Category Archives: Jewish

Only The Beginning

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This is a totally true story.

As the half century mark approaches I look back, in celebration, of a life totally unexpected, unplanned, raw and incredible as its outcome is ongoing. The future not yet set but continues to be promising. I look back with a sense of purpose and meaning. I look back and can see worth and value, while so many have a hard time seeing it for their own lives. In short, I look back and smile. Most don’t have a story like mine, and my story has so many layers, so many variables, that it would be incredibly hard to present it in any kind of coherent, cohesive, fashion, or even as a template for anyone else’s life. However, I do believe that each persons unique story has lessons, experiences, and stories that others can learn and benefit from. Even just for entertainment value.

I’ve been told that the very origins of my story are unusual enough to put the rest of my life in a perspective that would “explain a lot of things.” Few know the entire story. Just pieces. I’m not sure even I know the entire origin story but what I do know fascinates even me.

Let’s begin in Tehran, Iran, in early 1969, during the Iranian revolution. Iran is in disarray. Almost a third world country. A young 17 year old Sephardic, Persian, Jewish woman is walking home from school with her sister. Sitting on a wall, hanging out, is a young Persian Muslim man.* An up and coming auto mechanic. They become friends. Neither of their families knows about their friendship, as that would be verboten. She has enrolled as a foreign exchange student in the United States for the upcoming school year and got accepted. She will be going to the United States soon.

One night they are hanging out and they get physically intimate. No penetration occurs. However, the young man ejaculates on, or about, the vaginal area. Just casual exploration and enjoyment by two young people. Neither think anything of it as Tehran doesn’t really have the best informative sex education classes in 1969. Nor do parents talk to their kids about such things back then. Shortly thereafter, this young Jewish woman gets on a plane to the United States to start her first year of college.

She stays, as a boarder, at a lovely blond haired, blue eyed, non-Jewish family, for her school year. She’s been in America about 3 months. Her night of enjoyment just 3 months prior. She hasn’t gotten her period. 6 months have gone by since that night. Thinking it might be the flight, time change or even the change in diet, causing the irregularity, and slight weight gain, she goes about her daily studies. One day she’s not feeling so well and goes to the doctor to get checked out. The doctor informs her that she is pregnant. Of course, you can imagine the fear in this young woman. Alone. In a foreign country. Away from her family. With no one to talk to. She has decisions to make.

She decides to have the baby and would give it to the non-Jewish family she is staying with. If her family, in Tehran, found out about the child, they would likely excommunicate her. Or even worse. Same for the father. Such was/is the culture. She kept all this to herself.

Shortly before giving birth, she decides to give the baby up for adoption, to the Jewish Family Services in the state she was in. It just so happens that a young, orthodox, Ashkenazic, married couple, living in Phoenix, AZ, were on the list for adoption.

They were just starting their lives together as husband and wife. He, a Yeshiva University (YU) graduate, a young doctor in the US Army working with American Indians. She, a teacher. Wanting to start a family, but not getting pregnant, they applied  to Jewish Family Services to adopt. One day they get a call asking if they’d be interested in adopting a Jewish Persian baby about to be born. Not knowing what the future held or that he was to become The Jewish Rapper, they said yes! They took a leap of faith. One that was based on unconditional love.

That baby was born, quite healthy, at the end of that year. The couple flew to the hospital to receive that child. The husband had the foresight to make sure everything was in place should there ever be a question about the verification of the childs Jewishness. He made sure the circumcision was performed according to Judaic law. He also took note of any available information of the young birth mother, should it be needed in the future.

Imagine the onslaught of emotions the young, mother must have been going through. The fear. The uncertainty. The unusual and unfamiliar circumstances life had provided her. Her dreams of that child having an amazing life, with an amazing family, in a safe, loving Jewish environment were in question. Living the rest of her life not knowing what was to become of that child would have a been a very heavy weight to bear.

The biological father never knew of the child. He would pass away, in Tehran, of a heroine overdose, approximately 4 years later. The young woman would graduate college, eventually get married and have 2 children of her own. The only individual in her universe that would know of this child would be her sister. The rest of her siblings, parents and grandparents, would never know. She would meet that child, approximately 25 years later, by an unbelievable set of circumstances, pieces that would be put in place a little more than a decade earlier, that, unknown to either of them, would bring them together and confirm that her decision was, in fact, the correct one, thereby reducing that weight she had to bear.

The adopting parents brought the child to Phoenix for approximately 2 years. A short stint in New York and then settling in Baltimore, where they had a daughter the old fashioned way. Unbeknownst to them, they would get the most unusual ride of their lives.

But that’s a whole other story…

*In the Jewish faith a child is Jewish if the mother is Jewish. In the Muslim faith a child is Muslim if the father is Muslim. That adds a unique twist to my life.

You Light Up My Life

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Imagine, if you will, that shorty after your birth you were chosen to get an extra heart. You are perfectly healthy but technology made it such that certain people could get an extra heart, another source of extra blood flow, energy and emotion. You can get used to this. In times of stress, sorrow, and struggle this heart was there for you to give you a boost. When you needed a little something more it pumped extra nurturing blood into you. It was always there for you and it always worked. It’s was a part of you but you weren’t born with it.

One day, after 30+ years of being there for you, of working, it’s taken out. That extra everything is no longer there. That space, where it was, that was left behind, will never fill back up and you will never go back to the way you were when you were born. You don’t have any of that awesomeness, that support, that extra everything that was always there for you!

Mrs. Lowenbraun was my extra heart. She was a mother, a confidant, a teacher, a shrink, a warrior, a source of inspiration, insight, vision and wisdom. She supported me, without judgement, and always flipped any pre-conceived notions, or ideas, on their head with a whole other, unique, viewpoint. She taught me to challenge, to debate, to educate and to lead. She did almost all of this by just being herself. You watched her exist and wanted to be more like her and learn from her. She was a friend, in every sense of the word.

The stories of my presence in her home are legendary. There are those that might even have gotten mad at some of my antics. She never did! I would have to take responsibility and rectify whatever it was that had to be dealt with. She laughed it off as par for the course and I just had to deal with the feeling of letting her down. Though I knew she didn’t look at it that way.

Her home was always open. Literally! I would just walk into the back door at any time, day or night, like Kramer (Seinfeld) or Norm (Cheers), maybe grab a bite to eat, something to drink, take a nap on the couch, take a leak. Someone might be there to chat with, sometimes not. It didn’t matter. It was home! Countless people can share similar stories and it was home for them too!

I learned to be responsible, efficient, hard working and motivated in that home. I learned to get things done! More than that, I learned how to be a Jew and the greatness of that role, when done right. I learned how to be a part of something much greater than yourself. To be a part of a family.

There is the generic, cookie cutter Jew that is manufactured in schools. And then there is the Jew that walks out of Mrs. Lowenbrauns home. The two are completely different! She always emphasized education above all else and she recognized that education can be presented in so many different ways. Her awesomeness was that she led by example, and that was education enough for me.

She was filled with love and still fought for justice. I came into her life at 13 years old, after going through one hell of a time in Jewish school, public school and a special private school. It was a lot of turmoil for my parents. Once I was in her life I never left. Her husband, Rabbi Yitzchok Lowenbraun, was her other half and complemented all that she was. There was no greater balance of Yin and Yang than the two of them. At 17 I got kicked out of the yeshiva again but by this point I was becoming a leader and mentor in my own right. The reasons for kicking me out were unjust and unwarranted but as usual that school system was failing me just as it had/has so many others. She fought for me and while she didn’t win the fight she won the battle. This was not the first time she defended me and wouldn’t be the last. The stories are all laughable now but, at the time, were very trying. She was justice and peace all rolled into one. They do not always coexist. With her they did! She was truly an amazing woman in every sense of the word.

I flew in to see her right before she died. I missed her by, maybe, 15 minutes. I might’ve been the last person she saw if Hertz didn’t screw up my rental car, which wasted 20 mins of my time. Oh the bragging rights I coulda had but it wasn’t meant to be. It’s probably for the best as her condition had deteriorated so much that I should probably always remember her as I knew her and not as the frail person she had become. She died around her family, peacefully, which is the way it should be.

I always made her laugh. Often times not even intentionally. Her existence made me recognize my existence, my purpose and my talents. She came from a Chasidic dynasty which was very antithetical to the family I was raised in. All that never mattered. It didn’t even play a role. She was all about the person, the soul, in each and every one of the people that walked through her home. I always came to visit when I was in Baltimore and she always laughed and we always talked about the past, present and future and there was always still more for me to learn.

I am proud to have known her and learned from her, and even more proud to call her a mother to me. I often think about her and what her perspective might be in any given instance in life. She was, and remains, an inspiration, a role model, a leader and she was my extra heart.

 

I Wanna Thank You…

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Since I was very young I’ve been taught that we say thank you and express gratitude and appreciation to people when they do things that impact you, your community or the general population, in a positive way. It’s such an important and emphasized value, in fact, that in the Bible, in Exodus, when Moses is before Pharaoh during the first plague of blood, it is Aaron that actually hits the water turning it into to blood, and not Moses! Moses was showing gratitude to the water for saving him from certain death when he was a baby. There are numerous other instances where similar things happened (the ground protected Moses when the Egyptian was killed, the dogs were shown gratitude since they didn’t bark when the Jews left Egypt). Saying thanks is a godly thing by virtue of the fact that we, unlike the animals, were given the ability to speak. The use of words have the ability to change the world and to make the recipient of ones appreciation and thanks happy and proud that they did something good for you.

So it is with that idea that when I don’t hear a person, or people, say thank you, acknowledge or show gratitude to someone for their positive contribution, especially one that so many benefit from, I get quite annoyed and disappointed in humanity and in the Jewish people. Even worse is when that thank you has to be begged for, or coerced from, the recipient(s) of that contribution. Even worse than that is when I have to do it myself for everyone else.

As I write this I am sitting on a plane, on my way to New York, to start my portion of the 30th Anniversary Tour of Shlock Rock. Lenny Solomon officially started Shlock Rock in 1986. I know because I was there! I had just turned 16 and I was a lunatic. I had energy unlike the world had ever seen. Lenny Solomon was the house band for the weekend retreats (Shabbatons) for NCSY’s Atlantic Seaboard Region. Rabbi “Itchy” Lowenbraun was in charge and he had an amazing gift to find talented people.

Lets go back a few years to 1983 when I had just left a boarding school after being kicked out of my Yeshiva (Jewish day school) some years prior. I was a very smart kid with a lot of energy, and potential, who really didn’t fit the Jewish mold I was being shoved into. My parents now had to come up with some way to, not only keep me out of trouble but to also keep me involved in Judaism, which as you know is quite easy to leave if it has no meaning or value to a person.

So it was that they were encouraged to introduce me to Rabbi Lowenbraun, who was in charge of this youth group, and had a unique insight into people and Judaism. We met him and some months later I went to my first Shabbaton at the Host Farms hotel in Lancaster, PA in Feb. 1984. When the bus arrived, after a couple hours of my boombox blaring Def Leppard, I had no patience to wait for the kids to get off so I climbed out the window. I check in and go to my room.  My roommate was my age. A pasty, doofy kid (Chuckie Epstein) and we had an advisor who happened to play guitar for the house band (Shlomo Horowitz). It seems Chuckie witnessed my climb out the window, was scared of me and hoped we would have nothing to do with each other. Turns out we became best friends to this day. He was also a musical prodigy, could play anything and was tight with the band. I now had access!

I became popular very quickly in large part because I was wild and would do anything for a laugh. The next Shabbaton I met Lenny Solomon. He was now the leader of the house band “Kesher” with Shlomo playing guitar, Joey Friedman on bass and Tzvi Pill on drums. Chuckie would sit in a bit. I got to hang with the band. I also could dance! My boombox afforded me the music to breakdance anywhere. Kesher had done a parody called “Hit Me With Your Best P’shat” which they recorded on their first album and song parodies started becoming a thing at these retreats because we would do them for skits, they were fun to play and they started having Jewish educational lyrics in them.

My favorite rap song was called “Jam On It” which Lenny changed to “Bless On It” which taught one why we make the Kiddush blessing on the wine on Friday nights. The members of Kesher started getting “real” jobs, getting married and doing what nice normal Jewish boys do. Chuckie became the drummer, Yonah Lloyd was now the guitar player and Danny Block was on the sax, while Lenny continued to play keyboard and write music. There were 8 Shabbatons a year with mini Shabbatons in between. There was always music! Kesher put out their third and final  album while Lenny started Shlock Rock and continued writing these parodies. I was the kid that would always run on stage and dance.

Lenny recorded the first Shlock Rock album called “Learning Is Good.” It was supposed to be a one off. Just one album and he would continue finishing school for accounting. It turns out he started getting letters from people saying things like “My brother hates everything about Judaism but loves your music and listens to it around the clock. Keep up the good work.” At Shabbatons we would dance to all the music and actually learned new things from those lyrics. His lyrics were educating us without us really knowing it and they were so much fun! Fun learning through music – a novel idea at the time! So it was he had to make a choice – accounting or music.

Another 2 albums came out very quickly to meet the demand, as word got out this was going on. He was going on tour all over the country. No advertising. No promotion. Just word of mouth. My advisor, and friend, Michael Reches and I would write parodies for the Shabbatons for the kids. The first one was “Achashveirosh” (“Amadeus”) which Lenny liked so much that he put on his second album Purim Torah and added a whole history lesson to it of the Purim story. The next one Michael and I did was called “Wash This Way” (“Walk This Way”) which taught why we wash our hands before we eat bread. This was the first weekend it was ever performed. Lenny loved it, added an end to the 3rd verse to make it more like the original and also put it on Purim Torah. In 1986 I went on a summer trip to Israel. A kid named Danny “Doc” Ferszt was from LA and was super cool! He had written a rap song that started out “Laddie Doo, I’m a Jew and I think it’s cool, yeah I eat kosher meat cuz I aint no fool…” I would sing this song incessantly. Lenny expounded on it and made the rap song  “Rappin Jewish.”

By this point I loved rapping. I was really good at it. I could break dance and I could do graffiti. In the orthodox Jewish world I was in, that skill set simply didn’t exist. Lenny would let me on stage to do something at every weekend retreat and all of Baltimore knew of the ball of excitement and wonder that was Etan G during the rest of the year. I had just turned 17 and entertainment, music and education were a perfect conduit to channel my energy and intellect. Lenny would always call me up to do a song if we were in the same city, even if it wasn’t a Shabbaton. Chuckie and I finished high school, spent a year in Israel and life moved on with college and an eye on what to do for the future.

Shlock Rock was huge! They toured all over the world, on almost every continent, for just about every Jewish school, synagogue, organization, fundraiser, benefit, bar/bat mitzvah etc. and most importantly for every Jewish denomination. It didn’t matter ones Jewish affiliation, the music and knowledge was for everyone. Lenny came out with many albums of original music, not just parodies. Schools started using his lyrics in their lesson plans. Rabbis would quote lyrics in their sermons and, most importantly, people from all over, would dance together to this music. Lenny Solomon brought Jews together, from all over the world, and unified them, even just briefly, through music. People all over the world rocked and learned from the music of Lenny Solomon.

In 1991 Shlock Rock had a gig at the Baltimore Arena for the Macabee games. Lenny couldn’t make it and he asked me to do 3 of the rap songs with the band, in front of 15,000 people, on a stage that I had seen some of the greatest rock bands in the world play on. Not only was it an honor, and awesome, but I was hooked on performing. He also had me record some vocals and appear in his music video “Be good, Be Cool, Be Jewish.“

Alas, there could be no career in Jewish rap, or so I was told, and I followed the path of the sheep towards a nice Jewish boy job, maybe Psychologist, Social Worker or an honest businessman, maybe the food business. Who knows.

It’s 1992, I graduate college and am sleeping on the couch at a friends apt. I get a call from Lenny looking for a new rap song. I didn’t want to do a parody because rap, to me, didn’t have to be parodied. It could be amazing without it. I presented to him the idea that the rap songs I was involved in (Bless On It and Wash This Way) were the Friday night, Sabbath procedure so why not continue that procession and do something about making the Motzee which came next after you wash your hands. He loved the idea and had me get to work on it. Kriss Kross had just come out with a song called “Jump” and I loved the whole play on the letter “M” and Making The Motzee was written. After the call with Lenny I wrote most of the lyrics in under 15 minutes. I took a train from the city to Queens and we finished it off and recorded it in the studio a few days/weeks later. It became huge, but not initially.

I moved to LA at the end of 1993. I had been doing all sorts of jobs in New York. Lots of waitering and sales type jobs. I didn’t want to go to grad school for Psych or Social Work (though I tried). Up until this point I had a very negative relationship with Jewish schools and formal schools in general. I just didn’t fit any kind of mold. I was, for better or worse, unique and the world isn’t/wasn’t set up for unique. In LA I continued this sheepish path, working in import/export, restaurants, the food biz. I even opened up a restaurant. During the same time I saw an orthodox musician doing real, awesome, legit rock n’ roll at The Roxy and now saw that being an observant Jew and performing could be done.

Lenny had me join him on a tour that consisted of Vegas, San Antonio and Dallas and, shortly thereafter, as the other band members were getting married and having nice Jewish boy jobs so they could have families, Lenny calls me, at my restaurant and asks If I want to go on the road with him. This was circa 1995/1996. The rest is history!

Since then I’ve done more shows with him than any other member of the band. I contributed something unique to the show. I’ve traveled all over the world with him and even got a whole solo career out of it. Shlock Rock has performed in all 50 of these United States! There are huge rock bands, and even U.S. presidents that haven’t even done that let alone any Jewish artist. Most importantly, Lenny Solomon has done what no other artist has done and that is change lives. If I had a nickel for every person that has come up to me at a show and said “Shlock Rock made me want to keep Shabbos”, “Shlock Rock inspired me to keep kosher”, “Shlock Rock was what made me want to become an observant Jew” “Shlock Rock taught me about…” I would be quite wealthy. Lenny did not create Shlock Rock to do any of those things but rather to educate people in a fun way. To teach people the things they were not taught in Hebrew School. To unify and bring a sense of Jewish pride to so many who lacked it. Who felt they had to hide their beliefs, their identity, the fact that they were Jewish, from the world. So many people forget that there are Jews outside of the Tri-State area and they have to endure many trials and tribulations that those in large Jewish communities don’t have to. They don’t have the access to Jewish education. Even those in large Jewish communities learned so many things from Shlock Rock that are not taught in schools and Lenny Solomon has devoted his life, his entire career, to doing just that – educating and bringing the Jewish people together from all walks of life!

I have toured with, and continue to tour with, Lenny Solomon for 20 of the 30 years Shlock Rock has existed. I have seen, first hand, the positive impact it has had on Jewish people around the world. I have witnessed the lives that have been changed by Shlock Rock and Lenny Solomon, and shouldn’t have to beg to get just a little bit of press, interviews or acknowledgment for such an amazing accomplishment. So on behalf of myself and the entire Jewish people I say thank you…  because they haven’t!

We are the Champions!

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It’s been a minute since I’ve felt inspired, motivated, to write. Not that I’m any big deal. Not that there are so many voracious readers of the musings of Etan G but rather I haven’t felt the desire to. I wish I did more often. I enjoy it. It’s healing, refreshing, therapeutic all at the same time. So why now? Well, simply put, I’m damn proud of my upcoming achievement. Momentous achievements in ones life deserve to be shared, talked about and, well, sometimes they just need to be publicized. It is with that in mind that it feels more natural to put this out.

I’ve had some great achievements in my life. Many of which many never thought would happen, like graduating high school, graduating college and getting a Masters Degree in Education. This was beyond anyone’s comprehension, including myself. Making 2 albums, touring the world doing something that just never existed, was simply not even a thought in anyone’s mind as even being possible. There are others but those are the big ones.

So it is with that in mind that I share with you the following achievement. As of this writing, the band that I tour with, Shlock Rock and Lenny Solomon, will have performed in all 50 states in the United States. Yes, that includes Alaska and Hawaii, as they are part of the 50 states. Now let me explain why that is so huge. It’s not just driving through these states, it performing, actually working, in all 50 states. There are presidents that have not been to all 50 states and some of the biggest rock bands in the world have not been to all 50. Yes, some may have driven through but not done what their career entails in all 50.

Not only that, but there is no Jewish artist or Rabbi that has been to all 50 – not even close! We will have performed, to Jews, in all 50 states! Yes, there are Jews all over. A truly fascinating thing in and of itself. The question I always hear is “there are Jews there?” To which I answer “yes, I couldn’t believe it either!” And they are always the nicest people!

That’s why it’s also truly an honor to do what I do. I don’t get jaded by the same type of person, the same type of Jew, the same views, the same anything. I get to see different types of people practicing their beliefs in the way that works for them, making things work in their respective communities, with their respective resources. It provides me with a much broader perspective, a more open mind, a more tolerant and caring mind. I don’t care if they’re not like me. We sit together. Dance together. Sing together. We eat and drink together. Truly an honor and a pleasure to see and interact with the world, to see this great country and to meet my brothers and sisters from all walks of life! That’s why this achievement is much bigger than just the act of performing in each state!

This accomplishment is one that most people will never do in their lives, in any capacity, not even close. So for me, to be a part of something awesome like this, to achieve something as great as this and for the mentality of so many in my past, sometimes even myself, who thought that I would never accomplish anything remotely great, this is a big fuck you to all of them! We are the champions! This is how we live! See you on the road! All love g

Follow Etan G, on the road, on Twitter @thejewishrapper