Heeb's "Diamond Days" - this is Jewish?
As I got through months of accumulated email messages, some of them actually relevant and worth posting, my breath was taken away, once again, by a music fest hosted by "Heeb" magazine, the publication for people who want to feel "Jewy," but don't want to be contaminated by anything Jewish. So, it will come as no surprise that Heeb has a new music festival coming up in July called "Diamond Days" that features nothing recognizably Jewish in the lineup.
I would be the last to suggest a token klezmer band. I'd be satisfied even with one of the sterile nouveau religious bands featured in Moment Magazine's "Jewish Music sampler" of a few years ago, or some hip hope like SoCalled or Matisyahu or Y-Love. Perhaps something less classifiable like Pharaoh's Daughter, or Sephardic music of some form--Divahn, say. There are hundreds of people making music that draws on Jewish text or culture in some way. It would be kind of neat if an event targeted at Jews that involves 30 acts found room for some of that.
Or would that get in the way of the desire to hang with people who may be genetically Jewish (I find it as unlikely that a Jew by choice would find this event any more of interest than those of us who are Jews by tradition) without getting too … Jewy?
I like Heeb's attitude, in theory. I don't find the magazine particularly readable or interesting, and I gotta say, I am even less interested when so much efforts goes into something so irrelevant. And I guess that's as much thought as I can give it. On to updating the calendar and maybe getting some Jewishly relevant content back on the blog.