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Of Matisyahu, Larry David and their [dis]connection to Israel

Just by chance, I’ve been interviewing quite a few American Jewish artistic types in the last couple of weeks – as disparate as Elan Attias, the vocalist for the late Bob Marley’s band The Wailers, iconoclast Brooklyn acoustic rocker Adam Green, Orthodox reggae rapper Matisyahu, and Seinfeld/Curb Your Enthusiasm icon Larry David.

It’s always interesting to learn how the American Jewish experience end up informing their views on Judaism – and Israel. For the 25-year-old, California-raised Attias, having an Israeli father was the key. He used to spend summers with his dad’s family in Kiryat Malachi, and liked it so much that he would lie to his parents about coming home and end up staying another month or two.

“One year, I did the Gadna military program – my Israeli friends said, ‘are you crazy, you’re volunteering?’ But I loved everything about being in Israel,” he told me.

It was also during his summers in Israel in the late 1980s that Attias – nicknamed the Young Lion – first grew to love reggae music, travelling every weekend to the Soweto Club in Tel Aviv.

“I was only 12 or 13 but I used to get on a bus in Kiryat Malachi by myself and go to Tel Aviv to the reggae clubs,” said Atias. “They had this DJ spinning the records, an Arab guy who loved the music but had no idea who he was playing, so they would ask me to announce the songs, and I’d hang out in the DJ booth all night long.”

Matisyahu also has a teenage Israel story which proved to be a life-changing experience. As a secular New York 16-year-old, he spent a semester in Israel at the Alexander Muss High School in Hod Hasharon.

“I remember one moment. They took us up to Mount Scopus around sunset to look at the Old City. For the first time, I got all emotional, and swept up in the idea of me being part of the Jewish people. Until then, it was a minor component of my identity, but it began to raise my awareness of the history and ancestry and rich background that I had. It was overwhelming,” he said, adding that it took a few years until Matisyahu became an Observant Jew and changed his name from Mathhew Miller.

These days, Matisyahu, who performed this week twice in Israel, spends a month here over the holidays every year.

Contrast the Attias and Matisyahu experiences with those of Adam Green and Larry David, born 30 years apart. David, who grew up ‘very Reform’ in Sheepshead Bay, New York, ended his Jewish experience after his bar mitzvah.

Since we were speaking a couple days after Rosh Hashana, I asked David how his holiday was, and he replied, “Uneventful.”

You don’t go to services on Rosh Hashana, I asked, treading dangerously close to a Larry David moment.

“Nah. I used to go to when I was married, that was part of my marriage arrangement, but it isn’t anymore,” he laughed.

Neither is Israel, apparently. When I asked if David had ever visited the homeland of the Jewish people, he answered, “No, I have no particular interest. Naturally, I want Israel to prosper and survive, but I’m not active in my support.”

Thirty years after David’s assimilation, a similar thing occurred to Adam Green, the quirky Brooklyn folkie, who as a member of The Moldy Peaches in 2001, co-wrote “Anyone Else But You,” the cloyingly charming song sung by the main characters in the 2007 indie sleeper hit film Juno.

Growing up in Mount Kisco, New York, he also was bar mitzvahed, but today, “I’m an atheist. I’m not at all observant now, what’s the point?” he said, adding, “I hope it’s not too late to make my first trip to Israel.”

Perhaps that’s the question all of American Jewry should be asking.

Inglourious Basterds strikes a chord in Israel

I finally got a chance to go to the movies on Saturday night in Jerusalem and see Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. I’ve been troubled ever since.

It’s not that I didn’t immensely enjoy the over-the-top Tarantino blood and dialogue trademark and the standout performances by Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz as ‘The Jew Hunter.’ I could even turn a blind eye to the Holocaust revisionism for the sake of comic book adventure heroic Jews who give Hitler and company what they deserve.

What proved most unsettling, more than the scalpings and crushed skulls via baseball bats, was the audience reaction at the screening. A good percentage of the sold-out crowd consisted of teenage Israelis and young American, religious students apparently studying here for a year.

Whenever another Nazi got his just reward, the crowd broke out in lustly cheers as if Alex Rodriguez had just hit another one out of the park. I know they’re heartless Nazis, but I felt like I was at a Kach rally.

On the one hand, it was liberating to be the avengers of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis, but on the other hand, maybe we shouldn’t have been so happy about it.

It turns out that my colleague Dina Kraft over at The Faster Times related to the same issue in her much better post .

It is this ingrained Holocaust consciousness that colors Israelis’ alternating repulsion, delight, and fascination with the movie hailed abroad as “Kosher Porn,” a fantastical universe of Jewish revenge on the Nazis. It’s been playing to packed theatres and in some cities seats need to be ordered at least a day in advance. The audiences heartily cheer, clap and laugh through their cinematic ride with a band of Nazi-scalping U.S. Jewish soldiers alongside the accompanying parallel plot of a beautiful, blond Jewess plotting her final revenge.

Kraft quoted some of the viewers walking out of the screening, who had differing opinions on what they had just seen.

It was a pale, shaken-looking Erez Makovy, 31, who emerged from a darkened 500-seat theatre, filled to capacity. The crowd had gone silent watching the carnage climax in which the Nazi leadership is devoured by flames and automatic gunfire. But it broke into loud applause when Brad Pitt’s swash-buckling U.S. lieutenant character carved what became a trademark swastika into the forehead of the S.S. officer who serves as the film’s villain in chief.

“The movie left me with a bitter taste in my mouth,” said Makovy, a musician who was disturbed by the audiences’ cheers.

His friend, Itai Zangi, 27, a music producer, however, was among the laugh-out-loud, clapping masses. “It’s nice to be on the winning side, for once. I liked that he (Tarantino) turned things totally upside down.”

Nearby, also contemplating the experience, was Hila Schuman, a 32-year-old biologist. “It’s a bit too over-the-top. For Israelis, it’s hard to take a story out of the context we know so well. So we’re left asking: Is this a parody? Is it serious? … Or is this just what revenge would look like on LSD.”

As the film goes to DVD in the coming months, more Israelis will be able to ponder the same questions.

Autumn Nights in the Old City

There’s nothing like a Jerusalem night. After a hot day, it cools down but not so much that you’re shivering. That’s one reason the city is sponsoring its free “Fall Nights in the Old City” festival now until October 26 – it’s a way to get out and have some shirtsleeve fun while exploring the city’s historic Jewish Quarter.

Last night’s show was the Marsh Dondurma band – a motley crew of 15 brass musicians playing traditional ethnic music from around the world with a heavy emphasis on jazz, klezmer, funk and a smattering of pop too (I’m pretty sure I heard snippets of “Rock Around the Clock”).

The band includes trumpets, trombones, clarinets, saxophone, and assorted percussion instruments.

There’s no way to leave a Marsh Dondurma concert without a huge grin on your face. The music is infectious and the band members seem to be having such a good time on stage. And when do you ever get to see a dancing tuba player rocking out at close range.

The setting was spectacular – the Gan Hatekuma amphitheater set along an ancient wall not from the Western Wall itself. The audience was as eclectic as the performers – religious, secular, Jerusalemites and Tel Avivi’s with their shaved heads and small round glasses.

We were sitting right up front when some of the band’s fanboys started dancing right in front of us. Such chutzpah, we thought, to block everyone’s view like that. But when the bandleader exhorted the crowd to get up and boogie, we figured if you can’t beat them, join them.

Before long, a good portion of the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds, was grooving up front.

Marsh Dondurma has played all over Israel as well as at the Guca Trumpet Festival in Serbia (2006), The Montreal Jazz Festival (2007), and at venues in New York and Croatia. The clip above is from their Montreal performance.

You can catch more music from the band on their MySpace page.

The next show at Gan HaTekuma will be klezmer kings Oy Division on October 12. The full schedule is here.

Hoping for a home run

It’s October, and in Israel that means many things – lots of holidays for one, as we’re heading into Succot and building up to Simchat Torah next week.

But for some Israelis, October in Israel also means lack of sleep, and a reshaping of priorities. That’s because the Major League Baseball playoffs are here! And things like families and careers need to take a back seat for a while.

That’s because unlike the prime time atmosphere in which the games are actually taking place, here, they’re on TV beginning anywhere from 1 am to 4 am, which means they could end after the sun comes up. For baseball diehards, that means alot of bleary-eyed mornings, and angry remarks from employers and wives.

Of course, as a Boston Red Sox fan, there’s a silver lining to the inevitable sad ending to their 2009 season. My life takeover and sleep deprivation won’t probably last as long as fans of those teams who are likely to end up in championship series or the World Series. Take that, Yankees fans.

Still, I’ll be ready to root for the team that back ended into the playoffs, winning the wild card slot by losing six games in a row. As anybody who’s witnessed modern day Israel can attest, miracles still occur.

Shake your Gazan lulav

The upcoming holiday of Succot is providing an offbeat oppportunity for some actual mutual benefits between Israelis and Gazans.

During the Succot celebration, three species are wrapped together in a waving ritual: the ‘hadas’ (myrtle), the ‘aravah’ (willow) and the ‘lulav’ (date palm frond), which are held together with the ‘etrog’ (citron).

Because Israel doesn’t grown enough of the lulavim, they’ve regularly imported them from Egypt. However, due to a cartel there, the prices have skyrocketed, and Israel has found an unlikely source of affordable lulavs – Gaza.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has signed orders lifting the Gaza blockade to enable the lulav to be imported for the holiday which begins on Friday. The request to import the branches came from the religious affairs ministry, which fears a local shortage as well as the high Egyptian prices could lead to people being unable to afford them.

However, Nehemia Rappel, head of the religious kibbutz movement, called this week for Israelis to buy only Israeli-made lulavs. According to reports, Israelis are expected to purchase approximately 600,000 lulavs in advance of the holiday; with prices will range from seven to 67 shekels.

The next test is whether we begin importing sufganiyot (jelly donuts) from Gaza on Hannuka.

 

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