Hebrew School

For a while now, I’ve meant to publish a review and thoughts on Danielson: A Family Movie (or Make A Joyful Noise HERE), which I had seen on DVD this past winter. The award-winning documentary came to my Netflix queue’s attention at first not for its rave reviews or compelling story, but because a friend (and Sunset Park neighbor), Tom Eaton, who had played with honorary Family member Sufjan Stevens, had created an animation segment for the film (while making a brief cameo). My interest piqued, so I watched.

The movie trails Daniel Smith and his family band, Danielson, or Danielson Family, or Danielson Famile, or Smith’s solo project, Brother Danielson. Feeling a strong connection to his Christianity, he at one time lived at JPUSA in Chicago, an organization with ancestry in the Jesus movement of ’60s hippies, and somewhere along the way began to play Christian music. Weird and interesting Christian music.

Danielson’s success in the mainstream indie world, regardless of how people might have felt about it, resonated with me because of the questions it brought up about this music. (Seeing them open for Animal Collective last year probably helped, too.) The Christian music scene grew suspicious of Smith, as did indie music. Does great art get created in the space where vastly different parts of one’s potential audience both attempt to call a bluff? While Smith, with complete sincerity (…right?), pushed the creative boundaries of the Christian music juggernaut, does Jewish music push boundaries in an analogous way?

The answer to the latter question seemed obvious to me at first, but I can’t really be sure. If pressed I would say that Jewish music today, in all its shapes and colors, is a different cultural phenomenon altogether. But then again, being Jewish– albeit far (like, way far) less involved in my faith than Smith– kind of deprives me of any objectivity. Is “Christian rock” what non-Jews see in a Rorschach test of “Jewish rock?”

No answers forthcoming, though one of the most interesting moments of the film for me was when Daniel drummed up a compelling axiology: Christians and churches, he said, should be funding and supporting Christian bands– not the profit-driven music industry. Can we not say that Jews should also be doing more of the same?

OK, still no simple answers– but let’s have a beer some time.