Jewish Wellbeing
Here is a new piece I wrote about the Jewish roots of “Wellbeing” over at Medium: View at Medium.com
The Yedid Nefesh Project
What is the Yedid Nefesh Project? A collective of musicians who are singer/songwriters/composers who will study together and create new music that is inspired by the 15th century mystical poem known as Yedid Nefesh – “Beloved of My Soul” Who came up with this idea? This project was born from a conversation between two rabbis (Daniel Brenner and Elliot Tepperman) that happened in a Thai restaurant. The conversation was inspired, in part, by the work of Hazmana L’piyut (www.piyut.org.il) an…
Punk Rock
I was a skinny Jewish kid in Charlotte, North Carolina spazzing out in the middle of a mosh-pit at the Milestone Club as The Dead Milkmen sang about a bitchin’ Camaro. I have always loved the DIY ethos of punk and when my friend Dewar Macleod, A.K.A. the professor of punk, frontman for the beloved New Jersey punk band Thee Volatiles, asked my friend Debra Caplan and I to add a Hannukah song to his punk rock Christmas album, we were…
Nublu Classic, Brooklyn Bowl, Roulette, and The Cutting Room! – Because Jewish – High Holidays 2018
Eight years ago, the first time that I heard Jeremiah Lockwood’s band Sway Machinery play at Brooklyn Bowl, I listened to two galaxies of sound merge together in my mind for the first time. Lockwood, the grandson of a well-known cantor (Jacob Konigberg), grew up in Manhattan steeped in the traditions of Ashkenazi religious music. As a young musician he fell in love with American roots music and finger-picking guitar styles and studied under the legendary blues artist Carolina Slim…
The God of Secrets…
I had the honor of writing a rabbinic commentary for Sh’ma Now (published by The Forward) Check it out here.
I Wanna Be Sedated in Yiddish – Live at Tierney’s Tavern Montclair NJ
I’m wailing on the guitar as Deb Caplan belts out this Ramones classic – then we sing a little duet of a Joey Ramone-esque niggun and bring this song in for a soft landing.
Suker Zis!
Playing the Yiddish classic Suker Zis with Midnight Nosh. Vocals here by Deb Caplan.
A Visit to the Cedar Crest Retirement Community
I had a great time dancing with members of the Cedar Crest community. Photographer Bruce Cohen captured it beautifully…
Defending Kaplan
My friend and colleague Rabbi Steve Greenberg taught me a bit of Torah about ger and ger toshav in the late 1990s. Just as we are instructed to embrace the ger, the convert among us, and avoid shaming the ger in any way, we are also taught to embrace the ger toshav those who “dwell with us.” In particular, Steve used the example of Uriah the Hittite as someone who stood in solidarity with our people. He felt that much…