Rabbi Andy Bachman:

The "Oi" of Punk Rock

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

NEW YORK - "Oi! Oi! Oi!", one of the Ramones' silly live chants, is now sadly etched into memory following the April death of beloved frontman Joey (nee Jeffrey Hyman). For one fan, the chant was double entendre. Meet Rabbi Andy Bachman, Skirball Executive Director of the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life: Hillel at NYU, and his wife Rachel.

The Bachmans' rock predilections began with the seminal rock-roots-punk outfit the Mekons, fronted by Jon Langford. "Rachel

and I went to school in Madison, Wisconsin ('the Jerusalem of the Midwest')," the Rabbi recalls. "She roomed with Helen Tsatsos

(Langford's future wife). "In 1989, I started Rabbinical school at HUC (Hebrew Union College) in Jerusalem and Rachel lived in London with Helen and Mekons fiddle player Suzie Honeyman.

"They were the menschiest bunch of musicians I had ever encountered. Most were 70's art students in Leeds before forming the band, having been influenced, like so many future punk artists, by Jewish Joey and the Ramones."

Langford, on a recent National Public Radio "Along for the Ride" feature, noted: "Andy and I have stood over Dylan Thomas' hillside grave in the pouring rain pondering love and death, and the unshakeable conviction of many Welsh people that we are indeed the lost tribe of Israel. But I've never asked the Rabbi his favorite Ramones song."

"They dug that I decided to be a rabbi," says Bachman, "long before that silly guy Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction started

hanging around a Chabad rabbi and realized religion was 'deep'." Rachel, a Baltimore native, is a criminal appeals public defender with a 1996 JD from Brooklyn Law. "Her first rock show was a Ramones concert." They have two daughters.

Their goal, for their recent 10th anniversary, "is to throw a party, with the house band being the Mekons."

As Milwaukee native Bachman alludes to amid the music banter, he was ordained by HUC-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1996, was Rabbi-Educator for 5 years at Brooklyn's largest Reform congregation Beth Elohim, and joined NYU in 1998. He serves on American Jewish World Service's board of advisors, writes myriad Torah articles, is creating a Jewish comedy web site at yap.cat.nyu.edu, and is ubiquitous among social, environmental, economic and even voter-rights justice groups ("Let the count proceed!" he urged, citing biblical passages, at a NYC rally last fall featuring Alec Baldwin and Rep. Jerold Nadler).

He seems to find scripture everywhere. "A Mekons show is like a page of Talmud; there's a lot going on there. They can reference Hank Williams, Carl Perkins and Elvis, Spinal Tap, Black Sabbath, Bob Marley and parody George Bush. Of course, that doesn't fill stadiums like Dave Matthews...What is eternal and lasting in culture is often what is least appreciated. Madonna is a millionaire but one of Jonny (Langford)'s paintings says more about the history of music than she could ever hope to say.

"By the very nature of Jewish interpretive culture, we push at borders, tear down meaning in an effort to understand it.

"We've done so with ethical monotheism, exegetical readings of scripture, medieval philosophy and poetry, and with 19th century nationalism and other emancipatory movements. We were at the borders partly because we were ghettoized to those places. Ironically, though, we found them to be places of great exploration, and honed perspective, created new ideas, and dreamed of better things for the world.

"I feel very at home as a Jew at a Mekons show. The margins are a comfortable place for a Jew to be."

Bachman mentions Jewish musicians Randy Newman, Lou Reed, Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan, Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, and Clash frontman Joe Strummer.

Certainly a rabbi who might relate to many young Jews, Bachman is matter-of-fact. "My interests sometimes correspond to a certain kind of student," he acknowledges. "Those connections help bring them closer to Torah and that's just fine with me. But I offer no magical solutions. "There is an interesting propensity of certain Chabad rabbis to affiliate with pop stars to promote their own careers (Shmuley Boteach-Michael Jackson comes to mind).

"I prefer to maintain rabbinic and artistic integrity."