JDub Records

Two weeks ago, I attended my Zayde’s funeral. I’ve written about him before, but Zayde was a simple and pious man.  He was notorious for his fiery personality, witty one-liners, and an impeccable attention to detail which he incorporated into his life stories.  Snippets from those last few months of stories are now branded family folklore: fighting for his right to be a Sabbath-observant hospital orderly; the possibility that we may have a long-lost relative in Argentina; the time he punched out a ranking army officer for saying Hitler should have “finished the job.” And then there’s the one that I was around for: At a recent family bar mitzvah, Zayde, a cantor for many years, was getting irritated. During the mussaf service, a pretty standard revue of centuries-old Shabbat prayer melodies, Zayde, hard of hearing in his old age, angrily turned to us and shouted, “Who chose these nigunim [melodies]? It sounds like an Irish wake!” Turns out it was our cousin, the bar mitzvah boy.  Classic :~)

In memory of Zayde, who loved Jewish music, here’s a Jewish-Yemenite melody for havdalah that actually does sound a little like an Irish wake. Yehi Zichro Baruch.

Yadav Emuna-Siach Sarfei Kodesh

**2009-2010: FREE year of non-denominational text study at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, ages 21-30. Ride out the recession while wrestling with history. Details here.

3:11AM, Jerusalem–D’OH. Well, greetings from the holy city. Purim is on its way, and I’m looking forward to getting my relig’ on in J-lem. Aside from the pop mitzvah of getting crunked & costumed, there are many other commandments associated with this holiday: reading megillat Esther, giving gifts to the poor, sharing food with friends. So far, so good. But there’s one commandment that the post-modern Jew may have hangups about. And it’s loosely related to the song, performed by my elementary school choir, & the picture above. Read More »