Jewish Noise

In thinking about the contemporary Jewish world that The YARID hopefully and bravely addresses, I am drawn back into my perennial preoccupation and private obsession with noise—specifically the noises made by Jews, and even more specifically, noise as a category of devotional, liturgical and meditative practice. Noise has long been familiar in the world of Jews, taking the form of the hum of davenen, the heterophony of bodies at prayer nearly but not at all in unison, each praying subject creating their own world of sound that invites and deflects precise ensemble.

The noise of Jewish life, spurned by the outsider gaze and at times a source of acute shame and embarrassment, is also one of the identifying features of Jews. Just as much as books, Jews are the people of noise, animating our texts through musical speech that renders words into melodies, initiating a tight dialogue between text and embodied practices that interpolate ghosts into our midst.

The stakes of Jewish community run very high, with an ever-present sense of crisis that threatens to splinter our internal life into fragments, let alone having the courage to venture out into that intimidating marketplace of ideas and debates this publication’s name invokes. It is my hope that the venturesome young minds at work in these pages will make room for Jewish Noise, paying heed to its ugly beauty (to quote Thelonious Monk), and will recognize in each companion’s voice that the impulse to make yourself heard amidst the structural non-structure of Jewish heterophony is a sacred act.

Dr. Jeremiah Lockwood

Indiana University, Borns Jewish Studies Program, Visiting Faculty

Khazones Underground, Co-Founder