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August 30, 2007: 6:00 pm: AdministratorBlog

Welcome to J-ARTS, the Jewish Artists Regional Touring Service. Our goal is to help arrange contemporary Jewish performances in your community. J-ARTS is a talent broker, not a talent agency; our clients are synagogues, Federations, Hillels, schools, camps and other organizations and institutions. We have extensive relationships with artists that we can leverage to meet your organization’s needs, and that is our first priority.

As experienced Jewish music presenters, we’re here to serve you with our knowledge and experience. We know what its like to put on these events and can provide practical advice, not a sales pitch. To serve the needs of your organization and tastes of your community, we work with a broad array of artists across a number of genres. We don’t push a specific artist on you; we provide options that can fit your programmatic and budgetary parameters.

To peruse the artists we work with, click on the Musical Acts button to the right and browse our roster by genre. Our aim is to your community stage a great event, be it a concert program, fundraiser, melava malka, Israel celebration, Bar Mitzvah or family Simcha.

October 17, 2006: 7:50 pm: AdministratorBlog

Bereishit Bara…

Simchat Torah has just passed, and as we restart the cycle of reading the Torah, its worth noting something about the way our primary Jewish text begins. “B’reishit bara elokim et hashamyim v’et haaretz.” In the beginning, G-d created the heavens (waters) and the earth. But How curious that Hebrew grammer places the word for created, ‘bara,’ second… A more direct translation in the correct order emphasizes the creation act: “In the beginning, created…”

The first thing in the most sacred text in the world is creativity. In the tzim tzum of the ‘beginning’ came the ideation, the notion of nations, of imagining everything from clouds to the human genome. We marvel at everything that came next, which is a fascinating study of form and technique. But the real breakthough was the creative act, and HaShem the artist.

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September 28, 2006: 2:21 am: AdministratorBlog

Oyhoo’s expert opinions

We have just returned from New York, where very exciting things are happening. I was there speaking at Last week’s Sidney Krum Conference, which explored the state of cultural and the arts in American Jewish life. I attended dozens of Jewish performances as part of the 3rd annual Oyhoo! New York Jewish Hertiage and Music Festival.I also sat in on the NFJC’s conference to veiled the findings of important its study on the link between Jewish Arts Events and Young Adults. Tee New York UJA-Federation has just unveilved a $1 milliion investment in an exciting incubator for Jewish artists living in NYC. These are vibrant times for Jewish arts and culture, especially if you live in New York City.

Most of us, however, do not. And we sometimes feel left out on the trends or unaware of them at all. As presenters, educators, clergy members, institutional leaders and foremost as cheerleaders and grass-roots organizer of this “stiff-necked people,” our attentions are already stretched by budget reviews, board meetings, and endless demands by our constituents. We’ve got to stay hip with the times, too?

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September 21, 2006: 8:18 pm: AdministratorBlog

Shanah Tovah!

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May 31, 2006: 11:51 pm: AdministratorBlog

Shavuot- Celebrate good times, come on!

Moadim L’Simcha! Thursday at sundown begins Shavuot, the celebration of the gift of Torah at Mt. Sinai. It is a time of learning, of dedication to study and the consumption of cheesecake! Shavuot is also inextricably tied to another holiday- Simchat Torah. Why two Torah-centric holidays? Both are seasons of Joy, but the manner of celebration for each is different. (more…)

May 10, 2006: 9:09 pm: AdministratorBlog

Parshat Kedoshim: Blue Fringes, rock music and outreach

Last Shabbat, we read Parshat Kedoshim, which explained the mitzvah of Tzitzit. As an English-speaker, the common translation of Tzitzit into “fringes” leads me to explore their contemporary implications of both the word and idea. Traditionally, the knotted fringes remind us of the 613 mitzvot and the four corners of the tallit on which they’re placed can represent the lands from which our people will return from exile. I’ve come to think of tallit as a wearable reminder of the impefection of life and the world around us.

Each of its fringes is a mitzvah yet to be woven into it, thus completing it, and the gathering of those fringes together from the four corners of our Tallit symbolically express hope for the gathering of exiles and redemption. Its a nice additional layer of meaning.

But with a State and modern transportation and communication, the nature of our exile has changed. Our Diaspora is now by and large spiritual, and our exiles those mentally distanced from Jewish life, for whom Jewishness is not at the center of their lives, but appropriately, on the fringes. We see them on the streets, at coffee shops and a couple times a year and on High Holidays. But we wish they were walking into and playing an active role in our institutions, not avoiding them. Each Jew is like a thread; hundreds of them woven together by the warp and woof of our heritage create the strong fabric of our communities, like a Tallit.

Its fitting then that tzitzit are not the decorative, but the functional element, for it follows that on some level, our institutions exist to reach out to those on the fringes, a garment that is home for hundreds of loose threads! Let’s gather our fringes and make our communal garment whole again, starting with those whose connection to Judaism is so often “hanging by a thread.” We like to do that with music, especially a style of music that they’re already listening to. And since we’re on the topic of Tzitzit, its only appropriate that this week J-ARTS is featuring hot Jewish rock band Blue Fringe.

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May 1, 2006: 7:50 pm: AdministratorBlog

Musical Ingathering of Yom Haatzmaut

During the season around Israeli Independence Day, we love to listen to our brothers and sisters from Israel and catch an earful of Sabra sounds. Israeli artists visiting our Diaspora communities provide wonderful opportunities to celebrate our homeland and teach its undeniable importance to our people. But Israeli performers aren’t the sole means of sonic solidarity; the message of Isreal sometimes is best expressed by someone going TO the land, to live there as part of the Zionist dream.

American artists who make that decision, to leave exilic comforts to live in Eretz Yisrael, have unique experiences. Generally, they are steeped in Jewish culture, have active spiritual lives and are by nature, both verbally and artistically expressive. Their creativity is like a conduit, both feeding off the land and the people of Israel and reinvigorating it.

If we as Jews perform a Mitzvah by living in the Promised Land, these artists perform double duty through their craft. Their residence is a mitzvah, but when combined with their creativity, it is in some way Hiddur Mitzvah, a beautification of the mitzvah. Their songs, stories and art are often a more expressive and effective window to the Land of Israel than any rally or speaker could ever hope to acheive. They let us explore our own connections to Israel, our notions about exile and thus learn about ourselves.

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April 24, 2006: 9:08 pm: AdministratorBlog

Parshat Shemini: Young Jews Playing with Strange Fire.

In Parshat Shemini, while Aaron concerns himself with his Priestly vestments, his sons, Nadav and Abihu, bring “Aish Zara,” strange fire, to HaShem’s alter and meet a fiery fate. The Torah is vague about the nature of the fire, and there is even debate over the exact sin- or if they sinned at all. We modern Jews rarely fear such literal divine retribution. After all, in the Rabbinic age without the Beit HaMikdash, public sacrifices and burnt offerings are unfamiliar. For us, it is instead our inner spiritual fire that counts.

All the more reason the story of Aaron’s sons Nadav and Abihu is an allegory for our own young people. As Jews, they are by nature spritual people, each with the spark of Yiddishkeit within them. Some say we must gather these sparks, but Shmini seems to tell us to learn from Aaron and be mindful of what we let fuel their flickering flame. While we worry about the ornamental vestments of our communities, the building funds, flyers and annual dinners, our young people are off playing with fire.

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April 19, 2006: 12:05 am: AdministratorBlog

Hol Hamoed Pesach: Leaving Musical Mitzrayim

In this week’s Parsha, the Children of Israel receive a second set of the Tablets of the Convenant and renew their committment to HaShem and their own future as a people. In the midst of the Passover, we remember that forty years of desert wandering helped us leave behind the Mitzrayim mindset and look ahead toward the Promised Land. (more…)

April 9, 2006: 11:59 pm: AdministratorBlog

Four More Questions:

I. Young adults and teens are a tricky group to- why are they different, so elusive and how can we program to them? J-ARTS has firsthand experience with the iPod generation, enagaging them with Jewish music that echoes what they’re listening to on their MP3 players- rock, reggae, hip-hop, jazz and world music. Ask J-ARTS how to better program to this audience.

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September 1, 2005: 8:16 pm: AdministratorBlog, Kumzitz

The Seventy Faces of Blue Fringe

Blue Fringe

Blue Fringe’s wildly successful debut album, My Awakening, threw the Jewish music world for a loop, selling over 15,000 copies in two years. That’s no small achievement for any indie rock band, and in the Jewish music world, 5,000 copies is often considered a gold record. The popularity of the music shot the foursome into the role of “Hot New Thing”—and it wasn’t just hype. There was real talent on the power pop-soaked My Awakening, even if its John Mayer influence sometimes slipped into something akin to the Rembrandts in Hebrew.

Songwriter, guitarist and lead vocalist Dov Rosenblatt met his band mates in Israel the summer before starting Yeshiva University. The group quickly found a niche in Modern Orthodox circles with the tongue-in-cheek “Flippin’ Out,” describing the process by which Jewish high school graduates go to Israel for a year and undergo a dramatic religious transformation. “I’m getting frummer, yeah I’m on my way, learnin’ those catch phrases that you have to say, like Shkoyach and M’Stama too, cuz’ if you don’t say them then you’re not a frum Jew…I’m flippin’ out/my rebbe’s sheppin nachas/ I’m flippin’ out/My parent’s will kick my tuchas…”

An eager world of young observant Jews immediately identified with the song, and young seminary girls went nuts over the band’s good looks and Rosenblatt’s silky vocals. Tour dates brought the band to every major U.S. market, plus Australia, South Africa and a few dates in Europe. In Israel, their tour included a performance in Beit Shemesh for a festival audience of 10,000.

With their follow up, 70 Faces, Blue Fringe shows a maturation and willingness to experiment with new formats and arrangements. They avoid the trap of making their second album a facsimile of the first and draw on their musical influences and creativity for a distinct, yet familiar, sound. 70 Faces refers to the Talmudic concept of Shivim Panim laTorah, or the 70 ways to interpret the Torah. Its selection as the album’s title track is a sly hint that the band is no longer sticking to a singular pop-rock sound, but embracing funk, blues, jazz and an ever more diverse range of rock influences.

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