Hearing (& Blowing) Shofar

As you could guess that with a blog called Teruah, I have a soft spot for all things related to shofar blowing. Not that I can do it myself, mind you. So I was delighted to get an email from Michael Chusid, author of the book "Hearing Shofar: The Still Small Voice of the Ram’s Horn" and it's companion website HearingShofar.com. Chusid "blows his shofar in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California where he is ba’al tekiah – shofar master blaster – at Makom Ohr Shalom Synagogue.... [and] has taught shofar at the American Jewish University, Hebrew Union College, and Limmud in Los Angeles, California." The book, which is free for download (donation's accepted), is a 3 volume text ranging from religious discussion of "Blast, Break, Shatter, Blast: The blessings, the calls, and the code" to technical "Secrets of an Awesome Tekiah Gedolah" to anthropological "Iconography and Iconolatry: The visual symbolism of horns in Judaism" and psychological "Sometimes a Shofar is Just a Shofar: Psychological perspectives" explorations. I haven't had a chance to flip the the book yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

In addition to the text of the book, HearingShofar.com includes links to other Shofar related resources including Cantor Art Finkle's "Shofar Sounder's Reference Manual" and information on how to start a "Shofar Corps." The only thing missing are instructional videos or audio clips, though those can be found easily enough on YouTube.

Girls In Trouble

I was reading over Matthue Roth's "Jewish Music Lyrics: The Best of 2009 over on My Jewish Learning this morning. As to be expected, it's a great list though not quite what I would have put together. Maybe I'll do one of my own. The big surprise was that I had entirely missed one of the artists on Roth's list. I don't mean I didn't blog about it. I mean I had missed the band altogether. And they're fantastic. I'm slipping.

The band that caught me off guard is "Girls in Trouble," a new project by Alicia Jo Rabins of the punk-klezmer band Golem. In addition to loving the theatrical folk-pop music, I'm blown away by the lyrical depth of the project. For the Girls in Trouble oeuvre, Rabins took on nothing less than the neglected and often misunderstood stories of women in the Torah. Particularly ones in crisis. While I haven't heard the whole album through yet (I just downloaded from eMusic), the tracks on the Girls in Trouble myspace page captivating. They put the listener right into the, typically traumatic, experience from the female protagonists point of view. It's a wonderful and insightful strategy. I have a feeling this disk will be in rotation for a while.

The sound quality on the video isn't up to the studio quality tracks you can hear on their MySpace page, but it's a great introduction. Here's Girls in Trouble at their JDub album release party at Public Assembly in Brooklyn 11/11/09.

Girls in Trouble "Mountain"

Melava Malkah - Escorting the Queen in Jerusalem with Song

Shabbat Shalom, everyone.

Instead of a 'get in the Shabbat grove' video this week, I've got a great recording to share. I got pointed to it from an article on the Melava Malka meal that I was sent by Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen. With his permission, I'm reposting the entire article below. In addition to being an interesting article, it points to a full 2 hour recording of a kumzitz (post-Shabbat sing-along) led by Rav Shmuel Brazil, of Zeev HaTorah in Jerusalem, and musician Abish Brodt. If you've never participated in a kumzitz (as I haven't) this is a rare treat.

Here's a quick-link to the web-page with the recording... http://www.zeevhatorah.org/content/kumzitz-abish-brodt

Here's the explanatory article.

Escorting the Queen in Jerusalem with Song:

Dear Friends,

Our beloved Shabbos is also known as “the Shabbos Queen.” For example, the Talmud states that Rabbi Chaninah would welcome the approaching Shabbos by saying, “Come, let us go and greet the Shabbos Queen” (Shabbos 119a).

When the Shabbos Queen departs on Saturday night, and the weekday begins, we have a special meal which is known as the Melava Malkah – the Escorting of the Queen. This meal, which includes words of Torah, is often accompanied by singing and dancing.

Although Shabbos has departed, we are comforted by the awareness that Shabbos will return to us; moreover, through the Melava Malkah celebration, we bring some of the Shabbos holiness into the week. In this spirit, I have attached a link to a recording of a beautiful musical Melava Malkah with two noted sages of song, Abish Brodt and Rav Shmuel Brazil. This musical Melava Malkah took place at Rav Shmuel’s new yeshiva, Zeev HaTorah, in Jerusalem.

The singing at this Jerusalem Melava Malkah serves as a reminder that the sacred singing of our people is a form of dovening – praying. May these prayerful songs from Jerusalem bring us closer to the day when the following Divine promise will be fulfilled:

“They will neither injure nor destroy in all of My sacred mountain; for the earth will be filled with knowledge of Hashem as water covering the sea bed.” (Isaiah 11:9)

May we be blessed with the light, joy, and shalom of Shabbos.

Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen (See below)


1. The following is a link to the recording of the Jerusalem Melava Malkah:

http://www.zeevhatorah.org/content/kumzitz-abish-brodt (Click on the left arrow.)

2. The following is a translation of the first three songs on the recording:

Song 1: These words are chanted upon awakening in the morning: “I gratefully thank You, O living and eternal Sovereign, for You have returned my soul within me with compassion – abundant is Your faithfulness.”

Song 2: These words are chanted during the weekday morning prayers: “O Guardian of Israel, protect the remnant of Israel; let not Israel be destroyed – those who proclaim, Hear O Israel.”

Song 3: These biblical quotes are chanted during the weekday morning prayers: “For sovereignty belongs to Hashem, and He rules the nations.” (Psalm 22:29)

“Then Hashem will One and His Name will be One!” (Zechariah 14:19)

Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen is a Torah educator who lives in Jerusalem, and he teaches Torah through the e-mail study program and website, "Hazon - Our Universal Vision." During the late 1970's and early 80's, he served as the director of the Martin Steinberg Center of the American Jewish Congress - a center for Jewish artists in the performing, visual, and literary arts, where he was known by his English name, Jeff Oboler. During that period, the Martin Steinberg Center had an important role in the revival of Klezmer and Ladino music.

Anyone who wishes to join his mailing list can contact him at:
chazon8 @ 012.net.il

http://www.shemayisrael.com/publicat/hazon

Thanks Yosef!

Christmas Time for the Jews

To all my Christian friends, Merry Christmas.

To all my Jewish family and friends...it will all be over in a few more hours. At least for another year.

This year's Christmas season has been amusing. The whole "famous Christmas song written by Jew" observation, which gets brought up every year, has turned a bit ugly this year. In addition to the usual slew of articles "The Jews Who Wrote Christmas Songs" (this one sent to me by my buddy Meghan) and twitter tweets ("The famous Christmas song written by a Jewish songwriter that ended the Vietnam War"), some Christians have gotten a bit grumpy. Garrison Keeler was very public in his scorn. He blames Jewish songwriters for a general decline in the religious content in Christmas music. Sigh. I guess we're to blame for the general decline in religious Christianity in the US too, right? Oh, and we conspired to make sure that the zillion and three Christian written Christmas songs turned out crappy. Whew. That took a lot work.

Anyway, we're done for another year. As one last bit of amusement with the whole thing, here's Saturday Night Live's "Christmas Time for the Jews." Cliched as you'd expect, but funny none the less...

End Posthumous Conversion - Another musical response to Senator Hatch

As I mentioned on Tuesday (Conan O'Brian (and Jewschool's) response to Senator Hatch's Chanukah Song) and last week (Chanukah music: A response to Jeffery Goldberg & Senator Orin Hatch), there's been a lot of buzz around Senator Hatch's Chanukah song. While most commentary has been positive or a little bemused, there has been some negative remarks. For example, here's a comment I got on Facebook...

"The Mormons have terrible history of being ant-Semitic. Even in modern times, they have proven themselves to be a group of people that want nothing more than to convert Jews to Mormonism. Twice since WWII, Mormons have been caught trying to convert the Jews that had died at the hands of the Nazis. I so wish this was not true, but the most recent occurrence of this bit of doing happened in and around 1996 or 1997. Sorry Orin Hatch, I do not trust you. http://www.avotaynu.com/mormon.htm"

This being a music blog, I was delighted when my friend Binyomin Gizberg, of JewishMusician.com and the Breslov Bar Band followed up on this thought with a musical response.....

"We covered Senator Hatch's song at our Chanuka concert @ Banjo Jim's. I wrote an additional verse for it. Hey, if Sen. Hatch can write a song telling Jews how to celebrate Hanukkah, then it's fair for me to write a verse telling Mormons to stop posthumously baptizing Jews who died in the Holocaust."

The 3rd verse:

The Macabees fought many years ago
for the right to observe our religion.
Today we fight the Mormon Church
saying: "end posthumous conversion!"

Senator Hatch, tell your church
to do what's just and right.
Let our dead rest in peace!
(and remember why Macabees fight!)"

So there.

Conan O'Brian (and Jewschool's) response to Senator Hatch's Chanukah Song

One of the biggest bits of internet buzz this Chanukah season was Senator Orin Hatch's Chanukah song. (See my post from last week.) The buzz hit prime time last week when Conan O'Brian and his The Tonight Show gang played a clip and then sang a song that was supposed to celebrate of Church of Latter Day Saints founder Joseph Smith's birthday, but mostly, humorously, pointed out how little they knew about Mormons. The song, which which mixed melodies of Driedel and Maoz Tzur, was a gift from Max Weinberg, Tonight Show band leader and the show's only Jew.

According to recent a JTA article, the idea for the song actually came from everyone's favorite progressive left Jewish blog, JewSchool. "Larry Yudelson posted a query to his fellow Jewschool.com contributors wondering if “there are any special Mormon holidays for which we can return the favor?” In response, Jewschool managing editor Alana Suskin mused, “Wouldn’t it be off the charts funny to do a [Jewschool] holiday song for Mormons?" They knocked around some lyrics online and then "occasional Jewschool contributor and full-time “Tonight Show” writer Rob Kutner recognized a funny idea when he saw one."

Their song is funny and terrible (both on purpose) , unlike Sen. Hatch's which is mostly funny and terrible by accident.

Hey Regina, Barth's your biggest fan

So I get a fair amount of email & comments on the blog, but sometimes I get caught of guard. Recently I got in a exchange in comments section of a blog post I wrote about Regina Spektor (Regina Spektor sings Eli, Eli). The rather testy commenter, Barth, interpreted my post as not being properly appreciative of Spektor's expressions of Jewish religion and identity. Which was perplexing, because I thought the point of my post was to be appreciative. Oh well. Guess I wasn't clear enough.

So...I hereby announce

1. Ms. Spektor is an admirable example of Jewish religion and identity in contemporary pop music
2. If I somehow implied anything other than that in my post or made any factual errors, shame on me.

Ok Barth, are we square now?

Trimming out the bits where he beats up on me, Barth had a few thoughts on Spektor that are worth sharing. (The other bits you can read for yourself if you care too.)

"Regina---an American citizen today because of antisemitism in her native Russia (then part of the USSR)---presents a very Jewish point of view in quite a bit of her music. She is not proselytizing, of course, but her experiences, attending Hebrew day schools, hiking through Israel as well as her family's departure and settling in with the Jewish communities in the Bronx--define much of her work.

Laughing With is the most direct expression of this. When I first heard it, the song stunned me into writing this: http://edsbarth.blogspot.com/2009/06/regina-spektor.html

and, I have written about her both as a Jew and and songwriter/performer several times.

Her "Ink Stains", an assault against holocaust deniers rendered a Radio City audience into virtual silence a few months ago as discussed here: http://edsbarth.blogspot.com/2009/10/regina-at-radio-city.html

and the You Tube of her singing it to an audience in Amsterdam after she attended to the Anne Frank memorial is, I think, quite moving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mArmSi2JaM

If songs like these or that talk about "falling into faith" or "why we fight" when facing mortal illness are not part of the NFTY catalogue or something sung while dancing the hora, it is because they were written in the past ten years, and not because they are not "Jewish music" at least from where I sit.

To close this off, here's the Spektor song Laughing With that Barth mentioned.

Chanukah Chanukah by the PS22 Chorus

The PS 22 elementary school chorus, of Staten Island, NY, has been featured on NPR, Nightline and MTV and have sung with pro's including Stevie Nicks and (my celebrity crush) Tori Amos. Every year they do a phenomenal Chanukah song. I was pretty proud of my daughter's 2nd grade class busting out "Oh Chanukah," but this is something else entirely...

PS22 Chorus "CHANUKAH CHANUKAH" Hebrew Traditional

Also check out their 2008 version of Maoz Tzur. For more info about their adventures, check out their blog.

Menorah Mashup: Crazy Chanukah Mixes & Mashups

What better way to continue the, evidently quixotic, quest for new Chanukah music than on a mashup mix tape. DJ BD is a well known DJ and mashup artist with a number of well regarded mixtapes. He, along with DJ Flack, FAROFF, voicedude, and ATOM, recently put out a great little compilation of Chanukah craziness. I've previously blogged his "House of Pain vs Klezmer" video. As with all such compilations, it's an uneven set but it's got a few gems (including the FAROFF's previously mentioned "House of Klezmer" remix). Great fun.

As fair warning, these mixes contain some "strong language" and aren't particularly respectful of artist copyright, though DJ BD cheeful lists his ingredients as follows "Frank Yankovic and His Yanks, Gwen Stefani, House Of Pain, Frank Zappa, Amsterdam Klezmer Band, Pa Brapad, several iterations of The Dreidel Song, several iterations of Hava Nagila, South Park, a dash of Chingy, Adam Sandler, The Star Trek Theme, Van Halen, James Caan, Charlton Heston, Fonzie, Sarah Silverman, Trio, Three Weissmen, Craig and Co, Alan Sherman, Pudie Tadow, and two seconds of Black Eyed Peas."

Voicedude's "Dreidel All The Way"

Hat Tip the Boing Boing blog

Yidcore does Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song

It's easy for the dedicated Jewish music fan (meaning me) to be snarky about Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song. It's got nothing to do with Chanukah other than name checking a bunch of Hollywood Jews in bad rhyme. It's famous because Sandler was famous and was able to sing it on national TV. I could go on, but let's face it. It's a great song, simple, funny, with a radio friendly structure and memorable lyric that really resonates with the audience. And that's a real accomplishment, one that defeats a lot of earnest songwriters.

I often argue (as I did in my last post) that there is a lot of great Chanukah music out there, I need to admint that Sandler's song is one of them. Not only is it well known across the Jewish and wider American community, it has quickly been covered and adapted by a variety of other musicians. And that is pretty much the definition of a classic.

Here's one of those covers...the Aussie band Yidcore, who've upped the tempo and swapped out Hollywood actors for Jewish punks.

Punk Rock Chanukah Song

If that wasn't enough for you, check out Neil Diamond's cover (and BJ & Nate of the 108's and Pheobe's).

UPDATE: I should mention that I've seen a lot of "Chanukah Song" action on Twitter this week. Here's a typical example "Busker in Govt Center T-stop singing the happy Hannukah song abt who is Jewish & not."

Hat tip to Michael Croland, of the Heeb'n'vegan blog, for pointing me to the Yidcore video.