–Jeff Sharlet

Part I: Last night I went to church at the Journey, an evangelical, nondenominational, congregation of actors and singers and people who want to know actors and singers. I was reporting a story about a couple of its members, but I was fascinated by the music: imitation indie rock, contemporary Christian music… but it was good! There were these interludes that reminded me of “Under the Milky Way,” the Psychedelic Furs version, and there was a fine bass player that made the lyrics about being broken and healed and all that actually seem related to being broken and healed and all that. I was impressed; until I went downstairs, to the Hammerstein Ballroom, where, I was told, the hasidic Frank Sinatra was playing a special pre-Purim concert. I caught only the opening act — but — my God — it rocked. Not faux-indie-rock-rocked; rather, only as a singer with a cantor’s control and a big brass band behind him can. It was most decidely not “relevant,” the buzzword in evangelicaldom these days, but this is how good it was: the guy sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh),” af yidish, and it was so good I almost cried and definitely would have danced if the assembled hasidim hadn’t already been eyeing me like maybe I was a lobster roll.

Part II:Ben Weiner, author of this essay on Amos Oz’ memoir of growing up in what is now Israel, and I shared an apartment years ago when we were studying Yiddish at Columbia, Ben as a near-fluent speaker already, me as a beginner who never really began. I was working for the Yiddish organization that published this essay, but I quit after the boss, a brilliant but tempermental guy, purged a chunk of the top staff. The outfit hired Ben; he took one look and quit after a day. Last time I saw him was at an Irish bar in Philadelphia, where we very nearly came to blows over Israel, Buddhism, and organized labor. The bartender asked us to leave before we could sort out which side was which. There were some email apologies that got crossed, and that was that, but next month I’ll be seeing Ben at a wedding, and this month is Purim and St. Patrick’s Day, and Ben Weiner is the only writer I know who has ever managed to combine the holidays in this splendid essay, “St. Patrick’s Purim Shpiel.”