Welcome to a semi-regular column by JDub Records founder Aaron Bisman. Since he spends his days immersed in new Jewish music, we asked him what he listens to on his time off.

"American Boy" – Estelle
Yes, she’s another female rapper/singer from London. But this one started on her own label, got herself signed to John Legend’s label, and convinced Kanye to drop a verse on this song. (Will.I.Am produced it, but don’t hold that against her.) It’s a slick, R&B-influenced dance track about how excited she is to check out our country and our boys—perfect dance-floor fodder. Estelle may not get as much TV placement as Amy Wino, but her album just dropped, she’s touring in the states right now, and she is definitely worth your attention.

Worthy of the hype: Vampire WeekendVampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
How can I not include a VW song? This album is on constant replay in the JDub office, by all four members of the NYC staff. I’m not even sure what to say about the band that hasn’t already been said by bloggers watching their incredibly rapid ascent from hipster darlings to Saturday Night Live musical act. "Upper West Side Soweto” seems asinine, but it’s a fairly accurate description of their sound. Lyrically stuck in college, aurally stuck between Paul Simon and the Strokes, this album is catchy as hell. And in today’s rough and tumble times, it’s nice to have something that’s just so damn fun.

An Evening with Jo Amar in Old Jerusalem – Jo Amar
Early on with JDub, I accepted that my core skills were more in the business than in making the music itself, but I still love to DJ and maintain dreams of future careers in ethnomusicology and production. So to this day I still collect vinyl from stoop sales and old relatives, mostly 70s funk & soul, hip-hop, and anything Jewish.

My dad found this record in his synagogue in Scottsdale. According to the record jacket, Jo became a Cantor in Morocco at age 14 and in 1965 sold out Carnegie Hall in his first US appearance. This recording, however, is nothing traditional. It’s “the newest Oriental hits.” Often records like this completely Westernize the music with cheesy orchestral arrangements, but not this one. Jo sometimes has an organ in the mix, but it’s not overly intrusive and gives it the slightest hint of modern flavor (and psychedelia).

The joke never gets old: Flight of the Conchords"Robots (live)" – Flight of the Conchords
FoC are a comic-folk duo from New Zealand. Before their show even hit the states these guys were superstars here after a ridiculous viral build few bands are ever lucky enough to benefit from. Some comedy albums run dry after one or two listens, but we play this song in the office a few times a week, and I always, always get a kick out of it.

"Burying Luck" – Minus the Bear
This band is from Seattle, and on a great label called Suicide Squeeze. Full disclosure: The label prez DJ’d our Hanukkah bash this year as DJ Half a Shekel. She passed us their newish CD (it came out in August, but their big tour is happening now leading up to Bonnaroo), which is really a solid work of post-grunge rock. Lead singer Jake Snider’s voice reminds me, almost painfully, of Glen Phillips from Toad the Wet Sprocket. I’m not sure if that’s a complement or an insult, but that sense of the familiar took me by the hand into the album.

Previously: Purim Crunk, Yeasayer

I went to a Jewish day school, (this one, specifically) and in third grade we had a weekly torah trope lesson with the school’s cantor. Trope are the cantillation marks that narrate how the Torah is chanted in synagogue. At eight, it was hard to take seriously, but I learned the basics, and read Torah a number of times every year from third through eighth grade. For my bat mitzvah I learned haftarah trope from my dad, and again, it was hard to get excited about, but pretty easy to do. Once I made myself available as a Torah reader at my shul I was often asked to participate in services, and eventually got a job reading Torah for a different congregation. The paid me a hundred bucks a week to learn the whole parsha (none of this triennial bullcrap for me) and then to chant for them on Saturday morning. At seventeen this was an awesome job. I was going to shul anyway, and I learned to memorize the trope pretty quickly, so it worked out to something like twenty bucks an hour. Plus, all the people at the shul where I read Torah thought I was the sweetest little Jewish girl ever. When I moved to Iowa I got paid to read there, too (seventy-five bucks to learn a third as much—sweet!), and a week into my time in Nashville the Conservative synagogue in town was already calling and asking if I could sub for the cantor when he was away.
This Could Be You: The cash comes after shabbat
Learning trope may be a little boring, but it can be seriously lucrative, especially if you live in a smaller community without tons of Torah readers. At the very least, being a layner (someone who chants Torah) can get you a job as a tutor for bar and bat mitzvahs, which is a pretty sweet gig, too.

Besides the cash I liked how reading Torah every week forced me to have a relationship with text every week. I read the whole parsha several times as I was preparing, and it made me feel way closer to God and to the community to have this big responsibility of reading the words out loud for a room full of people. It sounds kind of corny, but I’ve found reading Torah at shul has done great things for my ability to connect with text. If you usually find shul boring and meaningless, this is a great way to counteract that.

Learning or relearning trope isn’t particularly difficult, and there are tons of websites and computer programs that can help you, although personally I recommend finding someone from your community to work with you. But if you just can’t swing that, either because of time constraints or because you don’t know anyone who can help, head over to Ellie’s Torah Trop Tutor, created more than a decade ago by Ellie Wackerman. The website has mp3 files of all the different kinds of trope, and you can even order tapes of specific portions, if you want. It’s an awesome and free place to start. ORT also has a nice free program on their website. If you just want to learn a specific portion, not how to read and sing the trope, check out Cantor Stephanie Shore’s website, which has recordings of everything you might need. If you’re a little more ambitious and willing to spend some cash, the Kol Tor Chant the Bible software looks excellent. They have a really extensive demo available online and it has everything from games to help you learn the trope, to explanations of how the trope works. Trope Trainer is very popular and I know people who swear by it. There’s also BMitzvah Personal which is a little less extensive, but looks pretty good. It’s more geared towards learning one portion than learning the skill of Torah reading.

For more Torah reading resources check out these listings, and then call your synagogue and find out where you can sign up.

I have to be honest and say I’m surprised and impressed by the way things have turned out with the whole “nappy headed hos” incident. When Michael wrote about it at the Daily Shvitz he predicted that, “This episode will sink before the new wave of grim headlines out of Baghdad.” Guess not.

But why not? Because of money, basically. Yes, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton pulled out their soapboxes and gave the same old indignant speeches, but in the meantime advertisers realized that by pulling out of the Imus show they’d get credit for being anti-racist, which would translate into revenue. Meanwhile, CBS was left with a huge deficit. According to this piece from NPR, Imus in Morning brought in tens of millions of dollars worth of advertising. With the ad money gone, they had no reason to stick by Imus, and this morning they gave him the ol’ heave-ho.

Now, let’s get some things clear. I think Don Imus is a schmuck, and every time I’ve tried listening to his show I get bored. I am hardly saddened by his downfall, but I am frankly confused by anyone who listened to him to begin with. As Dov Baer points out, Imus has had some pretty nasty things to say about Jews in the past. Once, he called the editors at Simon & Schuster “thieving Jews” and then later apologized by saying the statement was “redundant.” Charming. Nappy?: They look pretty hot to me

But you know what Don Imus was doing this morning? Raising millions of dollars for kids with cancer. Here’s an excerpt from the latest NYT piece on his
demise:

The firing of Mr. Imus came on a surreal day, one that served as a reminder not only of the millions of dollars he has raised for children’s charities over nearly two decades, but of the millions of dollars in future donations that he may have been lost as a result of his ill-considered remarks.

For four and a half hours this morning, he turned his radio program into a live fundraiser for three charities — two benefiting children with cancer, and the other for families that have lost babies to sudden infant death syndrome — an endeavor he has undertaken each of the last 18 years.

Among the guests were children and parents who had been the beneficiaries of his efforts — particularly the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer, a program that the host founded on his New Mexico ranch along with his wife, Deirdre.

“It was an honor to be at your son’s funeral,” he said to one woman, whose cancer-stricken son had been a guest at what is essentially a western-themed camp for sick children.

The whole thing, how ugly it is on every side, reminds me of synagogue politics. The hiring and firing of rabbis and cantors is an ugly business that often has little to do with whether or not the person in question is good at their job, and more to do with money, and which big donor/block of members will leave the shul if the rabbi or cantor doesn’t step down. Invariably the synagogue board doesn’t make its decision until the worst possible moment—often on the eve of the High Holidays—and the rumors and ripples through the community just serve to show how far from spiritual a synagogue can get. I’ve been to shuls where congregants have gotten into actual fistfights on the premises, and where microphones were turned off during Yom Kippur services so that a sermon praising a community member in question wouldn’t be heard. It’s nasty stuff, and it comes precisely at the time when we’re trying to raise ourselves to a higher level.

I wish I could send you to a site where you could make a donation to one of Imus’s charities, but they seem to be under investigation for sketchy spending, so instead, check out Camp Simcha, a camp for kids with life threatening diseases run by Chai Lifeline. Chai Lifeline gets four stars from Charity Navigator, which rates based on efficiency. I just gave twenty bucks. Let’s at least have something good come out of all this.

For a fascinating article about why being called “nappy headed” is worse than being called a “ho,” click here.