged it's amazing they happen at all. It may be that the subtle constraints that come from the individual tastes of the Jewlicious Fest presenters are leading to this outcome? Or maybe Less is just making noise about nothing?

One nice thing about Abitbol's response was the list of female performers that have been featured at the Jewlicious festivals recently. I'm familiar with most of them, but there are some new (to me) names I'll have to track down and some names that I've heard of but haven't featured lately or ever.

One that list is Israeli rapper, Rinat Gutman. According to this great interview in the Yeshiva University Observer, Gutman comes from a Charedi Zionist background with some ties to Breslov and Chabad. Gutman performs some women-only shows within the Orthodox community, but lots of shows for mixed secular crowds (such as the Jewlicious festival), too.

"In my rap I speak about things that come from inside, about thoughts and insights that come to me in response to things that happen to me in life. At this point in my life, the central message that I am trying to convey is about the western culture, which dominates everything. I talk a lot about the ramifications of this on our lives, and in my opinion, the implications for the approaching time periods are destructive.

For example, in my song Shekel v'Chetzi [shekel-and-a-half] I talk about our lives using the metaphor of a shekel v'chetzi store [dollar store]. In my eyes, this is the ultimate representation of western culture - the concept of instant gratification. You can find things almost for free, but you pass up on quality along the way. So I mention in my song all types of things that you can "buy" in this type of store, such as love, a professional degree, friends, etc.

I want to make a difference in the world of Jewish music because, in my opinion, it can still develop more. I want to take commonplace topics and make them humorous and lighthearted. For example, I have a Chassidic short story in a rap that talks about shidduchim in a funny and unusual way - it's about a groom who's too short and bride who's too tall, etc..

Good stuff, too, from what I've heard. I haven't seen her yet, but hope to. Get more info from Gutman's MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

Rinat Gutman - Chassidishe Tale Live at Rashimu

Rinat Gutman: Ooga Ooga Ooga Live ft. Ben Yomen רינת גוטמן- עוגה,עוגה

Hanukkah Day 5: A Hanukkah Sound Archive

So, we're 5 days into Hanukkah and you're thinking...yeah, I got this. Got my blessings back, warmed up my Ma'ot Tzur. Checked in on Teruah for that new Maccabeats video that everyone's talking about.

I hear you. Me too. So it's time to mix it up. How about switching to a Carlebach blessing melody?


Or a Ma'oz Tzur melody from Hungary?


Or maybe adding Dak il tas from Turkey.


The Sound Archive at the Jewish National University and Library has got you covered. It's Hanukkah page has a fascinating variety of audio recordings and maybe your new favorite melody.

The Library's aims are "To collect, preserve, cultivate and endow the treasures of knowledge, heritage and culture in general, with an emphasis on the Land of Israel, the State of Israel and the Jewish people in particular." There's a lot of great stuff in the archive, though you'll have to fight with a pretty terrible search interface.

Update: After posting this, I got a FaceBook note from Francesco Spangolo with more details about the JNUL. Spangolo is "a multidisciplinary scholar focusing on Jewish studies, music and digital media. Intersecting textual, visual and musical cultures, Spagnolo has contributed extensively to academia, cultural heritage and archival institutions, and live and electronic media in Europe, Israel and the United States. " Francesco and I have been crossing paths for a quite a while and I very hope to meet up with him someday.

"The National Sound Archives do not, unfortunately, maintain a dedicated website but they are currently digitizing the bulk of their collection in order to make it accessible online. The short story, off the top of my head: the NSA (aka Fonoteqah Leumit, or Phonotèque Nationale) were founded at the Jewish National and University Library in 1964 by musicologist Israel Adler (Berlin 1925 - Jerusalem 2009). They include thousands of archival recordings of the many musical traditions of the Jewish Diaspora, made on location and in studio, as well as non-Jewish traditions recorded in Israel (Samaritans, Druze, Beduin, Greek Orthodox, Syriac, etc.). Most of the recordings were made by fellows of the Jewish Music Research Center (JMRC) of the Hebrew University, which was also founded by I. Adler at the same time. The NSA are an amazing institution, and hopefully it will be known more once it fully goes online. The selections you posted were made by Ruti Freed, a longtime archivist at the NSA, who retired last year. The current director is Dr. Gila Flam.

They are my home away from home and I was just there last month, finishing to gather all the materials for a new CD project (an anthology of archival recordings) to be published next year. (The first one, Italian Jewish Musical Traditions from the Leo Levi Collection (1954-1961), came out almost 10 years ago...). "

Thanks Francesco!

hat tip to the Miss Music Nerd blog, where I found the link to the JNUL sound archive.

Israel's Yemin Orde Youth Choir on PRI's The World

On Monday, PRI's The World did a feature on Israel's Yemin Orde Youth Choir. Most of the kids at Yemin Order, are Jewish, but not all. All are immigrants, some from Ethiopia, some from Sudan, some from Poland and Russia. The school is not a boarding school, but "a village, a community" that gives stability and grounding to "more than 500 immigrant, disadvantaged and at-risk children and youth from 20 countries around the world."

Here's the 5 minute program, hosted by Matthew Bell. (Download MP3)



The Youth Choir is on Tour right now. Here's a link to their tour schedule, which includes LA, NYC, Atlanta, and Philadelphia.

Here's a video of the choir singing a medley. If you enjoy it and can't make it to a show, consider clicking through to the YouTube page and making a donation.



There are a number of additional videos about Yemin Orde on Youtube, including "Yemin Orde Youth Village" a 10 minute clip from the PBS documentary "The Visionaries."

Cafe Noah - Aljazeera writes about Jewish music

So this is a first. I get ideas for blog posts from a lot of different sources..today's comes from an article and video on the English website of Aljazeera, the Arabic language news network. The article and video are part of Aljazeera's "Witnesss" television program which (if I undrstand correctly) produces short tv length bio-pics of interesting Arabs around the word. It's most recent episode is "Cafe Noah: Cultural exile in Israel. A reminiscence of a by-gone era for a group of Jewish Arab musicians and their struggle to keep their music alive."

Cafe Noah is a 1996 documentary by Israeli film maker Duki Dror. It's available through Amazon (I just ordered a copy) in a double set with Dror's film Taqasim, which was "shot in the streets of Cairo, is a voyage to the hidden treasures of Arabic music and to the participation of Jewish musicians." The Amazon description of Cafe Noah isn't as heavy handed as Aljazeera's and doesn't talk about the Jewish Arab musician's "cultural exile," instead describing Cafe Noah as "the Jewish musicians from Baghdad and Cairo have immigrated to Israel. They were masters in Arabic music, but their music was not valued in the new homeland." But the idea is the same. Israel in the 1950's and 1960's valued European influences over Arab and home-grown pioneer songs over either Ashkenazi or Jewish-Arab (mizrachi) folk music. It wasn't until the rise of pop Mizrachi music (described as "Central Bus Station Music" in Amy Horowitz's excellent book "Mediterranean Israel Music") that Jewish music with Arabic origins began to play a more prominent role in the Israeli music scene.

Here's the full Algazeera video. It paints a fascinating picture of the end of an era of Jewish Arab music.

Cafe Noah: Cultural exile in Israel


It's important to note, though, that while it was an end of an era the resurgence of Mizrachi music in the pop arena has helped a resurgence of interest in Mizrachi music in other areas. Since 2000 Israel has hosted the International Oud Festival and a wide variety of Israeli musicians ranging from traditional folk to progressive metal bands have explored the sound.

As an added treat, Aljazeera put a video up on YouTube of a performance of "The Cafe Noah band" including Abraham Slaman (Kanun), Albert Elias (Flute), Felix Mizrachi (violin), Ezra Barhum (Oud).

Shana Tova, Amazing Grace, and Adi Cohen

Apropos of yesterday's post about Jewish gospel, this video surfaced this morning on one of my mailing lists. It's Israeli vocalist Adi Cohen singing the song Shana Tova to the tune of the gospel classic Amazing Grace.

שנה טובה