During last week’s Purim celebrations, I began to feel my age. Not the Megillah reading – you can appreciate that no matter how old you are (especially if you’re hard of hearing…helps drown out the din of the groggers). No, it was the party afterward.
Every year, my wife Jody and I go dancing at the massive Boogie Purim Party at Jerusalem’s Binyamei Hauma. Boogie is a twice-monthly free form, world music dance extravaganza held at the ICCC in the capital’s German Colony. It’s notable for its eclectic mix of music from around the world. In any given set, the DJ is likely to verve from Motown to Egyptian pop to psychedelic Israeli trance. I’ve written about Boogie several times before here on the blog.
The crowd is equally non-conformist, with all ages grooving to the alternative beat, whirling around without any whiff of the performance anxiety one might have at a trendy Tel Aviv disco.
On Purim, Boogie attracts several thousand revelers from all over the country and books well-known world music bands. This year, the evening’s highlight was the Madboojah Project, a ethnic electronic ensemble formed by Shlomi Avratz and Udi Ben Knaan, the latter of whom is a member of the popular “Sheva†group. The band’s trademark tune, with bagpipe and didgeridoo, sounds a little like a Scottish brogue hopped up on Ecstasy and laced with Hebrew rap.
Unfortunately, Madboojah wasn’t scheduled to perform until 2:00 AM, a time when I’m usually well into a much demanded round of REM sleep. But still, it was Boogie. And it was Purim.
Maybe if we could convince some friends to join us, we could justify the late hour, I thought. Renee was game, but her husband’s back had gone out. Other friends were concerned about waking up in time for the next morning’s second Megillah reading. Party poopers.
The thing is, I still feel like a teenager inside. My body may be pushing 50, but I see no reason to act any older than 16 (although my teenager daughter will emphatically insist that I was never 16 like her).
In the end, we nixed going out dancing this year and instead nestled in front of the TV and watched a double-header of the Israeli series Srugim (no spoilers, but Nati is still a pig). As for Madboojah – I’m sure they’ll be back in town, playing a local club sometime soon. Maybe even at a reasonable hour for us old fogies who still like to boogie.
This article also appeared on the Israelity blog.
