A Very Musical Week

Fresh off a packed Shabbat Dinner at Next Dor, and some ridiculous storms, The St. Lou Jew wants you to know about all of the great music taking place in St. Louis this week.

We'll get right to it. After an impromptu acoustic jam session at Next Dor last night, it dawned on us that there is a lot of music going on in and around STL this week.

Tuesday, Cincinnati based band Foxy Shazam will be tearing up Off Broadway
with a show that has earned it a Riverfront Times Critic Pick. Bonus points for having keyboard player Sky White, with whom I conquered the Bogart's High School Battle of the Bands back in the day.

Wednesday, while it may not quite be music, the Jewish Bikers club is having a meeting at the Hacienda on Manchester. I'm so intrigued by the concept, I may just have to check it out.

Thursday, slide on down to Beale on Broadway to check out one of St. Louis' own stars, Kim Massie as she performs your favorite soul and R&B tunes.

Friday, KDHX, St. Louis' own independent radio station will be hosting a tribute to James Brown at Off Broadway.

If you happen to be in Fayetteville, Arkansas on Friday, come check out STL's Autiomadic with Hardaway and the Commoners.

Saturday, Start off the evening with Chana Rothman, a newly crowned queen of Roots/Rock/Jewfolk music, who will be performing at Temple Emmanuel in the early evening. Following that, check out SLIC's Israeli Independence Day party. Cap off the night with a huge dance party at the Gramophone to make it a well balanced night.

Just announced, on Sunday, The Moshav Band, an Israeli-American group, will be performing for free at United Hebrew. More details here.

I told you it would be a busy week! Read More......

Technion Students in St. Louis: Points of Confluence

The world is serendipitous. Everyday, pieces of the young Jewish community are coming together in St. Louis

Last night, the St. Louis Israel Connection hosted Gidi and Keren, two fantastic Israelis from the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology. Not only did we learn about work being done in the field of cancer detection, we had an opportunity to meet a few new people as well.

What the event proved to me was that, once again, young Jews will show up to comfortable environments and connect on a personal level, if they are brought in through personal relationships, and don't feel any kind of pressure from an agenda.

This seems to be mirrored in a recent "Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandies study of the Jewish communal involvement of Taglit-Birthright Israel alumni."

As discussed on JewSchool, the study's findings are pretty interesting and point to the same feelings and responses that I see in myself and my group of Jewish friends in St. Louis.

The most interesting piece of the study seems to be the following:

The alumni surveyed in all four cities said they would like to be more involved than they were in Jewish life. Most preferred small gatherings to large, anonymous “meat market” Jewish events.

“They’re happy to eat free food and drink free beer at those big events, but they don’t feel it meets their needs to find Jewish community,” [study co-author Fern] Chertok reports.

Respondents also said they were interested in learning more about Judaism and Jewish culture and history, including Hebrew, but were wary of outreach groups with a perceived “religious” agenda. They also wanted a network of friends to share those experiences as a way of re-creating the camaraderie they felt on their Israel trips.

So how do we take these 'findings' which jive with what we already 'know' and turn it into action?

Moishe House seems like a pretty good starting point, but how does the culture change?

Read the full JewSchool piece here
Read More......