by stacey palevsky
staff writer
A concert tour bus rolls into town, carrying musicians, comedians, a crew of photographs and videographers.
But the event for young adults isn’t sponsored by MTV or Warped Tour. Rather, the promoter is Birthright Israel.
The organization that’s best known for sending thousands of Jews ages 18 to 26 on free trips to Israel is, for the first time, sponsoring a concert tour to bring Israel programming stateside.
The Israelity Tour Bus will roll into San Francisco on Feb. 10, travel across the bay to U.C. Berkeley on Feb. 11, then head to U.C. Santa Cruz for a stop Feb. 12.
Funded by the S.F.-based Jim Joseph Foundation, the tour is intended to be both thought provoking and fun. In San Francisco, for instance, three well-known Israeli hip-hop groups (Coolooloosh, Subliminal and the Tact Family) will perform at Mezzanine, along with Birthright alum and Bay Area comedian Mo Mandel and Brooklyn-based folk singer Michelle Citrin.
The stops at U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Santa Cruz will include free concerts and panel discussions that Birthright is calling a “cross-cultural roast.”
The roast is designed to give the student community an up-close look at Israeli culture. The sessions will be moderated by Mandel, and panelists will include three American Birthright alumni and three Israelis who’ve worked with Birthright.
Sydney Henning, director of national initiatives for Birthright, hopes the conversation sparks lots of questions and comments from the audience.
“We want to talk about the differences between us, how we perceive each other, and how those perceptions may or may not be accurate,” Henning said. “We want people to start seeing ‘the other’ as someone they can relate to personally. There are differences between us, of course, but there are a lot of amazing similarities.”
The hip-hop artists also have compelling stories to share, she added.
For instance, Coolooloosh is headed by Joel Covington, who raps under the pseudonym Rebel Sun. He’s a black Jew from Baltimore who decided to make aliyah with his wife, a Jew-by-choice, in 2000. They had two children in Israel, but in 2005 were accused by the Israeli government of being illegal aliens, and were threatened with deportation to the United States.
The controversy drew the support of numerous Israeli hip-hop artists, who held concerts to increase public interest in the issue. Their efforts paid off, and the Covingtons were granted permanent residency in 2006.
The bus tour was inspired in part by a question often posed to Birthright staff. What’s next?
That is, what happens after young Jews travel to Israel, get excited about the people, the land and their own Jewish faith, and then go home? How can they hold on to their enthusiasm?
“Birthright is trying to create intensive experiences to carry forward the momentum people feel when they come home, but don’t know how to re-acclimate to the community,” said Esther Kustanowitz, a spokeswoman for Birthright who will be one of 33 people on the bus.
Yet as much as Birthright wants to reach out to the people it has sent to Israel, the organization also wants to connect with those who’ve never been.
“We want to talk to students who may have never had an opportunity to interact with Israeli peers,” Henning said.
The Israelity Tour intentionally coincides with the registration period for this summer’s Birthright trips, which begins Feb. 12.
The bus tour is a West Coast venture that begins in Seattle and ends two weeks later in Las Vegas. Birthright staffers hope the trip will become an annual tradition.
“There’s a lot of talk about how programming for the Jewish world is East Coast-centric, and we wanted to bring some more Birthright and Jewish continuity experiences to people who were on the West Coast,” Kustanowitz said.
She will be one of several crew members who will be blogging throughout the tour at www.israelitytour.blogspot.com. Others will videotape the tour and post clips on YouTube, and post photographs to Flickr.
“We want to take advantage of the technology available,” she said. “We know not everyone can come.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California