Some accomplishments in Hebrew

I have been giving directions to a number of cars that stop and roll down the window.

- That I can direct Israelis, both Guy and others, from one spot in the city to another shows that I actually live here and have ownership over it. Earlier tonight, somebody stopped right by my apartment in Katamon and asked how to get to Tel Aviv. Three lefts and straight until the city gates, if you're curious.

- In Bible class, right at the beginning of Monday's session, an Israeli woman in the back told the professor to slow down a bit. I honestly can say that I was staying up with the class.

- In philosophy on Wednesday, the teacher lamented that because there is no Hebrew translation of Levinas, he would simply summarize the points, because his "accent in English is even worse than it is in Hebrew." I raised my hand an exclaimed that I have been working on my American accent and would be happy to read.

Not as many laughs as I was looking for. Microphone wasn't on, I guess. They proceeded to ask if I was going to simultaneously translate Levinas. So much for jokes.



And with that, here are some pictures that Kuppy took from the Mosh concert. Talented photog.




Good times.



The night started with a group of bagpipers winding their way through the crowd.




Baller.



Avraham Tal (former lead signer of Shotei Hanevua, continual rockstar) performing with Mosh.



Ehud Banai, Mosh, Barry Sakharof. When the icons of Israeli rock show up to kick of your new album tour, you know you've made it.

You also know you've made it if people turn your name into an adjective.



Good concert, Kupps.

Rockstars — Israeli Music and Me

After the second song of the night, Kuppy turned to me and said “He’s a rockstar!”

By that time, Mosh Ben Ari had untied the makeshift bundle of dreads and let them down.

Sporting a black vest, a tattoo of what looks like a caricature of a scarecrow, featured prominently on his left arm, and neon guitar picks up and down the mic stand, he let loose with the band for three full hours.

I’m not going to try to define his music, in part because I don’t have that vocabulary in my arsenal. For now, let’s say rock with a kick of funk to it. See for yourself.



I received a text from Kuppy mid-day Thursday saying that Mosh was performing with Ehud Banai in Tel Aviv that night. I made a bit of a scene at the time, yelling something to the extent of “Oh my goodness, what do I do?! 150 shekels? But Mosh AND EHUD BANAI.”

Then she called. More pressure. No message.

I had made my decision, though. Just too much money. It had been a long day. Sure, if Hackit were in Israel I would just stay in T.A. But to come back that night and then to shop and cook all in one swell foop on Friday morning?

I called back.

“Sorry, Kupps. Not this time. He’ll come to Jerusalem. But I’m planning to go to the Peshutei Haam concert in a week. You want to come to that?”

“Who are they?”

“All of the singers that aren’t the lead singer from Shotei HaNevua. You know them?”

“Wait. The lead singer is going to be there tonight.”

“Avraham Tal is going to be there, too!”

And like that, I was there.

Objectively, three of the most famous music artists in Israel, and subjectively my two favorites in Mosh and Tal, plus a classic for decades on the Israeli music scene — this is after all what money is made for. As my Uncle Itz once said when I was about 8, while handing each of the cousins a bill, “It’s just paper.” And indeed, there are few things in life that I enjoy more than Israel music.

We arrived at the nine, when “doors open.” I’m learning quickly that means: “Sure you can enter the building at that time, but nobody is going to perform for another hour-ish.”

After an opening act of African-ish ethnic music, sung in a language I couldn’t identify, with various instruments which I also couldn’t recognize, and the lead singer jamming out on the xylophone, in came from the back of Hanger 11 a set of four bagpipe players, clearing the way as the wrapped through the crowd.

Located at the Tel Aviv port, in what originally must have served as a ship hanger, the venue fit thousands.

Over the course of my time this year, I’ve been to several concerts. The same is true of four years ago. And for that matter, any time I find myself here, I find a concert.

When here on Ramah Seminar in 2000 (Kevutzat Rahel, kavod), I returned home with five CD’s — Shabak Samech (Kna’an), Shabak Samech (Live in Concert), Shlomo Artzi Ahavtiya, Bari Sakharov (Simanim shel Hulsha), Reva L’Sheva.

Israeli music, in short, is no less than a fundamental part of my Jewish identity, indeed my human identity. Which has led me to think — why? I don’t particularly enjoy American music. Nor do I read poetry.

But when you put Israeli poetry to music, I latch on. I connect to the allusions that weave their way through the texts. I latch onto the Hebrew and take it with me everywhere I go. Such is the nature of the iPod generation.

During our Nivonim summer at Ramah Wisconsin (1999 — Save the best for last. We had socks), we ran an educational day-long “proyekt” for all of camp around the topic of Jewish music. We defined Jewish music as music which was written by Jews, with the underlying thesis that Jews infuse their music with their Judaism, sometimes consciously, often not.

My dad is currently working on a book on Jewish art with the same underlying thesis; at one point it had the working title of “Modern/Jewish/Art,” noting the fluidity and overlap between the terms. We’ll see how the name sticks. I should note that he also proposed that an exhibition on large prints be called “Size matters.” He was kindly reminded that this is an age of Google. The final product was called “Grand Scale.”

I found this idea best expressed by Waldo Frank, from an article he originally wrote in 1926:

"Our premise is that the classic forms of Jewish life, as they survive today in custom and in manner, are decadent. They are decadent because the Idea underneath them and nourishing them has been withdrawn from them. The imitative Jewish artist, he who is satisfied only with surfaces and effects, may be precisely the one to employ these forms for subjects. The community which looks for Jewish art with Jewish subjects will probably be exiling the very matter from which, alone, it can be nourished and can achieve self-knowledge. For the true creator begins by rejecting decadent forms, by refusing old names and labels. With his own primordial spirit he will synthesize the chaos of the world about him into forms newly created, newly valid. And if he be a Jew, and if the term Jew still has any meaning, his synthesis, unlabeled, will be the actually Jewish. If you want an instance, take the Ethics of Spinoza. It was written in Latin and by a man discarded by the Jewish church. It is, nonetheless, so far as I know, the chief aesthetic work of that age worthy to have been assimilated by a self-conscious Jewish community as Jewish art. And yet the Ethics of Spinoza with its deeply Jewish spirit could never have been written if the man had not been intellectually detached from the limitations of a Jewish past and of a “Jewish” subject.

A large portion of the creative work, inspired and supported by this ideal community of ours, will of course be nominally Jewish: it will deal perhaps with Jewish history and tradition, with the psychology of the Jews. But the deepest of that work, insofar as it is truly creative, not merely traditional, may not have the traditional Jewish mark upon it. It will be made Jewish, as was the creative work of the Prophets, when the Jewish community digests it.

This ideal community of ours will find itself creative. It will nourish the creator and be nourished by him. It will objectively observe itself in the creator’s work: the creator will objectively experience himself in the responses of his audience. And so, each of them, through their objectivity, will subjectively grow greater. The community will let the creator be himself: but not through proneness or indifference. Say rather, through an immense and passionate concern with the results: since it will know that only by keeping its hands off, by reserving judgment, by refraining from traditional defense or attack, will it eventually achieve, once more, an idea worth defending, worth living."¹

So why do I connect so much to Israeli music? Fundamental to it is my expression of who I am as a person, as a Jew. Israeli music, whether it intends to do so or not, is a primal expression of Jewish identity.

Over the past several months I have been looking for my place here. In some ways, I am in the midst of two worlds, not quite an outsider, definitely not an Israeli. At times I have found myself thinking back on a night and relishing that I was the only American in the room, which in some ways is superficial. In others it manifests my continual quest to redefine my relationship with Israel, a place I find myself year after year, yet also have a commitment to live elsewhere.

I don’t want the answers right now. Nor do they exist as such. But listening to a diminutive, fifty-year-old, Ehud Banai somehow break out with a guitar solo and sing along with Mosh Ben Ari was something else. It is a key part of this journey.

I continue to explore this land, its people, listening to others’ Jewish identities and refining my own.

By 1:30, the concert still was not over. I left early, still needing to get back to Jerusalem. But Mosh Ben Ari will come to Jerusalem, too. I won’t leave that one early.

And when an Israeli singer with dreadlocks comes to a city where I live, I haven’t missed a concert yet.


--
1. Waldo Frank, The Jew in our Day, 1944, originally published as an essay “Toward an Analysis of the Problem of the Jew” in The Menorah Journal, 1926

Good times with Israeli music

In case you are curious just how awesome (on a scale of one to awesome, of course) the concert/s were on Wed. night/Thursday morning, here are a few videos that our friends from Youtube decided to share with the world.

If videos had been invented when the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" was coined, how many words would a video be worth?


Perhaps you are familiar with Eretz Tropit Yafah?





A much better video job with HaIsh HaHu.

I love chocolate and cheesecake...

...and Israeli rock concerts.

Across Jerusalem there are postings with concert announcements. Ari recently said, "There's going to be one time when you don't stop at one of those signs."

Not sure it has happened yet.

A trip to Yam HaMelach (Dead Sea) was number on my list for the Sukkot break. So we made it happen.

Yesterday Guy, Kupps (Guy calls her Poochy), Hannah and I headed down Kevish (Route) 1 to the Dead Sea. Directions were a little fuzzy from the get-go, but there's only one road along said Dead Sea. So we headed that way.

We were pretty sure we were on the right path, but just to make sure, we pulled to the side of the highway alongside another car which had also pulled over. Turns out this van had pulled over to let a sephardi family of three males pee off the side of the highway.

So we waited for a bit.

And then asked:

Do you know if Yam HaMelach is this way?

First guy: No (shaking head)

(second guy comes to the window) Us: Do you know if Yam HaMelach is this way?

Second: Em... (No).

(third comes to the window) Us: Do you know if Yam HaMelach is this way?

Third (I'm guessing the father): (shaking head) Lo Makir (not familiar with it)

Us: B'emet. Lo makir et Yam HaMelach? (Really, you don't know of the Dead Sea?)

Third: Lo

Good times. Lo makir...

We were on our way to Nahal Zohar, the Zohar Wadi — next to the Sea, in a valley with walls stretching toward the sky.

The concert was by Yehudit Ravitz and Gidi Gov, two of the premier and classic Israeli rock stars. Chances are if you know some of the classic Israeli songs, one of them sings it.

They sang most of them. שוקולד, ארבע לפנת בוקר, הילדה הכי יפה בגן, באה מאהבה, ארץ טרופית יפה to name a select few of the 3 hour concert.

But when Gidi Gov broke out in Inyan Shel Zman, the 2003 Nivo Zimriyah song, among other things, let's just say that Hannah and Kuppy went nuts. I mean, it's a good song in its own right.

Add some emotional attachment to it and — booyakasha.

Both artists captured the audience. Talk about stage presence. Everyone around us knew the words and you better believe I sung along. I'm quite certain we were the only Americans in the audience.

None of us stood still for the whole concert.

And as we were waiting for the encore to come back on (Yehudit singing בא מאהבה, for those keeping track at home), Guy said, "So nu, we going to see if there are tickets to the other one, too?"

We had been shut out of buying tickets online to the sunrise show on Massada that night. But Kuppy and Hannah had just purchased tickets for this one at the box office.

So we headed over there, too. And what do you know — TICKETS.

We headed up on the cable car and sat on the makeshift sets of cushions set up on the southeast side of the fortress. A short nap for each of us.

And then Meir Banai and Arakadai Duchin. It was a more subdued concert for the most part.

No hopping up and down, for example.

But again, beautiful music, a clear sky, with the sun rising to our left over the Dead Sea.

I try to avoid hyperbole. But on a scale of "1 to best night of concert/s ever," this was a 102.

For pictures...