Green, calm and collected
By Barry Davis

(September 9) - Now, three times a year - at Pessah, Shavuot and Rosh Hashana - you can pack a tent and a few clothes and leave the rat race behind for a few precious days at secluded sites dotted around the country.

According to Rabbi Mordechai Gafni, the Boombamela, Shantipi and Bereshit festivals are no longer exclusively "hippie" events taking place on the margins of mainstream society.

"The festivals are probably the most significant cultural event in Israeli culture today," states Gafni, who will operate an area for activities relating to Judaism and the religious aspects of Rosh Hashana at this year's Bereshit Festival (September 17-19). "Where else do you have 20,000 people who get together for a several-day festival which has a musical-spiritual core?"

If the activities you automatically associate with Rosh Hashana are generally of a more conventional religious nature, prepare to be surprised. Besides running loosely structured synagogue services, Gafni's agenda for the Bereshit Festival includes taking part in the opening ceremony of the festival - with a large circle of people pounding hand drums around a bonfire - making the shapes of the Hebrew letters with tai-chi movements, and appearing in the line-up of the festival's closing ceremony along with representatives of other approaches to religion, including a shaman.

The Gipsy Kings incorporate a wide range of ethnic elements with flamenco.

That's not exactly what you might expect an Orthodox rabbi to be doing during the holiest period in the Jewish calendar. "I've been attacked a little by the Establishment for going to the festivals," admits Massachusetts-born Gafni, who serves as the dean of Jerusalem's Melitz Beit Midrash, a sort of pluralistic think-tank, and also has his own TV show called Beneath His Vine.

"They say: 'What's an Orthodox rabbi doing at these festivals? There are bands and things going on - it's not exactly a classical Rosh Hashana.' My response is that when you have 20,000 people of my family getting together for a Rosh Hashana meal, wherever they are, I'll be there. It's about family."

Ron Tabachnik is one of the heads of the "family" and has been involved in putting together the Bereshit Festival since it started in 1997. The first time Bereshit was held, 5,000 people camped out and grooved in an avocado grove near Pardess Hanna. This year over 20,000 visitors are expected at the festival's new home near the Megiddo Junction.

Although what started out as a relatively intimate gathering has grown into a mass event, Tabachnik is not concerned about the festival outgrowing its original brief. "Anything that's good grows," he declares. "I used to travel around the world a lot and, sometimes, I'd get to a virginal location. But I realized that I didn't just happen to find it - I'd heard about it through rumor. People hear rumors like that, then the rumors reach more people, that's the way it works - for the festival too."

While 20,000 visitors sounds like an astronomical number for any festival this country puts on, Tabachnik says he expects the momentum to continue over the next few years. "Yes, Bereshit has grown, but I think it's still in its infancy - both in terms of concept and size. I want to see Bereshit grow and become a central feature of Israeli society. It's already got a central role, but it can become even more important."

The profile of the "traditional" festival goer has also changed radically over the years. In 1997 most of the 5,000 participants were aged comfortably in the 18-30 range and were looking to recreate the free-flowing ambiance of their Far East experiences. Today, Bereshit - like Boombamela and Shantipi - also caters for a far more "mundane" clientele. "In the beginning, Bereshit represented a specific cultural strain," says Tabachnik. "It's like holistic treatment, which was once considered something for eccentrics, and can now be found everywhere.

"That shows we have impact and that we are reaching increasing numbers of people. We also want to offer people a break from the troubles of everyday life through, for example, love of music."

In terms of the variety and wealth of entertainment laid on for the coming three-day event, Tabachnik and his fellow organizers - an incredible 2,000 people have contributed to the production work over the past couple of months - have certainly laid on an impressive program. There will be seven stages dotted around the festival site offering a wide range of ethnic, mainstream and electronic musical fare.

The biggest draw at this year's event is the Gipsy Kings from France - probably the biggest international act to appear at Bereshit yet.

The Gipsy Kings started out as a commercially oriented flamenco outfit but, over the years, began to incorporate a wide range of ethnic elements, including sounds from the Middle East, Latin America and North America. Since their founding in 1979 they have gained worldwide popularity. In 1989 they even declined an invitation to play at George Bush's presidential inauguration - preferring to spend time with their families - and they recently shared a bill at London's Royal Albert Hall with Eric Clapton and Elton John. At Bereshit, the Gipsy Kings are the closing act, on the main Bereshit Stage, on the last day of the festival.

Traditionally, the musical content at Bereshit, Shantipi and Boombamela has been almost entirely ethnic-oriented. It is a mark of their widening appeal that increasing numbers of mainstream commercial artists are starting to feature in the festivals' programs.

In addition to the Gipsy Kings, this year's line-up includes local superstars Ahinoam Nini and Aviv Gefen - the latter joining forces with Micha Shitreet - as well as other popular entertainers from different areas of the music market, like Ehud Ariel, Ariel Zilber and Gaya.

"The main musical direction at this year's Bereshit Festival is fusion," Tabachnik explains. "You'll have world music, rock, reggae, electronic music and other stuff on the same stage. We want to widen the musical horizons. We started out with world music, but now we're varying it more."

The Day Stage, meanwhile, will be used by smaller acts, including Carlebach-influenced Jewish soul music outfit Reva L'Sheva (performing Monday, well before the start of Rosh Hashana), Buyaka - which Tabachnik describes as New York hip-hop - and female rock band Sharonima. One surprise inclusion is the veteran Blues Rosh Pina (BRP) band which has been putting out grassroots blues sounds at all manner of venues around the country for two decades.

Band member Itai Elohev is particularly pleased to have gained recognition from Bereshit. "Over the years, the [New Age] festivals all told us we're not an ethnic group. I don't agree. The blues is the first kind of ethnic music which became widespread in the West." People who frequented the late-lamented Logos club on Tel Aviv's Rehov Nahlat Binyamin will remember BRP's regular gigs there, which always played to a packed house.

"In the past, we played at all sorts of festivals - full-moon festivals and suchlike - and we were generally one of the main acts," Elohev continues. "In recent years, festivals have decided that the genre to go for is world music. But that's not quite right. We play something between blues and rock 'n' roll, but I think that's appropriate for these festivals."

Tabachnik evidently has no problems with the Elohev approach. "You know, they have massive New Age festivals in Europe. Recently, there was a festival in Denmark attended by 250,000 and Bob Dylan was there. That's not exactly what you'd call ethnic music."

Back on the central Bereshit Stage, Arab-Jewish sextet Galilean Spirit, which will precede the Gipsy Kings, is a permanent fixture on the Bereshit-Boombamela-Shantipi festival circuit. In these troubled times of security problems, and heightening inter-ethnic tension, the existence of groups like Galilean Spirit is heartening.

"We will be playing new material at Bereshit," says bandleader George Sama'an. "You could describe our repertoire as Mediterranean music, some instrumental and some with vocal accompaniment."

When Sama'an says "Mediterranean" he is referring to a wide cultural tapestry, covering many of the countries of the region - not just Israel, Turkey and Greece as is often the case in the popular media channels. "We play songs from Algeria, Sudan, Israeli songs written by Ehud Banai and [Habreira Hativit bandleader] Shlomo Bar. I choose material which I take into my heart. I wrote a song for a little girl who has cancer, called 'Shir Ahinoam' [Ahinoam's Song], which we also play."

Besides the music, Bereshit will have the standard multifarious ethnic arts-and-crafts stalls, and a holistic treatment area, where you can take time out with a relaxing massage or switch off with an hour or so of meditation, tai-chi or yoga. There will also be an area devoted exclusively to women-related subjects and, with the accent very much on attracting families to the gathering, there will be a kiddies' area, complete with slides, climbing frames, creative activities and babysitting services.

The global New Age movement is strongly identified with an environmentally friendly philosophy, and Bereshit is very much a part of the "green scene." Tabachnik notes the existence of similar events in Europe with a much stricter environmental agenda. "There are festivals which don't use marketing or advertising, and try to be the complete antithesis of everything else. We don't do that. We try to combine new and old, and different cultures and people. This is the place where we say 'yes' and not 'no.' We try to present things in a different light, but also to strike a balance."

While Tabachnik doesn't have a TV at home, he does not object to all forms of technological evolution as an evil to be avoided at all costs. "I don't think that technological progress is countered by a return to nature and increased environmental awareness. I think they go together - it's a combined process. You can't say that if someone earns more money he can stop eating. As the world advances and becomes more technological, we have to safeguard the food to be able continue functioning. It comes from connecting the two approaches, and not from one existing at the expense of the other."

Gafni, too, is a supporter of the unity approach, whether in terms of communing with nature or as a member of the global community. He is also aware of the prejudices, or suspicions, harbored by some secular Jews and is anxious to point out the non-missionary direction of his participation in Bereshit.

"My goal is not to make these people [at the festival] Orthodox, or even religiously observant. The story is about deepening the spiritual fabric of the Jewish family in all of its expressions. I have a long relationship with this [New Age festival] community. They know that I'm not there to convert them but to be their friend and teacher, to be with them. It's a matter of mutual acceptance, even if we challenge each other - that's okay too.

"Someone once said: 'Pluralism is the new fig leaf for the old discredited relativism.' A person should passionately hold their truth even as they passionately embrace the truth of the other."

With Gafni and Tabachnik running things at Bereshit, and offering a serious alternative approach to our mainstream way of life, we might be able to find some respite from all the current woes near Megiddo Junction on Rosh Hashana. "I invite everyone to spend a few days in nature," says Tabachnik. "Most people don't get to do that very often." What, indeed, could be more calming and enriching than that?