Everyone knows we have plenty of food over the course of Jewlicious Festivals, but the behind-the-scenes question is always “What are we going to do with all of the leftovers?”

The problem: Leftover food that might go to waste.

The solution: Food Finders!

Food Finders is a multi-regional food bank that serves as a conduit between the donors, service agencies and people in need, providing food to feed the impoverished and hungry people, and referral services in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Lucky for us and a whole lot of hungry folks, Food Finders picked up all of our leftover food to distribute to those who are in need.

Jewlicous Festivals salutes Food Finders and tips our hat to an organization that we are proud to be partnered with.

You can read more about them @ http://www.foodfinders.org/

“Jewlicious opts for music and art over religion and politics”

“If you want to make something where everybody will come together, focus on things that people have in common, [like] love of music,” said Rabbi Yonah Bookstein, organizer of the Jewlicious Festival. Indeed, music, art and family took center stage last weekend for the three-day, sixth annual Jewlicious, which brought nearly 1,000 people— including Jews of all denominations—from 22 states to Long Beach’s Alpert Jewish Community Center.

The weekend saw strong musical performances from Matisyahu, Moshav and Rav Shmuel. It also highlighted boxer Yuri Foreman, the current welterweight champion of the world, conducting a lighthearted boxing workshop.

Sharp observational comedy was also in the mix, thanks to Joel Chasnoff, who performed in the comedy café and served as master of ceremonies for Saturday night’s main concert event.

Many attending slept in the converted gymnasium, which was divided to separate the sexes. A hotel across the street also served as home for many. And while there were panel discussions or events happening at every moment, it wasn’t unusual to find people opting instead to just make their own fun, playing ping-pong, basketball or cards.

Matisyahu headlined on a candlelit acoustic stage on Sunday afternoon. His 45-minute set included his hits “Jerusalem” and “One Day,” the latter of which is the official anthem for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Dressed in street clothes, Matisyahu, who comes every year to the festival, kept the mood improvisational and casual, extending his songs with skillful beat boxing. He also fielded questions from the audience and joked that if anybody asked about his musical influences, they would have to leave. Most of the questions were about his marijuana use.

“[You] just have to be smart about the way you do it,” said Matisyahu. “Which is the way I feel about most things.”

His 45-minute set was the final performance of the festival, though he had made surprise appearances over the weekend. On Saturday, he joined comedian Smooth-E for a parody of “King Without a Crown.” He could also be seen walking with his family in the main hallway, gym, auditorium and the several event rooms of the JCC.

During the concert, one of Matisyahu’s children, dressed in a Superman costume, went up to the stage and said, “Hi, Daddy.” To which his famous father replied: “Hi, Superman,” a simple, normal exchange that captured the spirit of the weekend.

Adam Weinberg, music director for the festival, reinforced that there should be no preaching at the festival—that attention, instead, should be on the music. “I think music should speak for music’s sake,” Weinberg said.

Weinberg, also a musician, accompanied Matisyahu on acoustic guitar, as did Dave Holmes, a member of Matisyahu’s band.

Matisyahu spoke afterward about how strongly the performance resonated with him. “When you have an audience listening, taking the journey with you, it’s pretty special,” he said. “For some reason, we seem to be having these kinds of performances at Jewlicious shows.”

On Saturday, Matisyahu stopped by Foreman’s boxing workshop, offering his services as a human punching bag. Foreman, who was born in Russia and raised in Israel, won the welterweight title last November, and he is also studying to become a rabbi. For their “fight,” Matisyahu insisted on wearing pink boxing gloves. Foreman demonstrated jabs on the much taller singer, whose height gave him the advantage, Foreman said.

Afterward, Foreman lined up his audience and led what he called a “numbers” exercise, in which you punch the air as many times as you can in three minutes. Most people did 50 to 100 punches. Foreman said he could do 825.

On the comedy stage, Chasnoff, whose day job is doing the warm-up act for “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart, cracked up the audience with a joke about the difficulty Jews have explaining why they keep kosher. “Just say you like animals,” he said.

“I had 200 people in the room and they were all laughing,” the comedian said later that night. “It means they got it. It means they were aware of being Jewish while they were in there. What more do you want?”

Chasnoff is the author of the recently released “The 188th Crying Brigade” (Simon & Schuster), about his year in the Israel Defense Forces.

Sunday morning’s highlight was a panel on medical marijuana, led by Dr. Dean Hillel Weiss—who is nicknamed “Dr. Ganja” and gives medical evaluations in Venice, Calif.—and Harry Nelson, a lawyer from the Medical Marijuana Law Group. Despite the “all-night” DJ’ing that had ended only hours earlier, 30 festival-goers showed up to discuss and ask questions, including some red-eyed guys who came in with plates of bagels and lox that were being sold nearby.

Bookstein said that while the Torah does not address the use of pot, if it can medically improve someone’s life, Jewish law would permit it. But it would be unethical for someone to lie to his or her doctor to get a prescription. He also noted that people abuse marijuana recreationally, citing various people he went to college with. “They were all potheads,” said Bookstein, and though five years older than he, they were still trying to graduate.

“Judaism’s a religion of action,” Rabbi Bookstein continued. “I’m concerned that people will not get a job, not get married, not have families because they’ll just be so stoned out of their minds that they won’t get around to doing all the things that Judaism wants them to do.”

Later that day, a film competition showed six short films that explored Jewish identity and culture. “Barely Bar Mitzvahed,” a comedy by Oren Peleg about an awkward, metal-mouthed bar mitzvah boy and his crush on the cutest girl in school, won first prize. More than 20 directors had submitted films for the contest, which was organized by Ezra Bookstein—Rabbi Bookstein’s brother—and his New York production company, Telling Image Films.

Kaley Zeitouni, a student at Pepperdine University who has come to Jewlicious for four years, summed up the experience: “I’m observant, but I don’t consider myself Orthodox. That’s why it’s even more comfortable to be in this environment, where there is every type of Jew. Nothing is pushed. No one here is going to judge anyone else. That’s what’s the beautiful thing.”

By Ryan Torok

© Copyright 2010 The Jewish Journal and JewishJournal.com

Original article appears here: http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/print/jewlicious_opts_for_music_and_art_over_religion_and_politics_video_20100223/

Walla.

One of the most anticipated parts of the Festival is the Saturday night show. After a day of Sabbath rest, food and speakers, people just need to let it all out and at Jewlicious we try not to disappoint! This year’s show featured Kosha Dillz, Diwon, Electro Morocco, Rinat Gutman and Moshav with a surprise appearance by Matisyahu – first time on the main stage! Afterward, those who just had to dance enjoyed an afterparty featuring Diwon and DJ Eric Rosen with performances by Rinat Gutman and Kosha Dillz. You want more pics? Click on our Flickr badge to the right for much, much more.

Rabbi Yonah Welcoming the Crowd

Flex performing with Kosha Dillz

Matisyahu jumps on stage

Electro Morocco. Just add a sprig of mint.

Someone was having fun!

Moshav in Socal? No Way!

Rinat Gutman Takes No Prisoners

Amazing

Afterparty with DJ Ereic Rosen and Diwon

Live Broadcasting by Ustream

I hope this works because it’ll be an awesome show. Maybe even Matisyahu might sing as well as Basya Schechter of Pahroah’s Daughter and other assorted guests!

In the past, we have had organizational resistance to putting our Festival Schedule online. Folks were concerned that potential competitors would be handed a veritable blue print for what we do and simply copy our program ideas.

However, this year, we are committed to an open source model and so here it is – a pdf version of our program over the next three days. You think the Festival is just a program? It’s so much more. it’s a community that rallies its resources to make this happen, it’s untold unsung people who gave freely of their time, it’s donors and organizations and bands and maintenance people and hard friggin work. You want to reproduce what we do? Go right ahead. Best of luck. As for the rest of you, check it out and see what’s happening!

A celebration of ‘all things Jewish’

The Jewlicious Music, Arts and Culture Festival is a three-day gathering of Jewish students and young adults hosted at the Alpert Jewish Community Center in Long Beach annually since 2005.

The festival will be held in Long Beach from Feb. 19-21. Ongoing weekend activities include comedy, a disc jockey lounge, workshops, films, drum circles, yoga and bike rides.

Jewlicious is described by Beach Hillel as a festival of “all things Jewish.” Long Beach Hillel is a group that exists to enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students, according to its Web site.

Jewlicious 6.0 will include performances by Electro Morroco, Kosha Dillz Band, Moshav, Soulspeak, Rav Shmuel, Rinat Gutman, Basya Schechter of Pharaoh’s Daughter, Yael Meyer and Diwon.

Tickets include three meals on Saturday and one on both Friday night and Sunday morning. Additional meals for those with food will be provided to those attending for the entire weekend. Coffee, tea, bread and Kiddush wines will also be served. All of the food will be served kosher.

Those attending should plan on bringing towels, toiletries, a bathing suit and pajamas, as well as casual attire and dancing clothes. Other items, such as cameras, musical instruments, prayer books and credit cards, are also recommended.

Ticket prices are $75 for students and $120 for non-students. Parking will be free.

By Manny Diaz

Contributing Writer

Original Article Here!

“Boxer has a will to win, and to worship”

Yuri Foreman’s life of intrigue stretches around the world and features kidnapping, nuclear disaster, Arab-Israeli relations, rabbinical school and a world title belt. Oh, and his wife’s a model.

Reporting from New York – It’s a little after noon when Yuri Foreman steps through the door of Gleason’s Gym, located above a furniture store in a former waterfront warehouse beneath the heel of the Manhattan Bridge.

If prizefighting had a Mecca, this would be it. The oldest boxing gym in the U.S., Gleason’s has been a home to 132 world champions, including Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Roberto Duran and Jake LaMotta, the “Raging Bull.”

Foreman, the unbeaten “Lion of Zion,” became the latest to join the list after twice knocking down heavily favored Daniel Santos to win the World Boxing Assn. junior middleweight title last November in Las Vegas. That made him the first Israeli fighter to win a world title and earned him one of the championship banners that cover the walls of the dingy gym.

Yet after climbing to the top of a sport he has long attacked with zeal, Foreman finds that his accomplishment has to share the spotlight with his other pursuit. The boxer, you see, is studying to be a rabbi, spending each morning in the middle of the Torah learning how to interpret the will of God, and each afternoon in the middle of a gym learning how to break the will of his next opponent.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I ever believe that I would be putting on a card which would feature a future rabbi,” says Foreman’s promoter, Bob Arum. “This is the most unique thing that’s come along.”

The two worlds, boxing and religion, do not necessarily contradict one another, Jewish scholars say. Many of the greatest Jewish leaders were warriors, they say, so it’s not hypocritical to pound somebody’s flesh while also trying to redeem their soul.

“Judaism is very much stressed in the here and the now. That is, it’s a celebration of life, not withdrawal,” says Rabbi DovBer Pinson, Foreman’s rabbinical instructor. “The stereotype of Jews in America is Woody Allen. I think that’s a very good stereotype to break.”

Los Angeles Rabbi Yonah Bookstein, who has invited the boxer to speak at the Jewlicious cultural festival in Long Beach this weekend, said Foreman “has been able to keep one foot firmly planted in his Jewishness and the other foot planted in the world that he loves, boxing. Young people need positive role models and Yuri’s a great role model. His story is very compelling.”

It’s a story that includes an Israeli national title won while training in an Arab gym, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a death threat from a masked gunman, and a marriage to a Hungarian model.

Those are just the highlights.

The 29-year-old Foreman never set out to be a Jewish icon. In fact, he never set out to be Jewish, having grown up in a secular family in Belarus and Israel before finding religion — and a pro boxing career — in Brooklyn.

“Becoming a Jew,” he says with a grin, “was a gradual process.”

The journey began on the banks of the Sozh River in Gomel, the second-largest city in the former Soviet republic of Belarus and a place that was once home to a vibrant Jewish community. That community was nearly wiped out twice, first during the pogroms of czarist Russia at the start of the 20th century and four decades later by the Nazis.

By the time Foreman was born in 1980, his family had become so secular that his parents thought their ceremonial kiddush cups, passed down from their ancestors, were fancy shot glasses for drinking vodka. “We were so far away from Judaism we didn’t know to hide it,” Foreman says.

When Foreman was 5, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station about 100 miles to the southwest covered Gomel in a cloud of radiation, forcing the family to evacuate to Estonia. They returned months later, but Foreman’s father rarely stayed in Gomel for long, traveling to buy shoes and other goods that he and Yuri would sell on the black market.

A couple of years later, after Foreman was picked on by bullies at a swimming pool, his mother marched him to a boxing gym and told the trainer what had happened. “The trainer promised her it would never happen again. And he kept his promise,” Foreman recalls.

But if Foreman learned to fight in Belarus, he learned to box in Haifa, the Israeli port city where his family moved just months before the disintegration of the Soviet Union. He trained there with Michael Kozlowski, a former Soviet national team coach.

Boxing receives such feeble support in Israel, Foreman had to train in the courtyard of an elementary school or on the balcony of Kozlowski’s apartment, where a punching bag hung. To get in a ring and spar, Foreman and his training partners had to drive to a distant Arab neighborhood gym where they knew they weren’t welcome.

“You are a Russian Jew and they know that. They were trying to hurt you,” Foreman says of the fighters training there. But “after the workouts we’d shake hands. And then slowly we had friends.”

He became Israel’s most decorated boxer, a three-time national amateur champion. He was invited to celebrate Muslim holidays in Arab homes, where he was always seated at the head of the table. When Foreman won his world title, he received almost as many calls and e-mails of congratulations from the West Bank as he did from the rest of Israel.

“Boxing,” says Foreman, who fights with a Star of David on his trunks, “transcends the differences between nations. Like the Arab and Jewish nations.”

Kozlowski moved to New York and almost immediately set up shop at Gleason’s.

Foreman soon joined him there and turned pro in 2002, debuting on a series of small cards staged in a hotel and an Italian restaurant. After his fourth win, a bloody decision over a journeyman, Foreman decided that Kozlowski’s style, which worked well at the tactical, elegant amateur level, wouldn’t work in brawling professional fights, where the bouts were longer and the combination punching far more furious. So Foreman suggested they add another trainer to teach him the nuances of the pro game.

“He took it as an offense,” Foreman says. “We split. Very badly.”

Within days a beefy Russian man knocked on Foreman’s door and handed him a package. Inside was a bullet and a message warning the fighter that if he didn’t return to Kozlowski his name would be in the news, Foreman says. The FBI investigated the threat but no charges were filed.

Kozlowski still trains boxers at Gleason’s, where the door of his locker is covered with a laminated flier that reads “Coach of WBA World Champion Yuri Foreman.” But the two haven’t spoken in nearly eight years.

Before leaving Israel, Foreman says, he visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where he scribbled his petitions on a piece of paper and slipped it into a crevice.

“I wrote that I want to be world champion,” he said. “One of the [other] things I wrote is to have a wife who’s a model.”

Both prayers were answered in Brooklyn, where he met and married Leyla Leidecker, a former fashion model turned documentary filmmaker who also had a brief boxing career.

“Without Leyla I don’t know where I’d be today,” says Foreman, sweat dripping after a spirited session of shadow boxing and rope-jumping at Gleason’s. He skips workouts only for the Sabbath. “I would definitely not be a world champion.”

Nor would he be Jewish. It was Leidecker, who also grew up secular under communist rule in Hungary, who encouraged Foreman to add a spiritual dimension to his life.

“I was always a spiritual person looking for a system of beliefs,” says Leidecker,a former Metro New York boxing champion who sparred with Hilary Swank while the actress was preparing for her role in “Million Dollar Baby.” “I tried a few things, and Judaism was the most pleasing.”

She and Foreman, who met at Gleason’s, were soon attending religion classes together. When one rabbi likened the struggles of daily life to two boxers in a ring, they were hooked.

Foreman decided on his own to become a rabbi, a goal Pinson, his rabbinical instructor, says he should reach in the next two years. Before then, he’ll have to defend his boxing title this June in New York against former welterweight champ Miguel Cotto.

The Puerto Rican endured savage beatings in three of his last four fights; but that isn’t likely to happen against Foreman, who has just eight knockouts in 28 fights — and just one since 2004.

“Listen, I’m not a big expert on boxing. I don’t really know boxing at all,” Pinson says. But “the way Yuri boxes, no one seems to get hurt.

“A person like Yuri, that’s a beautiful thing. He’s a world champion and he has a high profile,” Pinson says. “He’s a good example of how to live as a Jew.”

“Matisyahu to appear at 2010 Jewlicious Festival”

Someone in marketing is doing their job right. Not even a goy could resist an event name as catchy as “Jewlicious” — and neither, it seems, can Matisyahu. The Hasidic reggae artist returns to the “Jewish Coachella” for a special presentation, after having thrilled last year’s crowds with an unannounced acoustic session.

For those unfamiliar with Jewlicious, the six-year-old fest claims the title of the nation’s largest weekend for Jewish students and young professionals, but the doors are open to fans of all faiths. This year’s roster includes a kosher mix of musicians, comedians, business folk, athletes, and activists, but if it’s the music that floats your boat, tickets are available for the entertainment-only portions of the three-day event.

Slated to attend are Moshav, Electro Morocco, Basya Schechter of Pharaoh’s Daughter, and Kosha Dillz Band; comedians Lizzy Cooperman, Kira Soltanovich of Girls Behaving Badly, and Smooth E (Eric Schwartz); Noah Alper, founder of Noah’s Bagels; Israeli human rights activist Talya Lev; chef Chaim Davids of the Bay Area restaurant The Kitchen Table; Lee Weisman, former librarian to the Dalai Lama; and WBA Super Welterweight Champion Yuri Foreman, who will teach boxing workshops.

The Jewlicious Festival 6.0 will be held February 19-21, 2010, in Long Beach, California.

Original Article appears at: http://www.examiner.com/x-1849-Southern-California-Travel-Examiner~y2010m2d15-Matisyahu-to-appear-at-2010-Jewlicious-Festival

Original article appears at: http://flavorpill.com/losangeles/events/2010/2/19/jewlicious-festival-feat-matisyahu

In addition to being America’s largest Jewish Fraternity and being the first fraternity to set up shop in  Israel, AEPi has joined the ranks of Jewlicious Festival as an official sponsor for this year’s festival. AEPi is a more than a just a fraternity–it is a home and a social organization with 140 active chapters for Jews all over the United States and Canada. Interestingly enough, one of their other newest chapters, Chi Beta,  is on Jewlicious Festival’s home turf at CSULB.
Did Jewlicious play a part in helping this fledgling chapter of AEPi in Long Beach get off the ground? Who knows, but we are thrilled to have then on board with us this year @ Jewlicious Festival 6.0!