On the road coming back from 5 days on the road playing in GA at Camp Barney and Camp Coleman, NC at Bluestar Camps, and in IN at Camp Livingston. This was the first leg of our US summer tour and couldn’t have been a greater start. We tried out all kinds of new songs which the campers did great with - Or Zarua, L’cha Dodi, and Or Chadash… lot’s of loud singing. We had our new multi-media projector screens running the whole show along with our new LED light show and hazers. In the secular world, this production stuff would be no big deal, but in the Jewish world, it’s practically unheard of . For that reason, I’m totally psyched to be going through all the extra work and expense (LOTS of both!) to set this all up night after night since it shows our Jewish community that WE can do it too… Jews can do it too. Jewish rock concerts should never be ‘less-than’ anything youth would see in their ‘normal’ lives. It was really neat seeing everyone react to all the production - checking out the videos, digging all the smoke and lights. It’s just people getting super excited at a rock concert, but this is a Jewish concert, so the excitement is in a Jewish context which is even more cool! Budgets are so low out there and the demand is just growing, but I can’t stop thinking about how far we could take this and what an impact it would have on Jewish youth, Jewish identity, Jewish music, and Jewish education. And when we have more awesome artists out there, the impact will be even exponentially greater. I’m tired and ready to be home for a couple days, but all this stuff gets me motivated for a very long run starting next week all the way through mid Aug. Hope to see you out there!
RR

It was about 6 years ago when our first son, Kobi, was born. In a sense, that was the most exciting and memorable period of my life – between the excitement and tension leading up to his birth, the delivery, the bris, the first nights feeding him in the middle of the night with a bottle – looking down at this new and unbelievable G-dly creation in my arms. So, yes, very memorable to say the least. On the other hand, to tell the truth, I can barely remember a thing from the first 6 months of Kobi’s life. We were exhausted, I was touring like crazy - the overwhelming moments run together into a blur of ‘what the heck happened and who is that baby in my arms in this photograph … I don’t remember THAT!’ I thought it would be different with our 2nd son, Tal, but it’s pretty much the same – exhilaration, exhaustion, who is that kid in the photograph.

One thing I really remember from this time period in Kobi’s life started when he was about 3 months old and Elisa and I started to resume some of our life activities. We swore we’d never anesthetize our kids by throwing them in front of a TV all day … but in desperation and through recommendation from caring and intelligent friends, we popped in some of the popular Baby Einstein infant videos. Kobi watched and interacted with these videos like a deer in headlights – thoroughly mesmerized. It became clear, pretty quickly, that in addition to providing me and Elisa some time to clean the dishes and take showers, etc that these Baby Einstein videos were super simple and brilliant. The videos combined simple, colorful, vivid imagery with the music of classic composers like Beethoven, Mozart, and others.

When Elisa was pregnant with Kobi and when he was born, I was super inspired to write and record our little kids album, Free to Be the Jew in Me. The album was a big hit with infants and preschoolers around the country and it seemed natural that we might also make a Baby Einstein video-version of the album – but for Jewish kids. In considering this possibility, it became clear that this was more of a project that we were interested in investing in at the time, but hoped someone would do create something like this for little Jewish kids.

Soon after, the video concept we were thinking about creating actually hit the Jewish market and it was called OyBaby http://oybaby.com/ . I was thrilled that someone had also been thinking the same thing and made this critical piece of media for the Jewish world. It wasn’t long before everyone and their mother was talking about the OyBaby videos. Everywhere I went on the road, moms were asking me about the OyBaby video series. “Have you seen this Jewish video thing?” “My kids go berserk watching this video!” Aside from being psyched to see this critical early-childhood need met, the best part was meeting the creator of the OyBaby series, Rob Wolf. Rob was working a full-time job and dreaming in color, working on the side making and distributing the OyBaby videos. Rob was truly one of the nicest, most sharing and genuine guys I had met since I’d started playing Jewish music. He was also super internet-savvy, utilizing blogging, email advertising, and all kinds of contemporary ways of letting people know about his awesome Oybaby products. (Here’s a bit about Rob http://robtheexplainer.typepad.com/about.html ) Rob wouldn’t have known it, but he was very inspirational to me at the time – knowing there was someone out there stretching to create the highest quality products, distribute the products to the mainstream utilizing contemporary communication channels, and networking/sharing with others in such a kind and sincere way. I was honored that Rob included some of our music on his videos too.

Rob has now distributed 2 VERY successful OyBaby videos which are a huge hit with little Jewish kids throughout the country, including my boys who dance around like maniacs in our living room to Tzena Tzena on a regular basis … so successful, that Rob left his full-time job to pursue his video-creation business full-time. Rob has also branched out to create a secular kids video series called That Baby DVD which is available at Pottery Barn Kids stores throughout the US http://www.thatbabydvd.com/. Rob is a blogger geru too helping to teach others (including me) the basics about blogging and much more. http://robtheexplainer.typepad.com/ I talked to Rob recently who sounds great, is cranking away at his new business venture and is still the most humble, passionate, and inspiring guy.

I think it’s important that we let the world know when we meet good guys like Rob and witness outstanding popular media for Jewish youth – both critical for the relevance and perpetuation of Judaism and humanity.