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The Jewish Week, Feature >>
For some rabbis, the question “Who is a Jew?” is of paramount concern. For Rabbi Andrew Bachman, a more compelling question might begin with “Where?”
On Christmas Eve, about 450 Jews wedged into a Brooklyn nightclub to hear, among other acts, a comedy writer for the “Daily Show,” a chasidic reggae singer and a husband-and-wife team performing satires of Christmas songs. Three hours into the “Jewltide” event, newcomers were still swarming the entrance.
A few days later, Rabbi Bachman, 40, had recovered from the late-night festivities, which for the father of three included a stint at the turntables spinning punk music records. Still, he seemed stunned by the event’s success.
Co-sponsored by Brooklyn Jews, a neighborhood group Rabbi Bachman started early last year, and JDub, a non-profit Jewish record label, Jewltide was conceived as an alternative to the traditional yuletide choice between Matzah Ball dances and lo mein dinners. But the party wound up a testament to unaffiliated Jews’ desire to do something Jewish.
“In this day and age when Jews are under attack, there’s a lot to be said for being able to create a social situation in which it feels really good to be with your fellow Jews,” Rabbi Bachman, who by day serves as Hillel director at New York University, said.
A longtime Park Slope resident, the rabbi had been hearing for years from Jewish neighbors who wanted to gather together — but not at any of the local synagogues or formal minyans.
“These were people in their 30s who felt they were not making the kind of Jewish connections they felt they should be making,” Rabbi Bachman said. The result of his conversations was Brooklyn Jews, a group of about 100 unaffiliated Jews from the Slope, Prospect Heights and Cobble Hill who meet regularly to study and socialize.
In December, Brooklyn Jews and JDub received two of the first grants awarded by Natan, a group of young philanthropists funding experimental approaches to Jewish life. Jewltide was Brooklyn Jews’ first public event.
According to Rabbi Bachman, among the mostly 21- to 25-year-olds enjoying $1 beers and free donuts were a sizable Orthodox Jewish set and hipsters from “Heeb” magazine’s mailing list, as well as many older Park Slopers, including “a decent contingent” of folks over 50. “The mix was unbelievable,” Rabbi Bachman said. And profitable, too. Jewltide raised $1,200 for the cosponsors.
Thirteen years into his career, Rabbi Bachman keeps finding fertile ground on the periphery of Jewish institutional life. As rabbi educator at Congregation Beth Elohim, an august Reform temple in Park Slope, he helped start a more traditional spin-off minyan. Five years at NYU have taught him that alongside “bread and butter”— religious services and social activities —“you have to go out to where the mass of Jews are, the ones opting not to come in.”
He opens the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life as a venue for all kinds of events as a way to get Jewish kids in the door. (Deejay Aaron Bisman regularly produced music shows at the center before launching JDub.) Last spring, Rabbi Bachman brought together Jewish comedians and musicians to produce a Purim event on the Lower East Side.
The Milwaukee native got his first real taste of Judaism at the University of Wisconsin through a series of influential encounters and left college ready for the rabbinate.
First, a girlfriend’s grandfather passed him a book of Talmud and told him, “Here, Andy, this belongs to you.” The novice pupil then studied privately with Irving Saposnik, an English professor who had been blacklisted, returned to the States from Haifa and served for 16 years as Hillel director at Madison.
Later, he took classes under the venerable German-born historian George Mosse, who began each semester of Eastern European Jewish history with an unconventional definition of “What is a Jew?” “A Jew is an outsider with a critical mind,” Rabbi Bachman said, repeating his mentor’s words.
Mosse dissuaded his student from pursuing a Ph.D and directed him toward the seminary. Today, Mosse’s teaching, more than his years at Hebrew Union College, shape Rabbi Bachman’s outlook.
To engage Jews in Judaism, Rabbi Bachman said, “You have to think like an outsider —even an outsider in the Jewish community.” 01/02/04 >> go there
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