[HANASHIR:8228] Kol Isha

[Emworobey <Emworobey...>]

Shirona, et al:

I can definitely relate to this and understand your outrage.  I have 
occasionally encountered situations like these as the lead singer, and only 
female, in a 6 piece band which began as a klezmer group, but has now 
branched out.  We now play all genres of Jewish (and non-Jewish) music but 
our audiences are almost always Jewish.  As an integral member of this group, 
there have been occasions when I have felt as you did.  It is very upsetting. 
 You want to be tolerant of other people's beliefs but it's very difficult 
when tolerating their beliefs means that you have to compromise your own.  

We had a different, yet somewhat similar, situation recently in which a 
Jewish group wanted to hire us for a simcha at their shul but said that they 
could not condone men and women playing music together on the same stage so 
these were the choices if we wanted to accept the gig:  A) they could hire me 
solo and I could sing and strum my guitar all night but they really wanted to 
dance and be merry so that probably wasn't going to work;  B) I could round 
up some other women musicians to play with me who were familiar with our 
repertoire but there would be no time to rehearse before the gig so we'd be 
totally winging it;  C) the guys could do the gig without me.

But there was one hitch.  They really wanted VOCALS.  The guys in my band 
sing back-ups but none of them considers himself a singer and would not be 
comfortable singing lead unless it was American rock which this group was 
definitely not going to want to hear!  My feeling was "Too bad, you lose!  
Either take us for who we are or get someone else who can meet all your 
criteria.  There's no compromising here."  The whole thing really irritated 
me.  The guys agreed with me and in the end, we chose option D) Decline the 
gig.

I felt just a little bit empowered by this because I realized that just as 
they have their beliefs and make choices based on them, so do we.

Emily Worobey
emworobey (at) aol(dot)com 

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