Moshiach Oi! Merges Orthodox Judaism and Punk Rock

NY Times   The band and the weekly Thursday night gathering, known as Chulent, both appear in a new documentary film called “Punk Jews,” about fringe strands that have emerged within New York’s Orthodox community. The movie, which is scheduled for release on DVD this summer, examines loose bits of subculture inside what is often seen as an insular, rule-oriented cloister. To be a hard-core punk band chanting, “Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman,” the song of global healing for an obscure branch of Hasidism, is to be something beyond a square peg in a round hole. It is to give up the idea of fitting in altogether. Even at Chulent their din divides. 

“It’s very amusing to me to see the looks on people’s faces,” Mr. Romanoff said, wearing a long beard and a skullcap with the “Na Nach” phrase embroidered in Hebrew around the edge. “Most religious Jews have never seen anything like this, so they have no idea what’s going on.” 

Yet he saw no contradiction between his music and his submission to his faith. “To me, Judaism is like punk rock,” he said. “Real Judaism is very in your face. The world is chasing after desires for money and sex and drugs and materialism, and Judaism is the opposite. Judaism is like, this world is nothing. This world is only to serve God and bring light and redemption. To me, that’s very punk rock.” 

The New York area’s Orthodox Jewish population has swelled by more than 25 percent in the past decade, to almost half a million in 2011, according to a study by UJA-Federation of New York. One in three Jews in the area is now Orthodox, and more than half of Jewish children live in O