Punk Purim: The Review
Following last Saturday's Punk Purim event organised by Jewdas , the Guardian has a short article that nicely captures the flavour of the event:
Jewish hipsters and sacred cows
Benjamin Joffe-Walt
Monday March 20, 2006
The invitation to "the beginning of the Jewish countercultural revolution" reads as follows: "From the 1890s until the first world war a group of renegade Jews were active in the heart of the Yiddish east end." They "defined themselves against the Jewish establishment, holding Yom Kippur balls, featuring pork, music and dancing ... This radical tradition has remained dormant for almost 100 years, as Anglo-Jewry has become increasingly suburban, conservative and dull. Until now ..."
Article continues
A klezmer band welcomes you to the event at the anarchist artists' squat in London's east end. Flyers depicting Che Guevara as a Hassidic Jew adorn the entrance and throughout the compound are signs: "Word to your bubbe", "Battle of the bar mitzvah bands" and "Is it good for the Jews?"There is a Jewish peep show, a live biblical graffiti artist, cinema on Yiddish gangsters, "radical Torah" lessons and "unkosher political soprano". For the latter, Deborah Fink stands opposite a large projection of a (highly unkosher) pig roast and, dressed as conservative Jewish columnist Melanie Phillips, performs satirical songs about whining Palestinians.
Welcome to the curious world of "Jewish hipsterism", a growing backlash of disillusioned Jews against the old guard.
Offering new magazines, sweaty "kugel and klezmer parties" and Jewish lingerie lines, this cultural movement has grown phenomenally in New York in the past few years. Saturday's party, organised for the dress-up holiday of Purim, was the first of its kind outside America, organised by Jewdas, a young collective of similarly minded British Jews. The group seems to have struck a chord across the country with Jews disillusioned with the "dull" establishment and hoping to rejuvenate Jewish traditions of social justice.
"We are trying to create a new, more radical form of Jewish identity," says Joseph Finlay, of Jewdas. "The main obsessions of British Jews are defending the state of Israel and making Jewish babies. We aim to knock these idols down and reopen the debate on who owns Judaism, who has the right to speak for the Jewish community and who is a Jew - surely anyone committed to justice? "We're also trying to bring in a new sense of fun," he continues, "playing with tradition rather than sanctifying it. Once Judaism is sacred, it is already dead."
Back at the party, a couple of hundred people bop up and down to a drum'n'bass version of the bar mitzvah classic Hava Nagila and later to the UK's hot new Jewish hip-hop act, Emunah. Beside me dances a guy in an Israeli defense forces shirt with a paper yarmulka reading "The Jewish nation lives on" and a plastic gun hanging around his neck.
"This is fantastic!" he says. "Last year for Purim my rabbi dressed as a rabbit ... I mean, God, isn't that Judaism? Fat joking rabbit rabbis." He holds the gun to the roof and pops it to the beat, dancing off in a drunken protest against militarism, cultural numbness and anything sacred.
For myself, the evening felt incredibly exciting. The best thing was there were so many Jews I didn't recognise! It was a terrifying place to do my short contribution to the 'radical Torah' room - very hip.
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