Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday September 14, 2007

Out with the old, in with the groove in this Russian Jewish club

by igor serebryany
jta

moscow | Inside the shabby two-story building, bohemian youth have gathered to share their views on contemporary art, argue about politics and test the assortment of liquor.

The mix of beer glasses clinking, Jewlia Eisenberg singing and cigarette smoke rising create a surrealistic, psychedelic scene inside the Bilingua club on a quiet back street in Moscow. It’s a club with a marked Jewish and Israeli flavor.

Tonight’s entertainment, the American-Israeli band Charming Hostess, is in the Russian capital thanks to the Eshkol Jewish club. The club’s stated objective is to present a “modern view on the millennia-old Jewish culture.”

Eshkol coordinator Yuri Sorochkin says the club tries to bring “non-traditional” purveyors of new Israeli culture to Moscow for a reason.

“We try to show Jewish culture as a live, actual, contemporary, here-and-now phenomenon,” says Sorochkinl. “Modern young Jews living in megalopolises like Moscow or New York are reluctant to attend synagogues, but they force their way into nightclubs that offer cultural events like tonight’s.”

Lyudmila Zakharova of Eshkol says this is Charming Hostess’ first performance outside its base in the United States. The current tour, named “The Bowels Project,” aims to attract people of various backgrounds, not just Jews.

“Eshkol’s raison d’etre has been to familiarize non-Jewish youth with the multifaceted nature of Israeli culture,” Zahkarova says. “We present Israeli club music, art house cinema, photography, Hebrew language literature, theater and so on.” Members of Charming Hostess describe their music as “radical Jewish-Balkan-black funk punk-ethnic-anarchic blues.”

Eisenberg, the lead singer who insists on that spelling of her first name, is the sole woman in the ensemble. Two Americans and two Israelis provide the mix of saxophone, accordion, beat box and Cambodian Jew’s harp that gives the group its unusual sound, ranging from sleepy Bedouin vibrations to rhythmical soul melodies.

The group, which records under John Zorn’s Tzadik label, has two CDs, “Eat” and “Punch.” Eisenberg waves her hands as she sings, shakes the microphone stand, grimaces and chats easily with the crowd when her harp string breaks, emitting a fiery energy all the while.

Expenses for Charming Hostess were paid by the Avi Chai Foundation, headquartered in New York and Jerusalem, and the L.A.-based Chais Family Foundation.

This is the ultimate exercise in Jewish outreach: There is no entry fee, the musicians play for free and everything is funded by the sponsors. “We don’t even try to bring any officialdom to our events,” Sorochkin says. “It may scare away some people, especially the youth.”

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.