"When I was in yeshiva, there was nobody this cool," Israel National Radio’s Tovia Singer said of the Israel-based Hasidic power-rock trio Yood as they played the annual Central Park Israel Day Concert.
Singer hosted Arutz-7’s live broadcast of the concert and interviewed the band during the May 6 Lag BaOmer concert.
"When I was a kid, You either listened to 'kosher music' or you listened to Led Zeppelin and went to hell" Singer joked, asking the guitar-slinging threesome if they weren’t a walking contradiction. Yood members say the don’t see their musical career as conflicting at all with their Judaism.
“We don’t really see it that way,” said guitarist Lazer Lloyd. "Our rebbe, the Lubavitcher Rebbe said that G-dliness is found everywhere. This music is very powerful. We just want to add the right message to it. The music and the distortion thing is like breaking through the heavens, and what is breaking out is the revelation of G-dliness in ourselves. This music is the perfect format for that because it is without boundaries because you get that feeling of music going out of the neshama (soul), going out of the keilim (vessels)."
Sporting long black beards and black hats, the group played a 1970s-style electric blues with a mix of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. They are regulars at Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv - a seaside bar popular with American immigrants to Israel.
Bass player Yaakov Lefcoe added: "Anyone who has ever encountered niggunim (melodies) of Chabad knows there's tremendous power – spiritual meditative power. These songs were used for meditation and entering a trance-like state. We all came from a background where this rock music is a part of us. It’s in our bones. This is finding our way to break through and enter into another kind of space. For me, it is an inspiration. I am reaching for something in Chabad that I can connect with in rock-and-roll. When I hear it, I play rock in a deeper and more powerful way to try and bring my expression to that higher state."
Jewish rockers are more common then they used to be, as the Israel Day Concert attested to. In addition to Yood, rock oriented bands such as Piamenta (whose guitarist played a blazing solo holding the guitar behind his back), Pey Dalid, Owl, and Except Saturday performed. The concert also had a traditional sound which included Gershon Veroba, Chaim Kiss, Dr. Meyer Abittan (an interventional cardiologist by profession) and headliner Shloime Dachs.
Dachs’s traditional Hasidic-yeshivish style combined cantorial style singing with a live-backing band of call-and-response horns and saxophones. Hazzan Moshe Tessone and his young son performed a slow ballad with lyrics based on Psalms. Hazzan Tessone also performed Hatikvah, Israel's national anthem. He is a director of the Sephardic Division of Yeshiva University as well as on the faculty of the Belz School of Jewish Music at Yeshiva University.
Concert organizer, Dr. Paul Brody sang on stage as well. Although a dermatologist by profession, Dr. Brody impressed the crowd by joining Shloime Dachs on stage as well as reciting the prayer in Hebrew for the safe returned of the Israeli soldiers missing in action. Dr. Brody's wife Drora also helped organize the concert.
As the concert was broadcast live over Arutz-7, a listener in the Israel National Radio Virtual Studio Chat Room commented that he simply couldn't wait to hear Shloime Dachs. Instead of waiting, the chatter said, he would just listen to a Shloime Dachs CD instead.
Another highlight of the concert was singer Shlomo Katz, who immigrated from Los Angeles to Israel. A student of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Katz played jangly, acoustic folk tunes, encouraging the crowd to join in and sing the simple catchy melodies.
In-between songs, he gave over brief Torah lessons and messages from the Holy Land. Katz related a story about Shlomo Carlebach from 1976 - during the Israeli hostage crisis in Entebbe. Upon hearing that the hostages had been freed, Carlebach immediately pulled out his guitar and composed a song then and there to thank G-d. Katz proceeded to play it to the cheering crowd.
Referring to the Israeli soldiers currently in enemy hands, Katz said: "I don't understand how any of us has the chutzpah (audacity) to go on with our lives without the soldiers."
Katz’s words seemed to inspire him along with the crowd to get increasingly into the music.
Katz ended by encouraging the audience to move to Israel. "I want to thank every Yid that put his heart and kishkes (guts) into this event. Just one request…When I left my house with my luggage, my neighbor in Yerushalayim told me, when you get up on stage, just stay one thing: ‘come home’. I give you all bracha (blessing) that next year, we're not here, we're at the Kotel (Western Wall of the Temple Mount)."
Probably the biggest surprise at the concert was rapper Kosha Dillz. The American-Israeli fully adopted a hip-hop persona and hit the stage with a driving performance of his song The Real Occupation. “All they want to do is take a piece of my land,” chanted the rapper as he decried Hezbollah propaganda and terrorism in his rhymes. He ended with an a capella rap equally patriotic in nature.
Introducing Kosha Dillz with a fiery speech was Zionist Freedom Alliance co-founder Yehuda HaKohen. HaKohen, who co-hosts Jewish Campus Radio on Israel National Radio, invoked the memories of fallen Irgun and Lechi fighters. He spoke of a pro-Israel agenda as being in the same category as protests against the World Trade Organization and the situation in Darfur - causes often associated with anti-Israel sentiments.
The event also included a speech by Knesset Member Effie Eitam, a retired general and former secular kibbutz member who became religious. Eitam received a rousing applause. He spoke of the sacrifice of the Israel soldiers during the Second Lebanon War - mentioning IDF Major Roi Klein, who jumped on top of a grenade to save the rest of his battalion. Eitam lamented the fact that the soldiers acted with such bravery while the Israeli government itself was in such a state of disarray. He encouraged the crowd to continue their support and expressed his belief that better days will come.
Dr. Joseph Frager, a gastroenterologist by profession, for years has spent his spare time organizing the Israel Day Concert and serving as chairman for Ateret Kohanim - The Jerusalem Reclamation Project. He estimated 25,000 to 30,000 people in attendance at this year’s concert.
Dr. Frager noted the irony of the keynote speaker at the first Israel Day Concert in 1994 - Ariel Sharon. The 2005 concert was a mass demonstration against Sharon's Disengagement plan with the majority of attendants dressing in pro-Gush Katif orange.
Although sometimes discouraging, the concert continues to grow and have impact,” Frager says. "We had a major impact when it was talked about being given away [Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem] to Arafat." said Frager. "The concert carries across the ocean."
Political and inspirational speakers included Queens Councilman Andrew Weprin, Rabbi Pesach Lerner, Executive Vice President of National Council of Young Israel, Rabbi Heshie Reichman of YU and Shmuel Sackett, co-founder of Manhigut Yehudit.
The concert was dedicated in th memory of Dr. Manfred R. Lehmann, the Chairman of the first Concert in 1994. It was dedicated, among other things, to the 40th Anniversary of the miracle of the Six Day War and to the reunification of Jerusalem, to the immediate release of the Israeli MIAs and Jonathan Pollard who remains incarcerated longer than any other convicted US spy, even though he passed secrets to an American ally, saying "no" to the surrender of any part of Eretz Yisrael, "no" to the expulsion of any Jews from Yehuda and Shomron, standing up to the Mullahs of Iran before it is too late, to the brave US Armed Forces fighting against tyrrany and terrorism around the globe, and to the heroic Israel Defense Force and the people of Israel for their heroism in the Lebanon War and every day.
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Benyamin Bresky is the host of The Beat on Israel National Radio. He
maintains a blog at www.israelbeat.blogspot.com.
Alex Traiman contributed to this story