Shalom BAI!
I’ve been away for a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone back at Beth Am this Shabbat! I spent a wonderful two weeks in Israel, during which time I celebrated a crazy reunion with my former bandmates and was able to restart research towards a multi-media project I put on hold back in 2020. I also witnessed, albeit from a distance the (thank God) short lived, ‘fighting’ in and around Gaza.
33 years ago I attended Hebrew University as part of their one year study abroad program. Upon arriving in the summer of 1989 I met up with two old friends, we formed a trio, then a five piece (“Empty Glass”) and went on to wild and completely unplanned and certainly unexpected acclaim as a fun-loving bar band doing classic rock covers. After many attempts over the ensuing years, three of us worked out our schedules and reunited playing at the very American pub, “Mike’s Place” for our 33rd year reunion concert.
It was rather surreal to be reliving my youth as a free-wheeling Junior in college but the highlight for me was seeing not only one of our die-hard fans from that year, (who now lives in Israel) and came down to see our show but I was also greeted by a surprise visit from BAI members Eli Albalancy and Lisa Schiffman who happened to be in Jerusalem that evening and came to the show!
The other aspect of my trip was related to an ongoing project where I am investigating the relationship between creativity, improvisation and spirituality. One aspect of the project involves the ongoing work and play of our Music Prayer Lab (MPL), a monthly space for (nearly) pure musical and prayerful improvisation. In addition to our monthly gatherings, I hope to interview the participants in the hopes of better understanding the impact and meaning the Lab has. The MPL is, as always, open to new members of any musical level! 
The second aspect of the work involves a series of interviews with artists, therapists and other creators who deal in the realms I’ve mentioned above. While in Israel I was able to conduct several interviews with creators, including both former students, teachers and colleagues. Those interviews will appear as part of my Podcast, “Pop Rock Explosion” and I will let you know when they, as the kids say, ‘drop’.
In my final days in Israel, fighting broke out in Gaza and in the Southern towns of Israel. Curiously, perhaps an hour or two before the fighting began, I was eating dinner in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Jaffa at a wonderful restaurant called, “The Old Man and the Sea.” Beside the delicious food (immediately upon sitting down you are served 12 small salads, each magnificent, fresh pita, hummus and a pitcher of lemonade with mint.) the restaurant was full of both Arabs and Jews, (and many of us tourists) eating side by side, laughing, socializing, enjoying the sunset, oblivious to the fact that about an hours’ drive south, missiles and rockets were starting to fall, families were being hustled into bomb shelters and panic and violence was just unfolding.
The next day I travelled south to the Ramon Crater at the edge of the Negev desert. With the radio keeping me company, the music was occasionally and gently interrupted by a notice (in Hebrew), “Town of Sderot, go to your shelters” where a moment later the music continued, not too much of a bother. At the crater, you really are in the middle of a vast, quiet space and so the din of missile, shelters, and Iron Dome were truly far away.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about the crazy juxtaposition of my interfaith dining experience and the growing awareness that not too far away, Jews and Arabs were launching missiles at one another. Sadly, that fact of life in Israel has not changed much since my Junior year, but life, as it always has in Israel, goes on.
I’m happy to share more about my experiences, including my expert reviews of some fine Hummus and falafel joints, as well as a Shnitzel and Shakshuka that have no peer, all part of my research!
Shabbat Shalom
Hazzan Harold
Read the blog and see all the pictures here.
