It\’s the fusion of world music, electronic tones, prayer samples, nature sounds and religious intensity that gives multi-instrumentalist RebbeSoul his edge in the world of contemporary Jewish music.
"We don\’t do falafel or schwarma," said Avi Ben-Harouch while seated on a beige banquette in the elegant dining room of his new restaurant, Avi\’s Bistro in Agoura Hills.
Call up a Los Angeles City Council or Board of Supervisors office these days and you are likely to speak to someone called Adina, Adeena or Adena.
Monty Hall is not going to be going to shul this Yom Kippur.
Picture 20 massage tables, with people lying down and being gently touched, with music playing in the background.
On a typical Shabbat morning at the Nessah Synagogue in Beverly Hills, there is seldom a free seat in the spanking new 1,200-seat sanctuary. At Nessah, like other traditional Orthodox synagogues in Los Angeles, men and women sit separately, men lead the services and they don\’t use a microphone.
It is Monday afternoon at Universal Studios, and the place is swarming with camera-toting tourists, screaming children, beleaguered adults and bored-looking park staff. Prison-garbed Beetlejuice is flashing his blackened teeth as he amuses tourists with his banter, and the cheerful strains of the Universal Studios theme music are being piped loudly through the sound system, camouflaging upsets and distress with ersatz melodic joy.
When Joseph Dabby arrived in America from Iraq in 1972, and found his way to Kahal Joseph Congregation in Los Angeles, he was shocked. \”It was like being back in the Old Country,\” he said.
\”It was full of people who didn\’t even speak the same language; they were very far removed [from their roots] but they maintained everything the same — the same melodies and the same traditions,\” said Dabby, now 56 and president of the congregation.
Yehudit Eichenblatt wanted to do her part for Israel, but she just wasn\’t sure exactly what that should be.
\”I really didn\’t want to do it\” said Chiara Greene, 16, of her bat mitzvah. \”When I was 12, it really did not seem that important to me. I was not religion oriented, and I didn\’t want to do something that I didn\’t completely understand.\”
Those were not words that Chiara\’s father, Richard Greene, wanted to hear. \”I kept telling her you are Jewish, you are my daughter, and I want you to have this experience,\” he said.
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