<\/p>\n
Goys<\/em> and many highly assimilated Jews<\/strong><\/span> think Yiddishe Cup plays primarily for Orthodox Jews.\u00a0 Not true.\u00a0 We play mostly for non-Orthodox Jews.<\/p>\n But we do play the occasional Orthodox Jewish gig.<\/p>\n Some of these gigs go NYC-style, fast-talking, cell-phones-beeping-everywhere frenetic.\u00a0 You’re in Israel but without the jet lag.<\/p>\n We play mostly OrthoRock<\/span> tunes at Orthodox affairs.\u00a0 OrthoRock isn’t klezmer.\u00a0 It’s rock with liturgical lyrics.\u00a0 A classic OrthoRock tune is “Moshiach” (Messiah).\u00a0 Another is “Chazak” (Strength).\u00a0 These two tunes — plus a hundred others, some of which are popular only for a month or so– are the standard OJ (Orthodox Jewish) repertoire.\u00a0 Yiddishe Cup doesn’t learn the new tunes frequently enough.\u00a0 (We don’t get many OJ gigs either.)<\/p>\n The Orthodox families who hire <\/strong><\/span>Yiddishe Cup are typically left-wing Orthodox.\u00a0 Left-wing,<\/em> here, means on the liberal end of ritual observance.\u00a0 The client might request, for instance, American rock and roll toward the end of the party.<\/p>\n Yiddishe Cup’s most right-wing gig <\/span>was for the get <\/em>(divorce decree) rabbi.\u00a0 We played a Purim tish<\/em> (table gathering) at his house.\u00a0 All black hats and beards.\u00a0 The rabbi’s drosh<\/em> (speech on a liturgical text) was in Yiddish.<\/p>\n My Conservative rabbi, when he heard about the get <\/em>gig, couldn’t believe I’d been in the get <\/em>rabbi’s house.\u00a0 He had never been in there.<\/p>\n Yiddishe Cup knows the rabbis the rabbis don’t.<\/p>\n Cleveland is large enough <\/strong><\/span>that Jewish denominations typically don’t party and pray together.\u00a0 If you want a mishmash of Jews in the same room, go to a smaller town, like Akron, Ohio. \u00a0\u00a0In Akron, the Orthodox and non-Orthodox will mix it up.\u00a0 It’s a matter of survival.\u00a0 Small numbers.\u00a0 You’ll see every kind of Jew but Jews for Jesus at an Akron Jewish gathering.<\/p>\n Musicians, take note: Don’t play<\/span> “Hava Nagila” at an Orthodox simcha<\/em> (celebration). Too goyish<\/em>. \u00a0 Nevertheless, at one Orthodox wedding, the mom’s sister repeatedly requested “Hava Nagila.”\u00a0 I said no.\u00a0 Then some yeshiva buchers<\/em> (students) from New York asked me for the song.\u00a0 I said, “Are you trying to embarrass the band?”<\/p>\n “No, we heard you’re a klezmer<\/strong><\/span> band and we’d like to hear it.”<\/p>\n The mom didn’t want it.\u00a0 Again, the mom’s sister said play it.\u00a0 Again, the buchers<\/em> said play it.\u00a0 The mom finally relented.\u00a0 We played it.<\/p>\n The buchers danced with ruach <\/em>(spirit) to the tune.\u00a0 “Hava Nagila” is originally a Hasidic nign<\/em> (wordless melody) from Hungary.\u00a0 It’s a great tune. Goys and many highly assimilated Jews think Yiddishe Cup plays primarily for Orthodox Jews.\u00a0 Not true.\u00a0 We play mostly for non-Orthodox Jews. But we do play the occasional Orthodox Jewish gig. Some of these gigs go NYC-style, fast-talking, cell-phones-beeping-everywhere frenetic.\u00a0 You’re in Israel but without the jet lag. We play mostly OrthoRock tunes at Orthodox […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shul-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8883,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions\/8883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n—-<\/span>
\n1 of 2 posts for 12\/2\/09.\u00a0 Please see the next post too.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"