Jews Don't Count

Parshat Ki Tissa 2014: Or perhaps Abq Jew should have put this a bit differently.

According to Jewish law,
we shouldn't count Jews by counting Jews.

In  Ki Tissa, this week's parashah, we read (Exodus Chapter 30):

11. And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying:  

12. 'When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel,  according to their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.  

13. This they shall give, every one that passeth among them  that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary - the shekel is twenty gerahs - half a shekel for an offering to the LORD. 

15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel ....

The operative words here are "no plague." It seems that plagues have had an odd habit of descending on the Children of Israel just about whenever we count ourselves.

So maybe we shouldn't. The prophet Hosea (2:1) tells us

And the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which shall neither be measured nor counted.

In Biblical and Talmudic times, The Holy One Blessed Be He gave us a way to get around this no counting thing: the annual half shekel Temple tax.

Every year, right about Adar time, everybody (OK ... every man) contributed exactly one half shekel. Unlike our current tax code, this was simple.

The poor did not give more, and the rich did not give less.

Then the coins were counted and viola, there we were. No Jews were counted, yet we knew how many Jews there were in our sample.

How about counting Jews for a minyan? Abq Jew hears you ask. There, too, there's a couple of workarounds.

The first workaround, and the simplest, is to simply not count "Not one ... not two ... " etc. But a more elegant solution to the problem is to recite a nice, ten-word verse from the Bible, like Psalms 28:10.

הושיע את עמך וברך את נחלתך ורעם ונשאם עד עולם 

Save Your people and bless Your inheritance, and tend them and elevate them forever!

Or, if you have a hard time remembering that verse, how about one of these?

Well she was just 17. You know what I mean.

She's got a ticket to ride, but she don't care.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra!

All you need is love! All you need is love!

Which brings us to the central question here, which Abq Jew is sure you've been thinking about.

How many Jews are there in New Mexico,

and how can we find out without counting them?

The answer to the first question is easy: no one knows. By one estimate (see Drasha Diamond Number 1) there are 12,000 Jews and twenty-four (24) ordained rabbis who currently reside in the Land of Enchantment. But we're really only speculating.

So now comes the Jewish Federation of New Mexico to answer with facility and determination the second question, by announcing

The First Ever Scientific Demographic Study
of the Jewish Community of New Mexico

The February 2014 New Mexico Jewish Link tells us that

the Jewish Federation of New Mexico has commissioned the first ever scientific study to determine the community’s demographic composition, assess current needs of Jewish residents, and plan for the future. 

Beginning this month, the 2014 New Mexico Jewish demographic study research team will begin a two-phased process to learn more about Jewish New Mexico’s attitudes and behaviors, and to identify subsets requiring specific communal services.

The study (let's not call it a census; that sounds too much like counting) will be conducted by Kupersmit Research, a small, Denver-based strategic research firm. Marina Arbetman-Rabinowitz, PhD, will be the New Mexico project consultant.

Wait a minute! Abq Jew hears you cry. How are we going to get around the prohibition of counting Jews?

To which Abq Jew responds: Please recall that the prohibition is against counting Jews by counting Jews. When we evaluate the study, we won't be counting Jews - we'll be counting checks in check boxes.

According to Jewish law - that's like

What would you think if I sang out of tune?

and therefore perfectly OK.

All About KlezmerQuerque 2014

Klezmer! Nahalat Shalom! This Weekend!  Yes, Abq Jew has mentioned this before. But here we go once again, now that this year's very successful A Taste of Honey has come and gone:

KlezmerQuerque 2014

 12th Annual

Presidents Day Weekend

Congregation Nahalat Shalom

featuring

Joel Rubin

Pete Rushefsky

Steve Greenman

Bruce Bierman

Here is the plan:

The 12th Annual KlezmerQuerque is a three-day festival of concerts, workshops and dance parties featuring ‘Klezmer’ which is the traditional dance and instrumental music based in the ancient wedding ceremonies of the Eastern European Jewish people.

The festival will take place from February 14-16, 2014 (Friday evening through Sunday evening) over Presidents Day weekend.

KlezmerQuerque is produced by Congregation Nahalat Shalom, its 26-piece intergenerational Community Klezmer Band and Rikud Yiddish dance troupe. The festival presents a wide variety of events for all ages and abilities with prices ranging from free to $20 per event.

KlezmerQuerque 2014 features dancer and choreographer Bruce Bierman and the all-star klezmer trio R2G: Joel Rubin (clarinet), Steve Greenman (violin) and Pete Rushefsky (tsimbl / hammered dulcimer).

Highlights of the festival include 

• a cameo concert-performance by the trio as part of Der Freylekher Shabbes on Friday evening February 14th; 
• performance and a dance party on Saturday evening, February 15th, featuring R2G and Yiddish dance master Bruce Bierman; 
• three 90 min. hands-on workshops for instrumental music and dancing plus a “Lunch ‘n Learn’ on Sunday, February 16th between 10:00 am and 5:30 pm.

The two performances by R2G will showcase music from the trio’s concert in December 2013 for The New York Klezmer Series at The Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. The group will feature traditional klezmer and Sephardi-Ottoman pieces as well as riveting new compositions and improvisations by Greenman, Rushefsky, and Rubin, including repertoire from Rubin’s CDs Midnight Prayer and Beregovski’s Khasene, and Greenman’s CDs Stempenyu’s Dream and Stempenyu’s Neshome.

Bruce Bierman will lead the dancing at the parties on Friday and Saturday evenings, also leading Nahalat Shalom’s Yiddish dance troupe in a performance of a Shabbat Yemenite dance on Saturday evening. Bruce is a member of the newly formed Yiddish Theater Collective in Berkeley California, which he will be directing and choreographing 'Di Megllieh of Itzik  Manger' for the upcoming Jewish Music Festival in San Francisco in March. He will be teaching  a scene from this musical as one of the KlezmerQuerque workshops on Sunday, February 16.

KlezmerQuerque begins on Friday, February 14th at 6:00pm, with a special free children’s and family program led by Maddy Solomon: ‘The Music Garden for Children: new born to 5 years’... Whilst toddlers sing, dance, play eco-percussion, and marvel at puppets emerging from around them, their parents, grandparents, and siblings all learn Yiddish children’s songs accompanied by accordion and flute. Popularized in New York City, participants exclaim, “A cornucopia of music, dance and delights for the senses!" and "Madeline Solomon; our very own ‘Mary Poppinsky’ with whom all of our children love to dance and sing!”  The Music Garden has delighted children and adults alike through Europe, USA and Canada from 2009 to date.

At 6:30 pm ‘Der Freylekher Shabbos’ an old-country heimishe (homey) Sabbath danced-singalong service begins and features local klezmer favorites Beth Cohen with Alavados ensemble and Rikud dancers. A vegetarian potluck dinner begins at 7:10 pm, which will be followed by performances of The Rebbe’s Orkestra (local klezmer ensemble), special guest artists R2G, The Nahalat Shalom Community Klezmer Band, with freylekher (joyous) dancing led by Bruce Bierman and Rikud dance troupe.

On Saturday, February 15th from 10am-noon there will be a free joyous ‘Shabbos Koydesh’ worship service led by Nahalat Shalom’s Rabbi Deborah Brin, with music by Beth Cohen, Alavados ensemble and friends.

On Saturday night, the concert and dance party featuring R2G and Bruce Bierman begins at 7:00 pm (doors at 6:30 pm) with opening act The Rebbe’s Orkestra.

On Sunday, February 16th there will be three 90 minute music & dance workshops with the guest artists plus a ‘Lunch ‘n Learn’ featuring a delicious ‘milkhik’ (dairy, fish, veggies, no meat) lunch followed by a presentation by Dr. Joel Rubin:  "Life began with the Lower East Side: Klezmer music in the Yiddish-speaking immigrant community.” Ambush Brass, an Albuquerque-based 8-piece trombone ensemble will serenade diners with their arrangements of klezmer music during lunch.

See you there!

The Great Baltimore Fire

Fair Baltimore, The Beautiful City: Home of the Orioles and the Colts ... er, Ravens. Abq Jew has never been to Baltimore, and has only driven past it (on the way to and from Washington, DC) a handful of times.

Baltimore is the 26th largest city in the USA. Founded in 1729, it is the second largest mid-Atlantic seaport, and is closer to Midwestern markets than any other major seaport on the East Coast. And, Wikipedia tells us,

With hundreds of identified districts, Baltimore has been dubbed "a city of neighborhoods," and is nicknamed Charm City. The talents of writers Edgar Allan Poe and H.L. Mencken, musician James "Eubie" Blake, and singer Billie Holiday, as well as the city's role in the War of 1812 and Francis Scott Key's writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" have all influenced the city's historical importance. 

According to the Brookings Institution, almost a quarter of the jobs in the Baltimore region are science, technology, engineering and math positions. The Baltimore Area is known for health and science, which is in part attributed to the prestigious Johns Hopkins University school system, the University of Maryland-Baltimore, and other smaller schools ....

But then Wikipedia continues:

On February 7, 1904, the Great Baltimore Fire destroyed over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours, leaving more than 70 blocks of the downtown area burned to the ground. Damages were estimated at $150 million - in 1904 dollars.

But Abq Jew knew none of this ... until he heard the song "Baltimore Fire" sung by Kate (of blessed memory) and (lehavdil) Anna McGarrigle on their most wonderfully beautiful 1998 album, The McGarrigle Hour. The song captivated him.

Fire, fire, I heard the cry
From every breeze that passes by
All the world was one sad cry of pity.
Strong men in anguish prayed
Calling out to the heavens for aid
While the fire in ruins was laid
Fair Baltimore the beautiful city.

Three digressions here.

1. The McGarrigle Sisters

If you don't know of the McGarrigle sisters, Wikipedia describes them as "a duo of Canadian singer-songwriters from Quebec ..."

Anna McGarrigle and Kate McGarrigle were born in Montreal of mixed Irish- and French-Canadian background, but lived their childhood in the Laurentian Mountains village of Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts, northwest of Montreal, where they learned piano from village nuns. 

In the 1960s, in Montreal, while Kate was studying engineering at McGill University and Anna art at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, they began performing in public and then began writing their own songs ... 

Into the twenty-first century, Kate and Anna McGarrigle continued to write, and recorded and performed music, with assorted accompanying musicians including Gerry Conway, Pat Donaldson, Ken Pearson, Michel Pépin, Chaim Tannenbaum and Joel Zifkin. 

Their songs have been covered by a variety of artists including Maria Muldaur, Nana Mouskouri, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Billy Bragg, Chloé Sainte-Marie, Judy Collins, Anne Sofie von Otter and others. The covers of their songs by well known artists led to the McGarrigles getting their first recording contract in 1974. They created ten albums from 1975 through 2008.

Boston.com tells us that love and family life were central themes in the McGarrigles' music. And that when they performed it often became a family affair, with musical friends and relatives sitting in.

2. The McGarrigle Hour

If you don't know of The McGarrigle Hour, Wikipedia describes it as "a mix of traditional folk tunes, pop standards and original material by the participants."

The album was recorded at a family gathering, including Kate's former husband Loudon Wainwright III (see Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road), their son and daughter Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright, Anna's husband Dane Lanken, their son and daughter Sylvan Lanken and Lily Lanken, and Kate and Anna's sister Jane McGarrigle. 

Several of the McGarrigle sisters' friends and collaborators, including Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Chaim Tannenbaum, Joel Zifkin and Philippe Tatartcheff, also appear on the album.

3.Lehavdil (להבדיל) 

Lehavdil (להבדיל) means "to make a distinction." The blog Elephant points out that "whenever we say להבדיל we are indeed mentioning things together, while simultaneously we point out that they are not to be compared except in the narrow sense that we intend."

Our havdalah ceremony, for example, makes a distinction between “sacred and secular, light and darkness, Israel and other peoples, the seventh day and the six days of labor.”

In its broadest sense of Torak - all of Jewish text knowledge and worldly wisdom, popular custom and rooted tradition - Abq Jew believes that

The purpose of Torah is to enable us to distinguish
between good and evil. In order to train us,
Torah shows how to make distinctions between
kinds of seeds, species of animals, milk and meat.

The most important distinction, of course, is between life and death.

Therefore, we do not hang pictures of our dearly departed and our alive and well family members on the same wall. And if we must mention the deceased and the living in the same sentence, we separate them with - lehavdil.

But back to the fire. Wikipedia tells us

It is believed to be the third worst conflagration to affect an American city in history, surpassed only by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. 

Other major urban disasters that were comparable (but not fires) were the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and most recently, Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico coast in August 2005. 

One reason for the fire's long duration was the lack of national standards in fire-fighting equipment. 

Although fire engines from nearby cities (such as Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. as well as units from New York City, Virginia, Wilmington, and Atlantic City) responded, with horse-drawn pumpers, wagons and other equipment (primitive by today's standards) carried by the railroads on flat cars and box cars many could not help because their hose couplings could not fit Baltimore's hydrants. Very few, if any, were motorized in those early years except for steam engines. 

But this was - if there is such a thing - a benevolent and good fire, as the website GenDisasters.com relates.

History affords no parallel of the conditions in fire-swept Baltimore on the following Tuesday when its people awoke to the mighty task of reconstruction looming up before them. After having suffered a loss estimated at $125,000,000 a cry of rejoicing went up among them because of the absence of casualties. 

Not a life was lost in the avalanche of flame and only one person was seriously injured— Jacob Inglefritz, a volunteer fireman from York, Pa. While the hospitals were full to overflowing the injuries sustained were of a minor nature. 

A strange comparison with the Iroquois theater fire of a month before! In that instance 600 met death and a host were seriously injured in a fire of fifteen minutes’ duration confined to one building that suffered insignificant damage. Here in a fire that swept for days over the business heart of a great city not a life was lost. 

Such is the strange operation of providence. 

And now back to the song. While Charlie Poole's recording is certainly of note, it is the recording by the McGarrigles that always brings a tear to Abq Jew's eye.

It's not just the tragic story of the fire that devastated Baltimore; it's the tragic loss of Kate, who died January 18, 2010 at the age of 63, after fighting a rare form (clear cell sarcoma) of cancer. She is survived by her former husband and their children, by her sisters and by her grandson.

The Roots Beneath Our Feet @ A Taste of Honey

Discovering Our Ancestors in Ourselves: The Keynote Speaker at A Taste of Honey 2014 will be award-winning international travel journalist, author, and blogger

Judith Fein 

who is launching her new book

The Spoon From Minkowitz:

A Bittersweet Roots Journey
 to Ancestral Lands

Be prepared to laugh, be moved, challenged and inspired as Judith reveals insights and shows photos from her own recent journey to Russia and the Ukraine.

With great intellect, humor and heart, she shares the world left behind by our ancestors, who seemingly passed into oblivion.

But Judith discloses the secrets of how our ancestors still live within us, and how they continue to impact and influence our lives.

Violin accompaniment will be provided by Beth Cohen, Chazzan / Music Director of Congregation Nahalat Shalom and KlezmerQuerque! organizer.

A Taste of Honey has 20 very interesting classes
to choose from ... click here for the brochure!

See you at