$7 Cover. Free Can!!Can merch with entry

Visit www.cancanband.com to hear more from Atlanta’s favorite Talmud art punks.

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Tonight in Atlanta, a pairing we didn’t really expect to see: British author Nick Hornby will read, and Can!!Can, fronted by Jewcy contributor Patrick Aleph, will rock.

Hornby is on the road after a brief stint supporting the record that the scribe and the songsmith worked on together, Lonely Avenue.  But tonight he will read from his book, Juliet Naked, and will play songs from his iPod. Can!!Can will supply their southern fried punk, and either scare the crap out of Hornby, or make a fan out of him.

Either way, I had to ask Patrick his thoughts on Hornby, Ben Folds, and the whole situation going on in the ATL.

The post Will Nick Hornby Write a Musical About PunkTorah? appeared first on Jewcy.

In a chat room attached to their temporary cyber sanctuary the friends talked about what they wanted the synagogue to look like, feel like, and how they wanted to be represented as a community. They knew they wanted, more than anything, for the world to know that you can have a Jewish community on the internet that is just as good as any JCC or million-dollar synagogue down the street.

So they did what any reasonable group would do: they started an IndieGoGo page to raise money to make their shul happen.

Stay tuned for details as they happen…

The post How To Start An Online Synagogue: Part I appeared first on Jewcy.

Wait…no music? No way dude. I’m not into it. This "Three Weeks" thing isn’t my scene.

It’s not that I’m irreligious. Hardly. I probably read the Torah and Talmud every day. It’s an occupational hazard of working for PunkTorah. My problem really stems from the faulty logic that surrounds The Three Weeks.

I really hate the idea of Tradition-Becomes-Law, and clearly that’s what The Three Weeks are about. Prohibitions about what kinds of prayers you can say, kinds of meat you can eat, how hot your bath water should be…these are all made up by rabbis just to torture you. These cultural traditions get codified over time, which is odd given that the G-d explicitly says not to add or take away anything from the Torah (Deut. 4:2, 12:32). Since I’m not Ashkenazic (or Sephardic, for that matter) I have a hard time believing that I should follow the laws of a culture I do not belong to, especially if they are passed off as law when they clearly are not.

Secondly, I don’t think that the Jews being scattered through the Diaspora is worth three weeks without your ipod. I’m of the opinion that Jews are in the Diaspora because G-d wants us to "take it to the streets", as you might say. For me, the Temple is a metaphor for hiding, of locking ourselves away from the rest of the world. Now it’s time to leave the Temple-in-our-minds-and-hearts and be with other nations, so that we can share our values and wisdom with the world, as well as learn from others. I don’t think this is an idea worth mourning; I think it’s worth honoring.

I’ll go to a Tisha B’Av service. I’ll be a part of community. I’ll reflect on what it means to be a people without a Temple. I’ll do all of it, because I love it and I live it. But, in the world of Charelton Heston, I’ll give you my ipod when you take it out of my "cold, dead hands." And he was Moses, so it doesn’t get more legit than that.

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It’s not that I’m attractive, really. It’s the fact that I wear kippot almost everywhere I go, including indie rock shows, treif restaurants, and all the other places you don’t expect to see a dude in a yarmulke. Women dig it.

And not the frummie girls my buddy Heshy Fried writes about. No, these are totally secular Jewish girls. Their Judaism is a last name and a kugel recipe, that’s it! But they see that yarmulke and it’s girl-boner-time.

I think it’s because I live in the South. When I’m in NY or LA, no one gives a shit. But if you’re in the Bible Belt, a yarmulke is a weird status symbol, like, "hey guys I’m waaay more Jewish than you can stand. Please tell me your thoughts on Israel and ask me if I know that kid you went to middle school with." What these straight girls like about it, I think, is that you’re putting yourself out there. That takes balls…and I think people appreciate that.

Just my two sense. You probably shouldn’t wear kippah JUST so you can meet women, but if you can glorify G-d and get some dates out of it, then so much the better.

Side note: I’m getting married, so I can’t really do this experiment anymore. But if there are single guys out there, or even better, some awesome G-dly lesbians who want to test out this kippot-for-phone-numbers thing, please do so. I’d love to know your results.

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I’m surrounded by a group of middle aged Jews, trying to explain my rock band Can!!Can…and trying my hardest not to cuss or fuck up or look like an idiot. Because the easiest way to stump a musician is to ask them what their music is like. Try it some time. It’s hilarious.

"My lyrics draw heavily from my sense of Jewish spirituality, like the Rastafarians with reggae. And since I’m the singer, it comes out a lot. But our music is really just heavy rock, like Queens of the Stone Age, The Cramps, stuff like that."

I might as well have whipped out my dick and helicoptered them. This conversation is totally pointless.

They don’t know what to say to me. Jewish music falls under four categories for them: Debbie Friedman, their parents Klezmer records, the Carlebach family, and the soundtracks to Yenta and Fiddler on the Roof. Maybe a fifth category too, the one that takes contemporary music, pours Mel Brooks love-shmaltz all over it, and becomes a Jewish self parody of the cool music.

The truth is, I’ve never liked that stuff. It’s not authentic to me.

The things in the Jewish tradition that are dark and weird…that’s my area. While everyone is celebrating the victory of Hanukah, I’m thinking about all the Hellenistic Jews that got murdered. My favorite midrashim (Jewish legends) are about Aaron’s sons being burned to death and Abraham smashing his father’s idols, then giving him a "fuck you" answer when asked about it.

It’s makes for great music. On my band’s upcoming album, I unintentionally tackled several of these issues including:

-The Nephilim, who I think don’t get enough air-play in Jewish dialogue

-Meeting G-d at the Mishkan as an allegory for getting laid (inspired by Girls In Trouble, interestingly enough)

-Revering rabbis like golden calves

-And Ha-Satan, the persecutor

Is that Jewish enough for you?

But more importantly, I live in the world. So while, yes, I do write "Jewish" lyrics, to the extent that spirituality is a huge part of my life, for every "Jewish" thing in my music, you’re going to hear more Universal things: love, life, paranoia, drug abuse, surrealism, adventure, sex, prophetic dreams, our culture of victimhood, and false heroism.

And to me, these Universal ideas, are just as Jewish as anything else. If you don’t believe me, read the Torah, you’ll find tons of it.

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I imagine that the siddur is a mix tape of lamentations to G-d. And with that in mind, I tried to craft a playlist that, for me, would be the equivalent of a morning prayer service (Shacharit). Here’s my best shot:

Here Comes Your Man – The Pixies 

The perfect song to start off your audio davening, the chorus "here comes your man" is like a blessing before study, leading you with its pop sweetness onto the stronger stuff, like an audio gateway drug. 

G-d Only Knows – The Beach Boys

"G-d only knows what I’d be without you" is an amazing line that captures yearning and the essence of the morning blessings. 

Heartbeats – The Knife 

The daily sacrifice is found in Orthodox siddurim, and a song by a band called The Knife only seems appropriate when dealing with issues of animal slaughter. Plus, I couldn’t think of a good metal transition from The Beach Boys…but I’m open to suggestions. 

Lips Like Sugar – Echo and the Bunnymen 

A darkwave song that reminds me of Psalm 30, since the psalm is about turning "mourning to dancing" and that’s about as goth as it gets (or maybe it would be more goth if it turned dancing into mourning?) 

Breed – Nirvana 

And speaking of mourning, Breed by Nirvana is my mourner’s kaddish. You’d think this kaddish would have reference to the dead or something dark (like Echo and the Bunnymen) but remember that Mourner’s Kaddish as a prayer never actually talks about the dead. Nirvana is so iconic (as is this kaddish in the Jewish prayer ritual) that I can’t help but put the two together.

Hellelujah – Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen is the musical equivalent of the Shema.

I Was A Desert – Girls In Trouble

The Amidah, for me, is like a roller coaster. I start off with a slow build with the "Elohei Avraham, Sarai, Yitzak, etc. etc." then go full steam with the chest striking. That’s what this song is like for me: layer after layer of guitars and percussion adding up to the explosion of "I was a desert until I learned to make the sky rain down on me."

La Serena – DeLeon

Kaddish is one of those things where the element of group prayer really comes together. Since I like singing this song to myself in the car, it’s close enough to congregational prayer.

Modern Love – David Bowie

I think I would end my audio morning service with an Aleinu from David Bowie, especially since this song says "modern love puts my trust in G-d and Man" and Deuteronomy 4 talks about the idea of G-d being G-d alone…a similar, powerful statement.

And now for the Tehilim, the Psalms that you study after the service. For me, these are the songs that on their own don’t do it for me, but in this combo, really give me that extra boost…like a sonic cup of coffee.

Salvation – The Cranberries

Oh Lord – The Brian Jonestown Massacre

All Women Are Bad – The Cramps

Your Mangled Heart – The Gossip

Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division

That Great Love Sound – The Raveonettes

Samson – Regina Spektor

Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley

Kool Thing – Sonic Youth 

The World’s A Mess, It’s In My Kiss – X 

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I sit in my synagogue looking at this thing. Granted, it’s Reconstructionist, which is like the Socialist Manifesto of Judaism, but it’s still boring and antiquated. There’s only so many ways you can Crunchy up Shema and Amidah before you look like a nut job.

But then I lucked out. While eating hamburgers with my friend Michael, he stunned me with this idea: write your own siddur.

So we did it Yeshiva style. I came over to his house where we sat and studied every movement’s siddur, including two Orthodox versions. And this is what we came up with…

The Pocket Siddur

-65 pages of traditional prayers, poeticaly (not literaly) translated to English

-Kabbalat Shabbat and Havdallah in English with Hebrew transliteration

-Additional brachot (blessings)

-Egalitarian, but not gender neutral. References to G-d as "Him" and "She", Adonai and Shechinah, are used instead

-LGBT friendly, by taking out references to "husband" or "wife" in prayers such as the Woman of Valor. A prayer called Happy Is The Man acts as a counter balance to Woman of Valor

Our non-profit PunkTorah (501c3 pending) is dedicated to independent Jewish spirituality. So we sell them as a fundraising tool through our friends at ModernTribe. Or you can download a copy on our website.

If you want to write your own siddur, here’s a few tips:

-Write with a friend. Learning should always been done with a group, because you never know what amazing things will come up.

-Don’t be afraid to say how you feel. We felt like the language that turns G-d into an "it" was sad. At the same time, we felt their was poetry in the feminine and masculine aspects of g-dliness.

-Share it with the world. Jews are often afraid to share their spirituality. Break down those bariers. 

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I’m not going to get into the particulars about who St. Patrick was. Bottom line: he was a Catholic missionary who went to Ireland and converted the natives. That simple. It’s goy.

Like most great things in America, this holiday came from immigration. After the Great Potato Famine, Irish immigrants flooded the United States seeking better opportunities. They were met with strife: a Protestant nation that considered itself settled that did not want any more people "polluting" its shores. Yet, they came, and integrated into society. Eventually, their cultural practices blended with other cultures in the key metropolitan immigrant cities, and became normalized. As people left these large cities for smaller cities and towns to escape overcrowding and to find better opportunities, they took this Americanized Irish identity with them. Over time, people found themselves attracted to their culture and eventually we got the St. Patty’s Day that we have today.

The Jews, like all other religious cultures that survived the Axial Age, are really good at adapting to the world that surrounds them and integrating other cultures’ ideas to meet their needs. The Purim story is a great example. This tale of survival is most likely an adaptation of the Babylonian story of Ishtar (Esther) and Marduk (Mordechai). Most of what we call "Jewish food" is really "kosherized" versions of dishes that already existed in Europe and North Africa. The wearing of kippah is another folkway that found a means of expression in the Talmud and became the yarmulkes that we wear in synagogues.

Today, Jews celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, like everyone else in America, in a secular sense. Wearing green, pinning a shamrock to your chest, searching for four-leaf clovers, eating traditional Irish dishes and of course, drinking copious amounts of dark lager, are all a part of the festivities. The fact that Jews can celebrate this holiday without feeling less Jewish is what makes the holiday Jewish! 

Our survival has been based on taking what the world provides us, and making it Jewish, so that we can always have a place to be. By being active in the culture around us, but with a Jewish inflection, Jews show that we are the same as everyone else. And it’s this adaptability that makes us both attractive, and unique.

There are no "Jewish" people in the way that there are no "American" people. We aren’t one culture, one language, one race. In fact, we are a collection of cultures, languages and races. But we fuse these elements together, each of us with a different slant, to create this amazing Oneness called "Jewish". This is the same way that America made an Irish holiday a favorite past time.

Shalom, and save a beer for me!

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This IM from my friend Sarah* was strangely startling. She spent the morning before this conversation stoned off her ass. She had a stressful weekend, and she needed to relax. She got high, turned off all her electronics, and it was "the most spiritual thing [she had] done in a long time."

The best part came when Sarah told me she had a religious epiphany over fruit. "I ate an orange.  I peeled the orange and realized that it was probably the closest to G-d a food can be, because it was so protected from the rest of the world. So I said a bracha (prayer) over it."

This girl grew up in Progressive Judaism. When Sarah "does Jewish", it is to "connect with family and community and to eat." She told me that she lacked a spiritual education and bottom line, secular, non-spiritual Jews raise other secular, non-spiritual Jews. Many of these Jews, tired of their lack of "feeling" in Judaism, move onto esoteric faiths like Buddhism, or get absorbed into the atheist fold of America.

There is one group who completely shatters this idea: Baal Teshuva. Formerly secular Jews who had become religious as adults, Baallat Teshuva defy the myth that Orthodoxy is completely self generated. I recently spoke at the Jewlicious Festival, a three day Jewish learning and cultural event in Long Beach, California. I was surrounded by Jews who came from non-religious backgrounds and had embraced the difficult, yet rewarding, lifestyle of Orthodox Judaism. I admired their strong connection to spirituality, family, tradition and Jewish law. Part of me wanted to join them, to drink the Orthodox Kool-Aid and find a wife as fast as possible. It wasn’t the first time: I am happy to have several Modern Orthodox friends who have inspired me to move to the other side of the fence. Like them, I strive to be better in the eyes of G-d and to make myself holy. But I can’t bring myself to Orthodoxy, because their way simply isn’t mine. 

Instead, I propose that the Progressive Jewish Movement create some form of New Baalat Teshuva. This would be a process where people can undergo intense spiritual learning about all areas of Jewish life, from different perspectives. This would allow our Baal-Teshuva-Version-2.0 to connect with G-d and the spirituality of Judaism, undertake a stronger Jewish life, without needing to seek out the nearest Chabad house. It would also radicalize Jewish institutions. While it’s great that secular Jews work in the Jewish world and connect to Judaism in this way, it might be interesting to see what would happen if Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews believed in their mission statements, not just out of cultural bias, but out of a religious devotion to a higher power.

What would happen if the secular, non-religious Jews of today became the Alterna-Frum Jews of Tomorrow? 

*Named changed to protect the innocent

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