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KFAR Jewish Arts Center brings arts & culture to Chicago Jewish communityBy WENDY MARGOLIN, Staff Writer

February 20, 2004--Adam Davis, founder of Chicago’s KFAR Jewish Arts Center, presented the first concert in the concert seriesTzitzit: Voices from the Jewish Fringe and hoped it would attract 50 people. When 150 showed up to hear YIDCore–a group that Davisdescribes as “a weird little punk band"–he knew he was onto something.

Now, after two years of single-handedly founding and building KFAR, an endeavor to bring arts and culture to the Chicago Jewishcommunity, Davis will present the Rabbinical School Dropouts as a Purim festival at The HotHouse. Past KFAR concerts at this venuehave garnered so much interest that Davis has had to turn people away. The “esoteric space klezmer" band that mixes klezmer, jazz,funk, rock, and more is expected to attract a large crowd, many of them loyal to the endeavor that Davis describes as more of anadventure than a business.

KFAR is part of a growing movement of Jewish arts and culture organizations that are helping to fuel what Davis calls a “JewishRenaissance." A loose network of similar organizations is emerging, seeking ways to collaborate on major, national-scope Jewishcultural events focused on engagement through arts and music.

“We need these programs not just to reach people, but to reflect on and contemplate who we are as a people, where we've come from

and where we're headed in the future. I guess you'd call that ‘KFAR for art's sake’," says Davis.

Davis says his love for music is rooted in his childhood at Congregation Bnai Tikvah in Deerfield, where the rabbi and cantor believedthe congregation should be the chorus. “On Shabbat I would go to services and sing along. When everyone was sitting in the backgiggling, I was one of the kids who would sit up front. So from an early age I was harmonizing, and I was interested in not just music,but Jewish music," says Davis.

Davis went on to receive a degree in musical theater and established a successful career in Chicago. But when it came to Jewish life,he was disconnected. “I was unable to connect to the Jewish community the way I wanted, because I didn’t have my Friday andSaturday nights free. I wanted to meet other young Jews that were like me."

Though Davis left the theater scene, it was not until a marketing stint made him dissatisfied that he found his niche in the Jewishcommunity. “I found myself working at a job that I wasn’t happy about and I said, ‘How did I get from doing what I love to doing this?’ wanted to get back to it [the arts] and I wanted to do something that really involved something about being Jewish."

At the same time, Davis says the Jewish music scene was growing on the coasts and there was nothing that mirrored it in Chicago. “thought, this is a great town with a great arts scene and a sizeable Jewish population. There is no reason that we shouldn’t havesomething interesting going on here in terms of Jewish music and Jewish theater."

Davis founded KFAR Jewish Arts Center by e-mailing a few friends information about Jewish cultural events. The list and events grew,and today KFAR presents a season of concerts featuring local bands and bringing in groups from around the country. Though thebands range in style, Davis has a good sense that if he likes the sound of their music, there are others who will appreciate it too. Thecenter is working on expanding to include other cultural events, including theater and poetry readings.

Davis says KFAR has tapped into a population that previously was not being reached by the Jewish community. Many of theconcertgoers are unaffiliated young people who, for various reasons, never set foot in a synagogue or a JCC, says Davis, who askspeople about the other Jewish events they attend. “There’s a mix of people who are unaffiliated and affiliated. There are some peoplewho are purely interested in music and some who are more spiritually motivated but looking for a connection through music. Amongthose who are “affiliated" it runs the gamut from all of the movements. There are people from West Rogers Park and Wicker Park.

Realizing that the larger Jewish community strives to engage this unaffiliated population, Davis offers synagogues throughout Chicagoan opportunity to have a second concert featuring the bands KFAR brings to town. KFAR subsidizes the events that would otherwise betoo difficult and expensive for synagogues. “There’s a need to do the same kind of programming within the established Jewish worldSynagogues don’t know which acts to book and they can’t afford it," says Davis.

Davis says the most difficult part of his endeavor is financial. KFAR is financed through Davis’s own pocket and ticket sales. Still, hehopes his one-man operation will grow to include more help and financial assistance in the coming years. “I hope it’s heading toward acommunity that is further enriched by Jewish music on a regular basis. One that has access to different programming in a variety odifferent places and levels–from youth programs, to synagogue programs, to programs that take place at traditional arts venues likewe’re already doing."

As for the Purim concert, attendees can count on hearing some good music and enjoying hamentashen. Davis says no one shouldworry though, “We won’t be reading a megillah or anything."

Rabbinical School Dropouts play at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 7 at HotHouse, Chicago $15 at the door. Visitwww.kfarcenter.com .



For Purim, bands rock--and good times rollBy Jon Anderson, Tribune staff reporter, pub. 3/31/05

Onstage, members of the Ari Ben Moses Bandblared out a number from their latest album,"Burning Bush." They were, as many in the crowdobserved, every bit the equal of last year's act,the Rabbinical School Dropouts.

It was, to put it mildly, a wild night Saturday atSubterranean, a music venue in the Wicker Parkneighborhood not usually associated withreligious observances. There, until well aftermidnight, some 500 young people celebratedthe noisiest date on the Jewish religious

calendar, Purim. In a nightclub? A scandal?

Not at all, suggested Michael Sternfield, seniorRabbi at Chicago Sinai Congregation, 15 W.Delaware Pl. It doesn't offend me in any way.Purim, Sternfield explained, is by far the least

Jewish rock band Heedoosh at Subterranean in Wicker Park

serious of all Jewish observances, "with very few rules.” "it's a kind of an Arabian Nights story," he suggested. In Queen Esther--by promoting a series of banquets and other diversions--deflects her husband, the King of Persiafrom a plan to destroy the local Jewish community. Over the centuries, Purim has evolved into a festival thincludes elements of Mardi Gras, Halloween and the "Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Last week, in synagogues across the city, people gathered to hear staged readings of the story of Esther. The

were encouraged to boo Haman, the evil chief adviser to the king. Cheers were accorded to Esther and tMordechai, a good guy demeaned by Haman. Why was the Wicker Park night differen

"Rarely do Purim celebrations get held at music clubs with rock bands," said the event’s organizer, Adam DavDavis is the moving force behind KFAR, a Jewish arts organization named for the Hebrew word for village ocommunity. On the Internet at http://www.kfarcenter.org, the non-profit group, founded in 2002, seeks t"provide an alternate conduit to Jewish culture" using contemporary music and arts events with a Jewish twist.

who, as KFAR delicately puts it, "have stoppedshort of institutional affiliation." These days, thechallenge of presenting religious messages toyoung people has become an interfaith problem,affecting synagogues, churches and other

religious institutions.

One solution--co-opting their music--goes back well over a century, to a night in 1882, when Gen. William Bootfounder of the Salvation Army, addressed a crowded theater in England and thundered, "Why should the devhave all the best tunes?" Booth was applauding one of his commanding officers for putting religious lyrics to popular song of the day, "Champagne Charlie Is My Name."

Similarly, at the Subterranean, the Moshe Skier Band took to the stage, promising to "rip through your notions oJewish music and rock you." And they did. "Everybody together! One, two, three," shouted Skier, encouragindancers to sing along as the band moved into some gritty funky grooves. To Davis, that's exactly what shouhappen. As he relates on his Web site, one couple came up to him after a KFAR show featuring Jewish rocmusicians. They asked if the band could play at their wedding. Their parents, they said, wanted a tradition

Jewish wedding. They preferred a modern ceremony. This, they suggested, would bring peace all around.

“Judging by attendance, that seems

an effective means to reach youngJewish urban adults …”



The Reader: “This Ain’t Your Father’s Klezmer”

by Peter Margasak, “POST NO BILLS”

“Many contemporary Jews are seeking a way to connect to their culture but have lacked the right formula for their lives,” says AdamDavis. For Davis, an actor who’d left the theater for a desk job, the natural way to connect seemed to be through the arts, but hecouldn’t find enough of the nontraditional events that most appealed to him. So he decided to create some, with a concert series hecalls “Tzitzit: Voices From the Jewish Fringe.” (Tzitzit are the tassels, or fringe, on Jewish ceremonial garments.) Its second seasonopens Sunday night, Oct. 19 at HotHouse with a performance by Pharaoh’s Daughter, a Jewish world-music ensemble from NewYork.

Davis, who grew up in Deerfield, earned a BFA in theater from the University of Cincinnati in 1994; after moving back to Chicago hestarted performing in off-Loop musicals, often working temp jobs at marketing firms to pay the bills. He met “other young Jewishartsy folk” in the theater scene, and it looked to him that there was a community just waiting for something to bring it together. Hisdesire to take action grew as his own involvement in the arts began to wane; by late 2001 he had stopped working in theater and takena full-time marketing job with Jim Beam Brands back in Deerfield. “I realized that I was pushing paper and traveling an hour to workin the suburbs, and this was not what I signed up for,” he says.

He started compiling a list of Jewish-themed events going on around town — exhibits, concerts, plays, movies — and e-mailing it acouple times a month to his friends. Before long, artists were approaching him to include their shows. Within a few months Davis hadgiven the list a name — KFAR, Hebrew for “village” — and was seriously examining the possibility of presenting his own events. Hehad long been impressed by the new-Jewish-music scene that emerged in the early 90s in New York — with performers playinghighly publicized festivals organized by John Zorn and recording for labels like Zorn’s Tzadik and the Knitting Factory offshooJewish Alternative Movement — and felt that Chicago, which has the fifth largest Jewish population in the country, would alsosupport the artists that pushed the boundaries of the traditional. He quit his job at Beam in March 2002 with the aim of turning KfarJewish Arts Center into the arts hub he felt Chicago needed.

That spring Davis learned that an Jewish Australian punk band called YIDcore was touring the U.S. Seeing his chance to launch amusic series, he booked them a July gig at Chase Cafe in East Rogers Park. He expected to draw maybe 30 people; about 150 showedup. “There were kids with payos [the long side curls worn by some Orthodox Jewish men and boys] and kids with piercings,” saysDavis. He produced more events that season, including shows by the Latino-Jewish hip-hop group Hip-Hop Hoodios, the New Age

Hasidic folk group Simply Tsfat, Kiwi Klezmers Jews Brothers Band and the Israeli rock band Reva L’Sheva at venues like TheHothouse, The Hideout, The Note, Nevin’s Live and the Prodigal Son- not your traditional venues for Jewish music.

Davis acknowledges that his marketing background influenced some of last season’s bookings. “I wanted to try and do something thawould get some PR play, and groups like Hip-Hop Hoodios and YIDcore are out there enough that it worked” he says. “But at somepoint you raise your sights.” The projected slate for this season still has its share of wackiness, courtesy of acts like the spaced-outklezmer band the Rabbinical School Dropouts, but there are more serious performers as well, from Israeli free-jazz saxophonist DannyZamir and his trio Satlah — who’ve recorded three fine albums for Zorn’s label — to Yiddish Reggae pioneer King Django’s Rootsand Culture and pop singer Sarah Aroeste, who performs songs in Ladino, the Spanish-derived language of the Sephardic Jews(Hothouse Dec. 6, 2003).

Davis’s vision of the “Tzitzit” series as an alternative to mainstream Jewish culture hasn’t kept him from working with moretraditional institutions. This season the Spertus Institute is cosponsoring a couple of events (including this Sunday’s), and for nearly

every show he’s programmed Davis has landed the artists extra gigs at local synagogues or community centers. “I’m not trying tocorner the Jewish music market as much as I’m trying to spread an awareness that there’s something new and contemporary that youcan identify with, and that’s something that community has been looking for- especially when it comes to kiruv- outreach to youngunaffiliated but culturally identified Jews,” he says. “In some respects the organized community has recognized that there’s value inwhat we’re doing.”



Funny, it doesn't sound Jewish -- but music is

August 20, 2005 BY THOMAS CONNER Staff Reporter

If you're a fellow rock 'n' roll gentile, when you hear the phrase "Jewish music," you probably think "Fiddler onthe Roof" or, if you really think you're hip, Theodore Bikel. But the rock of ages has wandered into the 21stcentury making some exciting new sounds, and a Chicago arts center is spotlighting them throughout the fall.

The "Tzitzit: Voices From the Jewish Fringe" music series, presented by the KFAR Jewish Arts Center, featuresyoung Jewish musicians who dig deep into their traditional culture and extrapolate its roots into bold, buzzingmodern music. Lyrics sometimes seem like insider baseball to those of us who aren't "frum" (religious,observant, Jewish), but the resulting music is often innovative and worldly.

The series kicks off tonight with a concert by Blue Fringe. On the eve of an appearance at Yidstock inMonticello, N.Y., this basic rock-pop quartet pulls off the same magic act Christian rockers have beenmastering (and profiting by) for several years -- writing perfectly catchy modern rock tunes, but with lyricsaimed at their particular spiritual perspective, such as these from a song called "Flippin' Out":

“I'm getting frummer, yeah, I'm on my way

Learnin' those catchphrases that you have to say

Like 'Shkoyach' and 'M'Stama,' too

'Cause if you don't say them then you're not a frum Jew ... “

It's one thing to learn your way in the modern world, but young Jews study to learn their way through centuriesof history and tradition, too. Blue Fringe tries to connect both worlds in its music -- old-world ideas with guitar,

drums and bass -- and blow off a little steam in the process.

The series' subtitle, after all, is "Concerts Exploring the Threads Tying the Ancient to the Avant-Garde," and aduo that really lives up to that is the Balkan Beat Box, appearing next in the series at Wild Hare on Sept. 18.Why buy every one of those tedious Putamayo world-music collections when these New York-based Israelis(Ori Kaplan and world-class beat boy Tamir Muskat) can synthesize them all in the span of a single disc?

The pair's self-titled debut CD, to be released two days after their Chicago concert, is a magnificent mash-upmelding music from every conceivable corner of the globe and its history. French heavy-metal samples, Arabiclyrics, Bulgarian female vocals, electronic beats, kitchen utensils, even a language made up just for one song --instead of gazing into the navels of other cultures, these melanges pull the whole weight of the world forward,always forward. The shows allegedly are lively productions with the band often performing in the middle of theaudience.

More acts follow in KFAR’s Tzitzit series (look to www.kfarcenter.com for more). If you really want to exploreother lands through music, this is a good place to start. Crossing borders -- this the Jews know how to do.

BLUE FRINGE WITH HEEDOOSH

When: 10 tonightWhere: Martyrs', 3855 N. LincolnTickets: $15Call: (773) 550-1543



OCTOBER 24, 2003 By NACHA CATTAN

AlternaJews Take Life by the Horns Coast to Coast, Fringe Voices Find Their Way Into the Fold

Adam Davis was frustrated with the Jewish singles scene in Chicago. Gatherings organized by the Windy City'slocal federation and Hillels were either too pricey or populated by the same circuit of clean-cut urbanprofessionals taking reckless advantage of the events' only entertainment — an open bar. "You'd see the samefaces every time," Davis said. "There'd be a lot of business cards changing hands, the latest cocktails mixed withthe highest-end vodka. It was a sort of dress-up-and-see-who's-doing-what event."

A theater actor, Davis, now 31, wanted more from his Jewish nightlife. So in 2001 he started Tzitzit: Voices fromthe Jewish Fringe. A concert series that bills itself as an "alternative cultural conduit," Tzitzit features musicianswho splice together klezmer and funk, Yiddish melodies and reggae, Ladino folk and American blues. Thesponsor of Tzitzit, Davis's Kfar Jewish Arts Center, is also planning a Jewish theater project.

Nearing the West Coast, the pickings for alternaJews were just as slim — until recently. So says Jason Ruby ofDenver, Colo., a longhaired, 27-year-old drummer for Trash Can Fetus, a local hard-core metal band. That'sright, Trash Can Fetus. At Sabbath potlucks and "Matzah Ball" parties, Ruby had little to say to the single womenfloating past him.

"I remember attempting to hold a conversation at one of these events with a woman," said Ruby, who is also afreelance architect. "I mentioned hard-core music. It didn't last that long." Ruby took matters into his ownhands. Last year he rallied some friends and founded Jews on the Edge. A thinly veiled attempt to meet a like-minded woman, Jews on the Edge fills a void for artist types overlooked by the organized Jewish community. Asmany as 50 people now gather for the group's jaunts through Jewish cemeteries, art-house screenings,architectural tours of Denver and even dumpster dives for trash-art materials.

Voices from the Jewish Fringe and Jews on the Edge are just two examples of what appears to be a coast-to-coast explosion of self-styled Jewish fringe activity. Whether a testament to the acceptance enjoyed by Jews inAmerican society or a protest against the mainstream community's stodgy image, this proliferation of culturacollectives has spread beyond the hubs of New York and San Francisco. Loud, young and often irreverentthese trendsetters proffer Jewish culture to the disengaged, distinguish themselves from their parents' Judaismand, to varying degrees, eschew establishment Jewry.

The Atlanta-based webzine Jewsweek.com offers a healthy dose of Jewish movie-star gazing, oblique looks atreligious practice and spiritual thought and snappy coverage of envelope pushers. Benyamin Cohen, now 28,founded Jewsweek.com after being lulled to sleep for years reading about "shul politics" in his father's Jewishnewspaper, he told the Forward.

Paul Zakrzewski of Brooklyn has culled the works of 25 writers in the anthology "Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from theEdge" (HarperCollins). Billed as an exploration of sexual fetishes, conflicted identities and the troubled legacy othe Holocaust, the anthology includes stories and excerpts by Nathan Englander, Gary Shteyngart, JonathanSafran Foer and Ellen Umansky. Zakrzewski is also joining the team working on Nextbook, an ambitious nationacampaign to boost "Jewish cultural literacy" using the Web, public libraries and museums.

Then there are the veterans: Heeb magazine, whose fourth issue is due out this month; Hub, a pan-ethnic art

program in San Francisco; StorahTelling, a traveling Jewish ritual theater, and Jewcy, a clothing line and Jewishcomedy night in Manhattan, to name a few. "Being Jewish in and of itself no longer makes us on the outside,said Zakrzewski, who is also an editor at Heeb. "When you have a very wealthy Jew running the city of NewYork, when you can't go a day without hearing a Jewish reference, it's the opposite. We're as mainstream asyou get."

"There's a fearlessness," Zakrzewski continued. "You could have something like Heeb magazine come out, andyou know there won't be a pogrom down the street because of it."

"What we're seeing here is a natural evolution," said Cohen of Jewsweek. "Jewish culture has gotten so narrowand cheesy that when you see something like Heeb or Jewsweek or 'Lost Tribe' crop up, nothing else could'vehappened. It's not the same gefilte fish and Catskills your parents came up with."



But a larger American trend may also be responsible. At a time when social and artistic boundaries are beingpushed to extremes, it's no wonder that young, intrepid Jews are experimenting with their own culture. On theflipside, radical elements are often absorbed into the mainstream. Bat-biter Ozzy Osbourne has somehowmade his way into the living rooms of middle America; indie rock is often bought out by major labels and theNodance Film Festival — an alternative to SlamDance, itself an alternative to Sundance — has become amajor media event.

Jews on the fringe are no different. Even though their monikers are cheeky and provocative, most of themfrankly crave the widest possible audience. In fact, almost all of these groups receive support from a Jewish

organization. After all, if they truly wished to be off the Jewish map, they wouldn't splash their Jewish identityacross their product. David Lee Roth would never have worn a Jewcy T-shirt.

"Even though we are not a religious magazine, people gravitate toward us with religious-like fervor," said JoshuaNeuman, Heeb's publisher and editor, who took the helm when Jennifer Bleyer stepped down this month. "Analternative movement is tapping into something a lot more mainstream than one would originally expect," saidNeuman, 31.

Yet a debate is simmering among these innovators over the value of producing content that critics say is onlytangentially Jewish and whether certain philosophies are beyond the pale. Media critic Douglas Rushkofdismissed many of these groups. "I don't think there's anything real going on here for the most part," saidRushkoff, a communications professor at New York University and the author of, most recently, "Nothing SacredThe Truth About Judaism" (Crown).

"When I look at efforts of people taking spray-paint imagery from the 1980s, black subway-graffiti-art culture oturntable culture or, whatever, black penises, they're appropriating imagery and cool from other culturesbecause they don't feel cool themselves." Declining to name names, Rushkoff contrasted today's Jewishsubculture to that of the past: "The alternaJew of the '70s was pot-smoking at a Zionist sleep-away camp, whichstill seemed to be communicating Jewish culture, kibbutz culture, socialism, some sort of resonant Jewish valuesThis culture seems to be promoting not values but the surface conventions of MTV and hip-hop."

Cohen of Jewsweek retorted with a critique of his own: "For Judaism to be special and important to me, I haveto fit it to modern-day society. "The problem arises," he added, "when you have people like Douglas Rushkoffwho is too far out on the edge, who says, 'Who needs God?' That's jumping over the cliff and hitting the rock atthe bottom. The Jewish fringe is about being proud of Judaism."

Despite disagreement over what constitutes the Jewish fringe, it has nonetheless struck a chord with charitiesHeeb has received a grant from the UJA-Federation of New York; Amy Tobin's Hub is housed in San Francisco'sJewish community center, and Jews on the Edge is advertised on an online Federation-supported singlesnewsletter, L'Chaim.

The most visible fringe funder is the Joshua Venture. The San Francisco-based organization seeds the innovativeand offbeat projects of young Jewish "social entrepreneurs" between the ages of 21 and 35. A partnership ofvarious family foundations, the Joshua Venture gave Heeb its start and counts the Hub and Storahtellingamong its fellows. But groups like Jewsweek and KFAR have been left out in the cold. Foundation officials saythe community has yet to catch up with these groups. "We are only beginning to identify what is an absoluteexplosion of grassroots cultural projects created by American Jews," said Roger Bennett, vice president ofstrategic initiatives at the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies.

Bennett is a cofounder of Reboot, a series of Utah-based seminars that allow creative types to brainstormabout new ideas of Jewish belonging. He said the main challenge is putting mostly older funders in touch withthese groups and convincing them to experiment with non-institutional models.

Davis organizes concerts from his home, attracting 200 to 300 people per gig. Last Chanukah he promoted afestival at a Chicago alternative-rock venue, the Hideout, in which local bands played original songs written fothe holiday. Eric Roth and the Silver Shmateez performed "Don't You Want to Touch My Hanukah" to a raucouscrowd.

"The organized community needs to wake up and smell the coffee," Davis of Tzitzit said about fundraisingpractices. "These grassroots groups are achieving the results that the organized community wants. We'rereaching the unaffiliated, culturally savvy young adults who fall through the cracks."



Kfar causes a scene:The "Tzizit" concert series and beyond By PAUL WIEDERKfar causes a scene:The "Tzizit" concert series and beyond By PAUL WIEDERKfar causes a scene:The "Tzizit" concert series and beyond By PAUL WIEDERKfar causes a scene:The "Tzizit" concert series and beyond By PAUL WIEDER

YIDcore is a Jewish punk band from Melbourne, Australia; the band members are Jewish and so is their music.YIDcore is also offensive – in the tradition of such Jewish efforts as “The Producers" and Mad Magazine. And

smart (the bass player just finished law school). And loud.

YIDcore played the Chase Café on July 20, with Even Sh’siyah. The latter band is a Chicago-based Southern-rock groove machine. They’re Jewish too; the man at the mike is a rabbi, so imagine Shlomo Carlebachfronting the Allman Brothers.

The concert kicked off a series called, appropriately enough, "Tzitizt: Music from the Jewish Fringe." Just some ofthe other acts coming to Chicago in rapid-fire succession this year: L.A.’s Ladino-rappers, the Hip-Hop Hoodios;New York’s King Django, who merges klezmer and reggae; sax prodigy Danny Zamir and his band, Satlah; andthe bluegrass-meets-New-Age stylings of Simply Tsfat.

But next up are The Jews Brothers, a Jewish swing band from New Zealand, who will play four August dates inChicago and Evanston after their stint at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Jewish music, it seems, is both out there

and out there. “Tzitzit" is the first series offered by Kfar, a six-month-old organization spearheaded by its foundeand director, Adam Davis.

‘Kfar’ is the Hebrew word for ‘village,’ Davis explains. There are many Jewish acts in Chicago and elsewherewho need a context to meet each other and audiences. Kfar was created to provide that artistic village."Kfar’s objective is to stimulate, promote and produce the next generation of Jewish expression, a mission fowhich Kfar has recently received a letter of support from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

To Kfar, Davis brings both his avocation and vocation, marketing. Davis graduated from the University oCincinnati’s Conservatory of Music he is a trumpeter and singer and has appeared in off-Loop theatricaproductions. He met many fellow artists who shared his feeling that “we all sought some way to participate inJudaism using our art.

Davis realized that while mainstream American Jewish musicians had resources to connect with each otheand audiences, nothing of that nature existed – in Chicago, anyway – for those artists on the edges of Jewishexpression. He also recognized that “our generation could be creating more music, performance and arwhich speaks to us," he said. “Synagogue services, the singles scene, and Seinfeld reruns aren’t always inspiringconnections to our people. So what is our generation’s Jewish culture? It must be more than bagel brunches onSunday and Chinese food on Christmas. If we’re going to stay interested, we’ve got to find things that speak tous – young Jews living in 2002.”

Kfar is part of a national trend to appreciate and promote alternative forms of Jewish expression: Heebmagazine; The Knitting Factory’s spin-off Jewish Alternative Movement label; movies like Focus," “Pi, and LateMarriage; Tony Kushner’s play The Dybbuk"; Nathan Englander’s storybook For the Relief of Unbearable UrgesThere are already "scenes" in New York (based in the Makor center) and San Francisco (at The Hub), fosteringand promoting such expression.

"But we’re talking about Jewish culture, which reaches back thousands of years, so of course there areprecedents," Davis points out, listing “Emma Goldman, Lenny Bruce, Allen Ginsberg, and Gloria Steinem, all theway back to Abraham, Rebecca, and Moses, who were radicals back then."

Turning again to the subject of Jewish music, Davis discusses the need for Kfar from the artists’ viewpoint.“Chicago has some amazing talent, from Peter Saltzman’s Revolution Ensemble for jazz to Dr. ArmandoSussmano, who writes new Argentine tangos," Davis said. “Many are already serving as Artistic Associatesincluding singer/songwriter Ellen Rosner, (hip-hop artist) Cleetus Friedman, Rebecca Rosen, a choreographerand Dian Ellenbogen, a poet.

Some of these acts don’t have labels or agents and have to do all their own booking, promotion, and CDdistribution. Some of these acts don’t even know the others exist! Kfar will provide these resources and



connections, helping to create a community of Jewish arts in Chicago." Eventually, Kfar will expand toencompass all the performing and visual arts, Davis added.

A village is a community, but it’s also a place. The Web site kfarcenter.org will launch soon, but “our long-range

plan," Davis said, “includes a facility including an auditorium, rehearsal space, galleries, classrooms, a dancefloor anything that can bring artists together with each other and the public.

Upcoming Kfar events include: a Songwriter’s Succoth; an indie-rock Chanukah jam; an Improv Purim-schpieland a the Karl Shapiro Memorial Jewish Poetry Slam.

Yes, Jewish art is out there. Thanks to Davis, Kfar is bringing it here.

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