Israeli Rock Finds Religion
The New Wave Sweeping the Holy Land
By Robbie Gringras
‘I feel like a fish that spent its entire life in an aquarium and has suddenly discovered the sea,” Kobi Oz enthused, prior to going onstage with his new set, “Psalms for the Perplexed,” all of it written after several years of his “soaking in the rich marinade of Judaism.”
The excitement of Oz, former singer-songwriter of the Israeli super-band Teapacks, is now shared by artists throughout the country. The riches of Jewish culture are being plundered and exalted, thrown into rap, rock, and reggae, to the delight of a hungry audience. “Israelis are realizing that Zionism is only one chapter of the Jewish story. Now we want to enjoy the whole book,” Oz concluded gleefully.
It is not as if the language of the Bible or Talmud is foreign to secular Israelis. Notwithstanding the cruel characterization of the general populace as “Hebrew-speaking goyim,” even the most secular students study Jewish history, Bible, and Jewish thought. Yet, few imagined that this rich culture might be shared by anyone other than the strictly Orthodox. In the past few years, all of this has changed. Throughout the Israeli pop world, from the Israeli version of “American Idol,” to mainstream radio, to illegal downloads, the language, ideas and character of ancient Jewish texts are suddenly common currency. Funk rap band HaDag Nachash signed off its latest disc with an electronic adaptation of a psalm. Rock legend Meir Banai recently brought out “Hear My Voice,” which is entirely made up of adaptations of ancient piyutim (hymns) and went platinum within a month. Even the annual Children’s Song Festival features top star Shai Gabso singing, “Hey! You have a kippah on your head…” which is a bit like having Bono going to the Irish equivalent and singing about a crucifix on a T-shirt.
So what’s happening? Has secular Israel gone frum?
The answer is far more complex, fascinating and hopeful. It would seem that unexpectedly, unpredictably and in often contradictory ways, Jewish learning and literacy has become a significant part of Israeli popular culture — regardless of belief or observance.
Oz sees this blending of the traditional and the modern, of the textual and the personal, as an inspiring liberation. “As the Zionist narrative plays a lesser role in our lives, it leaves room for us to create a new model: What it is to be a Jew in the Land of Israel.” With typical mischievous Oz honesty, he sings to God, but admits “I’m not sure what to call you — Elohim, or Elokim?” His songs tell of his fears of being religiously transformed by immersing himself in a Jerusalem mikveh. “How much of this is megalomania?” he wonders, “How much is it anthropology? How much is it guilt? How much because my world is dirty?” In the end, he emerges, relieved to find himself unchanged, neither in his realism nor in his half-superstitious faith:
I get out and towel down
Where did I put my glasses?
Still feel like myself, thank God…
The story of Shuli Rand is far more dramatic. Rand left his Orthodox upbringing to become a leading stage and screen actor. After several years at the height of his career, he left acting and left the secular life for the ultra-Orthodox world. Eight years later, he returned to the screen in Haredi black garb, starring in ”Ushpizin” alongside his wife (the only woman with whom he could allow himself to act).
Last year, we discovered that the man also could sing. Rand emerged with a brand new solo musical set, “A Good Point.” A kind of Haredi Tom Waits, he strums soul-searching songs to the heavens, sings of theological debates with secular friends. His songs are not saved for the Haredi ghetto though: They are played on state radio, enjoyed by secular and religious alike. A common searching and a shared grappling with Israeliness, modernity and Judaism seems to be far more compelling and uniting than denominational definitions would have us believe.
Take a performance of Etti Ankri: Between her songs, she will tell a Hasidic story from Poland before launching into her famous midrash song about the Exodus from Egypt, full of the rhythms of her Mizrachic roots. As if this Ashkenazic-Mizrachic combination weren’t enough, Ankri stands there, picking on her guitar, swaying in a long dress and the head-covering of a religious woman, singing to a mixed audience of men and women. Religious consistency is suspended here, all separations between “kinds” of Jews dance together in the music.
While Ankri once admitted she is happiest “just singing to God,” Alma Zohar, voted Israel’s best newcomer to the music scene last year, insists she is “far more free-style.” Jewish texts are as much a part of her cultural heritage as folk and reggae. When she sings the story of her divorce in “A Second Babylonian Exile,” she refers as much to the Babylon of Marley as to the Babylon of the Talmud. Yet she is now creating in a society that hears both cultural references, both of which resonate in different directions. No one was thrown by the way the chorus of her latest single, “Know,” comes directly from Pirke Avot, Ethics of the Fathers: “My life itself makes the mix,” she explained.
It may be this very “mix” that one of Zionism’s early thinkers, Ahad Ha’am, had in mind for the nascent state. Not only did Jews need to adapt to the modern world of the Enlightenment, he suggested, but so, too, did Judaism. In mixing and smudging the secular and the religious, East and West, the Hebrew language and top artists, it could be that the Israeli music scene is finally beginning to play a new Jewish melody.
Robbie Gringras is the artist-in-residence at Makom. He blogs at www.makom.haaretz.com.
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Israeli culture is simply filled with texts from the Jewish sources. Sometimes, an entire song will be from the Tanakh or the siddur, and sometimes the content of a song will be a Biblical story. It's not a new phenomenon. The poetry of modern Israel always has some allusion to the ancient traditions. Just for an example, "Jerusalem of Gold" by Naomi Shemer (1967) gets its name from the Rabbi Akiva story in the Talmud. Of course the secret of Israel's Jewish cultural depth is the Hebrew language. "Hebrew speaking goyim" is obviously nonsense. A native Hebrew speaker has a clear Jewish identity and a clear connection with the Jewish past. Everyone quotes from the Tanakh or the Mishna effortlessly - this is the cultural point of reference of the whole society - and no one would say that this is a rich culture to be shared only with the strictly Orthodox (as was claimed in the article).
The Diaspora communities should finally come to the obvious conclusion that teaching Hebrew seriously and successfully is the very key to Jewish continuity. It was so heart-warming to see the new immigrants from Yemen this week speaking in Hebrew on arrival in Israel. A very poor Jewish community of just 400 souls lives in a reality in which every male reads and understands Hebrew. It is simply self-evident. In America, with a rich organized Jewish community, it is simply self-evident that Hebrew literacy is beyond expectation.
"...in which every male reads and understands Hebrew."
And the Yemeni WOMEN -- what is their reality?
More to the point of the story -- what's reported may be the Israeli version of somewhat similar fusions underway in (young) U.S. scene. Maybe some hope for communication between them, even with language barrier on the English-only side.
Esthermiriam - The Jews in Yemen are a traditional society, and the girls are not given an education (they are illiterate). My point was that even a poor and weak Jewish society has the ability to provide Hebrew literacy, generation after generation, as a self-evident fact of life (albeit just for the boys). Sadly, a wealthy and very large American Jewish community that prides itself as an educated public is Hebraicly illiterate (girls and boys, young and old).
The point of the story was that the Hebrew culture of Israel is taking a turn towards "frum". I believe that this is not a correct reading of the cultural reality of modern Israel. Since Hebrew is the medium of our culture, it has always been common to use ancient texts or tradition symbolisms in public or cultural expressiveness. That's the power of language - it maintains a sense continuity of the very same culture that had created that very language. Hence, Hebraic success in America would also be the very tool needed in the struggle for Jewish continuity there. I know that it's not going to happen in America - but my example of the poor population of Yemenite Jewry was meant to demonstrate that it is possible to do as a self-evident fact of life, even as a small minority.
> Israeli Rock Finds Religion
Hmmm.. Does Orthodox Judaism finds the israeli rock too?
I enjoy very much listening to beautiful soulful songs.
May we Jews unite in our Jewish heritage, and may peace come to the land soon
For years, Israelis, especially younger ones, identified themselves solely as Israeli and pretended that the Jewish aspect was irrelevant. They were lazy nationalists, no different from anyone born in a country and thus given a prefabricated identity. This was the great Zionist dream was it not, to have "our own country and be just like everyone else"?
For some time there's been a growing born-again, ba'al t'shuva movement amongst Israeli Jews. This follows in the well-trodden footsteps of diaspora Jews spending the summer with Aish haTorah in Jerusalem and being told how desperately important it is that they don't "marry out".
Israel, a small, young, insecure and quite insular country, has a habit of following trends that are already well-established elsewhere. Music, fashion, feminism etc. etc.
Now we are told that Israeli musicians are coming over all religious. Well, pardon me for yawning.
Secular Western audiences now look to pop/rock music and concerts as their way to fill the god-sized hole created by secularism and consumerism. They might go to a Coldplay concert and feel all tingly-spiritual when the essentially bland lyrics of Fix You come wafting over the loved-up crowd. Or they might hear yet another version of Hallelujah and get that all-important effortless high.
Hallelujah, of course, is the creation of an essentially secular diaspora Jew who has milked his own religious confusion for all its worth. His mainly non-Jewish audience fools itself that it is having a religious experience at his concerts. Much the same could be said of bob Zimmerman, the confused Jew mistaken for a prophet (see article elsewhere in this edition of The Forward).
So welcome little Israel, Johnie-Come-Lately yet again, to the global secular faux-religious love-in. Have a groovy time but don't expect to find any answers from what is essentially light relief, froth.
It's a sideshow, not the main event.
In summary: I respect Israel when she leads, not when she follows.
Ditto Jews in general. In order to fix the world, we must first fix ourselves, which means looking inward to our spiritual heritage and working out what is expected of us as a Jewish whole. It doesn't mean selling the family silver for some hollow secular fame and then having our own image fed back to us through non-Jewish eyes.
Good article. Clearly Israel is an intense incubator for Jewish experimentation whether it is derivative, new ground, spiritual, pop, social justice, etc. Though the music is very soda pop adn not based on Jewish texts I also like the Noa and Mira Awad collaboration, "There Must Be Another Way." A Jewish cultural and intercultural revival is also happening for Jews in other countries. To say, as grass-is-always-greener does, that this is a sideshow is to miss the point of cultural evolution and its ability to strengthen peoplehood. And the Jewish cultural evolution does that whether in Israel, Hungary, Argentina, or the U.S.
personage above: "intercultural" ... "revival" ... "evolution" ... "peoplehood" ...
You gotta love the lofty lingo.
Which "people" is in your 'hood ? What exactly are you hoping to revive ? Intercultural has become such a meaningless, bland cliche ... what does it mean? A melting pot? A multicultural melange?
Jews in the US, Hungary, Argentina etc. are not reviving anything, they're simply consuming ... they are first and foremost consumers at the all-you-can-eat buffet of "multicultural world culture". Since it is hollow marketing, this is no food for the soul, it will never fill them up.
Stuff that is Jooish is just one ingredient with which to stuff your face before muttering muted thanks to the great lord of consumerism and returning to more important things ... like shopping and web 2.0 browsing !
Amen to that !
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