Does Matisyahu dislike Jewish musicians?  That was my suspicion recently when I saw an ad for the singer’s Festival of Light performances in New York City, which started on December 10 and continue (with breaks for Shabbos) until December 20. Inventively, Matisyahu has a different opening act on each of the eight performances: Glitch Mob, John Brown’s Body, Dub Trio, Brothers Past, Rana, Kid Koala, Travis McCoy, and Kevin Devine, a mixture of reggae bands, rappers, and earnest singer/songwriters.

All of these acts–with the exception of McCoy, who is the singer in Gym Class Heroes and also works with Fall Out Boy, Cobra Starship and Pink, and dated Katy Perry–are relative outsiders in the music business, lacking the headliner’s major-label support or platinum sales. And also, none of these acts is Jewish, as far as can be easily ascertained.   Matisyahu is in a unique position: He’s not the biggest Jewish musician in the world, but he is certainly the biggest Jewish-identified musician in the last 50 years. We might divine Jewish sentiments or perspectives in Paul Simon’s music, or recognize the Jewish references in Leonard Cohen’s songs, but those are only facets of the performers’ fully-assimilated identities. Matisyahu’s musical identity begins with his Jewishness: He performs using a Hebrew name (a variation on his birth name, Matthew Miller) and both lives and performs as a Hasid, wearing traditional garb and declining to perform on Friday nights, when many musicians can command their largest fees. Financially, being in a band and not performing on Friday nights is kind of like owning a bar and closing it on Friday nights. As recently as ten years ago, "Jewish music" usually meant ancient prayers set to homespun melodies and sung earnestly, accompanied by finger-picked guitar. It was about as fun as Hebrew school. Then came our current Jewish Musical Renaissance, with bands mixing klezmer, rock, jazz, punk, and cabaret, and adding witty or provocative lyrics in the tongue of the diaspora. (Some of this music is recorded and released by JDub Records, the label that issued Matisyahu’s first three albums; JDub also now owns Jewcy.) Anyone who has been paying attention could have recommended some of these bands to Matisyahu, who would have found excellent, well-suited opening acts among them. Let’s not forget the specific circumstances here: This is the most commercially preeminent Jewish artist of our era celebrating a Jewish holiday in the very-Jewish Manhattan and Brooklyn, without any Jewish opening acts. Maybe an analogy will help illustrate my dismay: It’s as if Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye, at the height of black consciousness in, say, 1969, had gone on tour with Simon & Garfunkel opening the shows. And now it’s time for a little full disclosure. I need to admit than I am not an uninterested observer: I am a Jewish musician. Challenging Matisyahu on this issue exposes me to charges of envy, which I freely admit. I wish my band, Good For the Jews, were opening one of the Festival of Light shows. As Maimonides so often said, "Duh!" I don’t think there’s a Jewish musician in New York, or beyond, who wouldn’t envy the gig, which would expose us to more people in one night than we could normally reach in a week of touring. On Christmas night, 2003, before he’d released an album, Matisyahu opened for my band at the Knitting Factory, a pairing that in retrospect seems as upside down as the 1967 tour that had Jimi Hendrix opening for the Monkees. Our entirely secular audience, which could never have imagined a Hasid singing reggae, went crazy for his performance. During Hanukkah, many Jews will light their menorah using the shamash, the tallest candle. Over those same eight nights, Matisyahu could have been like a shamash, using his bright flame to create light for other Jewish musicians around him. I phoned his publicist and asked about the Festival of Light shows. She told me there will be Jewish surprise guests, whose participation could not be announced in advance. By then, reflection had turned my dismay into a philosophical inquiry: Does a Jewish musician have any obligation or directive, whether moral or religious or historical, to include other Jewish acts on tour? I’m no scholar, but I think it’s safe to say that Torah and Talmud are equally silent on the question of rock concerts, so I wanted to discuss the question with Matisyahu, who often grapples with how to be both a rock star and a Hasid; he even keeps his rabbi on speed dial, the publicist told me, for circumstances such as these. I emailed the philosophical inquiry to the singer, who did not reply. So maybe I asked the wrong question. To me, as a secular Jew, Matisyahu and I aren’t completely dissimilar: His Jewishness is a multiple of mine. But to him, as to other Hasids, my Jewishness may be a negation of theirs. I see Judaism as a continuum with a limitless number of unique positions (I have ten friends each with ten different customized rules about what trayf they will eat, and when), but other Jews see Judaism as binary. You are, because you keep kosher and obey Sabbath rules; or you don’t, and you are not. In this case, when considering an opening act, my claim to being Jewish would not persuade Matisyahu — to him, I might be as equally non-Jewish as Travis McCoy. Except that unlike McCoy, I’m a shonde, because I’m the descendant of a Jewish tradition I don’t sustain. In my ten years as a Jewish musician, I’ve learned this: There is nothing a Jew hates as much as another Jew with a different opinion. (This is why conspiracy theories can be so comical when referring to "the Jews" as a monolith; do these crackpots believe the ADL and J Street are in league together? Have they ever watched a session of the Knesset? By the end of the day, we’re too exhausted from criticizing one another to actually conspire on anything.) On a Jewish Music message board frequented by fans of frum singers such as Yaakov Shwekey and Mendy Wald, one participant sniffed, "Matisyahu is just a commercial performer who uses his Chassidic identity as a hook to attract audiences." The secular perspective is one of acceptance — Judaism isn’t determined by matrilineal observance or whether you have two separate sets of dishware, but, as with sexuality or gender, by how you identify. This view is antithetical to Hasidim, for whom remaining observant requires second-by-second vigilance.  But Matisyahu is a pretty unusual Hasid, beyond the obvious reasons. Raised as a reconstructionist Jew, he became a Baal Teshuva and embraced the Lubavitch sect, which he recently left because he felt they were too restrictive, explaining, "the more I’m learning about other types of Jews, I don’t want to exclude myself. I felt boxed in." He may have left to skirt reprimands from Hasidic rabbis who criticized him for, among other things, performing for non-Jews. I suspect that Matisyahu isn’t so far removed from my idea of Judaism as something mutable, rather than something static. The sages say–oh, who am I kidding, I have no idea what the sages say. But if Matisyahu can, in defiance of orthodox Orthodoxy, perform for and with Jews and non-Jews alike, he can probably extend his idea of unity to include secular Jews as well.

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The Birchmere in D.C. was the penultimate stop on the Good For The Jews thirteen city "Putting The Ha! In Hanukkah" tour of major metropolises with substantial Jewish populations. The tour ends Sunday night, December 23, at the HighLine Ballroom in New York, with a hometown bash that also includes sets by Dave Attell, the LeeVees, Todd Barry, and Rachel Feinstein. Not since the Sickle Cell Anemia Telethon of 1975 have this many funny Jews gathered on one stage.

We sold 675 tickets at the Birchmere for our two weekend shows. Yes, we perform on Shabbos. Which means it isn't only Nazis who criticize us:

"Just curious," someone named Rochelle wrote to us this week. "How do you guys rationalize/explain performing/working on Friday nights?" A classic Jewish question— feigned innocence, stuffed with judgment and condescension. I explained that we are Jews who choose not to keep Shabbos, and that we offer other Jews the choice of whether or not to see our show on a Friday night. We are pro-choice. That's an explanation, Rochelle; the notion of rationalization presupposes that there are unacceptable ways to practice religion, and that is a description of fundamentalism. Sit on a dreidel and rotate.

The Jews' biggest critics are other Jews. It's a syndrome I call "Jew-on-Jew violence." Orthodox Jews look down on Conservative Jews, for not being observant enough. Conservative Jews look down on Reform Jews, for not being pious enough. And Reform Jews look down on Orthodox Jews, for not showering enough. I think that's unique to our tribe. Does one Presbyterian feel superior to another Presbyterian? Is there infighting among Methodists? Probably not.

Here's another recent email, from Stan Meyer, who makes a point of quickly establishing his religion: "Of all the bigoted hate-filled songs coming out of a fellow Jew's mouth." Stan is objecting to our song "Jews For Jesus," a small piece of mockery conceived around this couplet: "Jews For Jesus, the phrase is pure deceit/It's like being a vegetarian for meat." Although David Fagin and I are not observant Jews, at least we don't worship Jesus. So there are Jews even we can look down on. And Stan Meyer objects to the way we mock Jews For Jesus. "This religiously inspired hate-filled language is as bad as the rhetoric of Al Queda," he tells us.

Admittedly, I don't spend a lot of time on the Al-Jazeera site. But I'm guessing that whatever propaganda they compose about Jews and the decadent west is a lot less satirical than what we say about Jews For Jesus: "You offer me a pamphlet, I decline/I'd rather jam a broom up your behind." Likening a cheap song to Al Queda solicitations of martyrdom is pretty facile hyperbole. If Stan Meyer isn't a Jew For Jesus, then he's a synagogue hall monitor writing detention citations for Jews whose blue Stars of David aren't affixed straight.

Look, Good For The Jews gets plenty of adoration, too. The word hilarious comes up a lot in newspaper articles as we go from town to town. You can read about the show we played in Portland, Oregon, by going to the fantastic chick-on-chick blog Girl Gone Child, and I hope I'm not linking from this blog to that one only because the writer kvells about my wit and charm, and one commenter declares "OMG Rob is hawt and Good For The Jews' little ditty 'It's Good To Be A Jew At Christmas' made my panties explode."

Even better than the rave reviews, even better than being called hawt, better even than signing Andy's forehead was an email we got the morning after our first concert in D.C. It came from Camille, whose last name I'll omit for obvious reasons: "I saw your show at the Birchmere last night and it was HILARIOUS. It was an amazing show. [Additional compliments deleted for the sake of brevity.] Unfortunately, my friend's mom made us leave. I am a twelve year old Christian, and if you can make me laugh when your main target is Jews in their twenties and thirties, you're hitting a pretty wide audience."

Teaching twelve year old Christians how to say shvantz and fehrkakt and Shabbos goy, and how to think differently from parents, seems like a pretty worthy use of a Friday night. Spin that dreidel, Rochelle.

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So we went outside to find a surly, nervous man holding a sign that said "I WANT YOU TO DIE FOR ISRAEL." He'd spelled the S with a swastika. I asked him if he was affiliated with any group. "Yeah," he growled. "I'm a Nazi. And you can publish that." Sure, I knew Nazis existed, but I never expected to see one up close. It was like standing in front of the Great Wall of China, or the Mona Lisa – it's startling, no matter how many times you've seen the image, to confront the real thing, in three dimensions. His sign had small plastic skulls dangling from the top, and he was dressed as Uncle Sam, in a red, white and blue hat, though in truth he looked more like Apollo Creed. He cooperatively posed for pictures, even when I asked him to raise his arm a little higher.

The Nazi identified himself as Joe Webb, a retired corrections officer in his 60s, and he told us he'd been looking for movie listings in the newspaper—he wanted to see No Country For Old Men—when he read an article about Good For The Jews. Since the film would still be playing after we'd left town, he put on his best patriotic costume, Xeroxed some pamphlets and came down to the Tenderloin to protest the worldwide Jewish conspiracy. If there is one, how do I join? I'd like to be staying in nicer hotels. "I bet you'd like to punch me in the face," he said to me. "Yeah, that sounds pretty good," I agreed.

Soon, a squad car pulled up outside the club – summoned by Mr. Webb himself, who insisted the police a) protect his First Amendment right to protest, and b) arrest me for threatening to assault him. The two officers—a woman of color and a man I'm pretty certain was gay—were not sympathetic to his cause.

My friend who grew up in San Francisco, and is the daughter of two Auschwitz survivors, says that when her family went to Jewish events in the early 1970s, there was often a small group of Nazis outside, jeering at the Jews. San Francisco is famous for its permissiveness, so I guess it's a good place for a Nazi to live. The weather's better than Idaho or Montana, and there are lots of freelance Web designers to help you build your white-pride web site.

The Tenderloin is home to every group Nazis revile, and pretty soon, Mr. Webb was being heckled and jeered by blacks, gays, Asians and even a few trannies. Another police car arrived, then a few more, until there were five cruisers with their red lights running. One of the club's security men, a half-black guy in cargo shorts, tossed his cigarette butt into Mr. Webb's burlap bag. By the way, the San Francisco Weekly reported this story on their blog, adding, "Nazis give the best PR."

Our Nazi's pamphlet listed sixteen things he'd dubbed "NOT GOOD FOR THE JEWS," beginning with "Jewish behavior" and "Shiksas who figure it out" and moving on to "5 million Palestinians who want their land back" and "Jewish ownership and/or domination of almost all the media." The name of our band, he wrote, typified "the Jewish categorical imperative," as well as Jewish racism. "How is that old Jewish sense of humor doing?" he asked at the end. "Are you laughing yet?"

And no, I wasn't laughing. Any Jew, when confronted with a Nazi, is going to feel a mixture of fear and rage. I was wondering how many other people also thought six million dead Jews wasn't enough. The police insisted he remove the plastic skulls, which kept hitting pedestrians as he marched in front of the building. He tried to pull off the string that attached the skulls to the sign, but couldn't do it. "Officer, can I borrow a knife?" he asked. "Unfortunately, sir, I'm not allowed to hand a weapon to a civilian," the cop said. "Especially not a civilian who's a Nazi," I added.

Right about then, the cigarette butt did its work, and his burlap bag began to smoke. He complained to the officers, emptied his bag onto the cement and began beating the bag to put out the spark. The Jews who'd come outside to gape at him laughed, and then, en massed, we went back inside the club, relieved that this particular Nazi posed no imminent danger. In fact, he'd kind of unified everyone there: As comedians say, our show killed.

Tour scorecard

Cities we've played: Cleveland, Milwaukee, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco Cities still to come: Denver (The Soiled Dove), Orlando (The Social), Boca Raton (NY Comedy Club), Baltimore (Recher Theater), Washington, D.C. (Birchmere) and New York (Highline Ballroom).

[Read the entire Good for the Jews Tour Diary here.]

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[Read the entire Good for the Jews Tour Diary here.]

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Tour Scorecard Shows we’ve played: Cleveland. Shows still to come: Milwaukee, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Orlando, Boca Raton, Baltimore, D.C., New York.

[Read the entire Good for the Jews Tour Diary here.]

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Fourteen shows and fifteen sets in thirteen cities over eighteen nights. That's the exciting way I'll be spending Hanukkah and Christmas, on tour with my band, Good For The Jews. All thirteen cities have been carefully chosen for their large populations of Jews. Even, in the case of Boca Raton, if those populations are mostly close to death.

By the way, "band" is a grandiose phrase to use here. Good For The Jews is me, Rob Tannenbaum, and David Fagin. We both sing, David plays guitar. (I tried to learn once; I didn't care for the calluses.) I do the P.R., David books the travel; I keep track of the merchandise, David drives. He wears driving gloves in the car and usually drives too fast. When we planned the tour, we budgeted for five speeding tickets.

We are, however, proudly, the greatest Jewish music-comedy duo in the land. For a long time, it was difficult to explain what we do onstage. "You sing? But you also tell jokes?" Yes. So we'd describe ourselves as a cross between Simon & Garfunkel and Martin & Lewis. BLANK STARES. Then we'd say we were like Tenacious D, but thinner and without a movie deal. BLANK STARES. Now, we just say we're like Flight Of The Conchords, but without the cute accents or the HBO deal.

We have songs about the holidays ("It's Good To Be A Jew At Christmas," "They Tried To Kill Us, We Survived, Let's Eat"), songs about visiting the parents ("Going Down To Boca"), songs about being Bar Mitzvahed ("Today I Am A Man"), songs about people we like ("Hot Jewish Chicks") and also people we don't like ("Jews For Jesus").

This tour, these thirteen cities in eighteen days: Okay, it's not Sherman's March to the Sea (which transpired at roughly the same time of year, though Savannah has a nicer climate in December than Milwaukee does), or Stalin's winter offensive (no one will be firing Panzerfausts at us, not even in Milwaukee). But that's a lot of rental cars, a lot of airline connections, many opportunities for things to go wrong. We play L.A. on December 14th (our agent, Morey, says there are many Jews in L.A.), then the next morning we fly to Denver for a show on the 15th. Think there might be some snow on the ground in Colorado, delaying our flight? The risk with rock tours isn't that they turn into This Is Spinal Tap—that would be great. The risk is that they turn into Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Mentioning Spinal Tap reminds me of the scene where Harry Shearer shouts "Hello, Cleveland!" while the band is in Chicago. Funny, because it's true. (Though not as funny as when Tony Hendra, the band's manager, says, "Do you know what I do? I prise the rent out of the local Hebrews." Also true.) We can't be the 800th band to shout "Hello, Cleveland" when the tour starts there on Thursday night. What are the alternatives? "Shalom, Cleveland"? "Hello, Shaker Heights"?

I've got a little O.C.D., so packing for the tour has taken a lot of time: eighteen pairs of boxers, eighteen pairs of socks, some road flares, a tourniquet, warm gloves, a mosquito net, Purell, Iodine tablets, a rectal thermometer, some Mebendazole. Touring means meeting people, and meeting people means germs. Taking $20 bills from them when they gratefully buy your CD. Shaking their hands when they thank you for an amazing 80 minutes of entertainment. Deep-kissing them while they complain about their lousy experiences on J-Date. And germs, of course, mean influenza, which can really spoil a tour.

I realize how many home comforts I'm leaving behind. I'll miss my wi-fi connectivity. I'll miss having the Times delivered every morning. I'll miss my memory foam mattress and contoured pillow. I'll miss my Toto Washlet C100. I'll miss my warm-mist humidifier, which doesn't fit into my carry-on luggage. Life on tour can be very unsatisfying, as anyone who's listened to an Allman Brothers song already knows. As I await my car service to LaGuardia, I have in mind the words of Leonard Cohen, who said that Jews are "the professionals in suffering." He also wrote these lines: "Is there anything emptier / than the drawer where/ you used to store your opium?" I'm hoping for more opium, less suffering.

List of Tour Dates 12/06, Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland OH 12/08, Miramar Theatre, Milwaukee WI 12/09, Double Door, Chicago IL 12/10, Triple Door, Seattle WA 12/11, Doug Fir Lounge, Portland OR 12/12, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco CA 12/14, Knitting Factory, Los Angeles CA 12/15, Soiled Dove, Denver CO 12/17, The Social, Orlando FL 12/18, New York Comedy Club, Boca Raton, FL 12/20, Recher Theatre, Baltimore MD 12/21, Birchmere Theatre, Washington DC 12/22, Birchmere Theatre 12/23, Highline Ballroom, New York NY

[Read the entire Good for the Jews Tour Diary here.]

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