My rabbi cousin's view of my mixed marriage

As long as I remember, I have seen religion as something that creates barriers between people. No doubt religion has had some good consequences, such as promoting charity and encouraging ethical behavior. However, a basic fact of religion is that its adherents believe they have found the right way and everyone not following their religion is at minimum misguided and at worst sinfully wrong. This self-righteous view leads to feelings towards non-adherents ranging from sympathy to hatred. This applies even within the different Judaic groups - Chasidic, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reformed, Reconstructionist, and non-religious ethnic. An example from my personal life centered around my marriage to a non-Jew. My wedding, officiated by a reformed rabbi, happened to occur a day before the wedding of my cousin Ed, who was attending yeshiva in order to become an Orthodox rabbi. In all the excitement, I didn't notice that Ed wasn't at my wedding, and I attended his very traditional Orthodox ceremony a day later. However, over the years, it registered on me that he resented my marriage to a non-Jew and, while acting friendly toward me, ignored my wife and 2 children. I'm sure he saw it as a good thing that my marriage ended in divorce, but must have plotzed when my second marriage, several years later, was to a non-Jew as well. His apparent resentment about this seems to have created an unfortunate wedge within the family. Ed's mother and sisters (his father died a while back) have always been open and friendly to me and my family and, while religious, do not seem to harbor any resentment towards me or my family. However, Ed's position as a religious leader and the bearer of his family's rabbinical tradition casts a negative pall over the relationship between the religious and non-religious branches of the family. I feel certain that these segments of the family would be closer if not divided by religiosity. I am a strong believer in the value of family ties, and am saddened by this barrier to family harmony.

Israeli rap version of "Adon Olam"

The version of "Adon Olam" by the Moscow Male Jewish Cappella" stuck in my head for days, so I sought other versions of the song on youtube. I came across a powerful Holocaust-themed version that combines violin, rap, and modern dance. I hope you enjoy it. As I've said before, I don't think that the Holocaust should be the main pillar of anyone's Jewish identity, as we must focus on the positive aspects of Jewish history and culture. However, there's no denying that the Holocaust, by its impact on the Jewish people, is seared into our memory.

An Ethnic Jewish Event

I like a wide variety of cross-cultural events, but am quite pleased when I find an enjoyable Jewish-oriented event that doen't require religiosity. I looked over the event calendar at the Combined Jewish Philanthropies web site for something interesting to do last weekend and found a listing for a Jewish a cappella festival at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. I had never heard of Jewish a cappella. Surprisingly, I found out when I got there that it is a major phenomenom sweeping college campuses across the nation with significant Jewish enrollment. There was a large crowd of mostly college-aged people trying to get into the large auditorium where the concert was to be held. Arriving 15 minutes early, I managed to get a seat in the last row, but people kept coming in. The concert started 20 minutes late because of the continued arrival of attendees. Rows of chairs were added wherever there was room and latecomers had to stand along the walls. I estimated a crowd of about 450. The first group was called Jewish Fella A Cappella (JFA), from Brandeis University, which got tremendous cheers. However, I was somewhat disappointed in the 8-man group because I didn't hear any outstanding voices and the group did a lot of silly mugging and imitation of Motown chorus steps. The gigantic ovation they got made me wonder if they were popular because they represented the host school or if young strongly-identified Jews (religious and/or ethnic) craved some youth-oriented Jewish entertainment. The next group, Pizmon, was made up of both male and female students from Columbia, Barnard, and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. They were clearly better than JFA and used vocal artistry rather than silliness to win over the audience. However, I felt they were pretty good, but not excellent. I had the same feeling about The Shabbatones, a male/female group from the University of Pennsylvania. However, I was very pleasantly surprised by the next group, Manginah, a male/female group from Brandeis. They were truly excellent, and I left feeling good about the event. All the groups sang at least half their songs in Hebrew, and I surmised that they were Israeli popular songs. I missed the last two groups because I had to get home. They included Kaskeset of the University of Binghamton and Varsity Jews from the University of Toronto. The next day, I searched YouTube for Jewish a cappella music and came across the Moscow Male Jewish Cappella group whose version of Adon Olam totally blew me away. I hope you will view and enjoy it. My conclusion about my Jewish a cappella experience is that there's a great craving among strongly-identified Jewish young people for youth-oriented Jewish music (I guess Britney and Beyonce might not appeal to them). There's also rising Jewish art in the former Soviet Union after the fall of Communism. As an ethnic Jew, my heart feels good!