Coop Throws a Rager

This past Saturday night, March 18th, the Twelve Tribes Co-op threw a post-Purim party. The invite I received said something like, "No entrance without a costume." So I dressed up as a Jewish hipster. Well, there are parties and there are ragers, and I'm pretty sure this was rager class.

So why is a Saturday night party worth reporting on the JewniProj? I wondered that question myself over the past week. And before I continue, I want to say that this post is dedicated to Jacob Donnelly and any other members of the JSU that I've offended. So we're all concerned with these issues, how to get those unaffiliated Yidden involved, how to stop intermarriage, how to get Jews doing Jewish with other Jews in general. And this past Saturday night, those very Jews did show up en masse to the Jewish Co-op, in the name of a post-Purim party. And they dressed up! Oh, did they dress up! As slutty firemen, as Mario, as paper plates, as Wonder Woman, as stoned Jamaican reggae dude (yeah right, that was no costume!), and as hideous drag queens. They filled the makeshift dancefloor in the living room, they were lined up at the bathroom, they were packed in the kitchen, they were even flooding out onto the back porch and the driveway.

There was no specific Jewish content per se, but the context was quite Jewish. Of course, I had no exact gauge of how many of the attendees were Jewish. But my Jew-dar is pretty accurate, and I would say a strong majority of them were Yidden. As I was waiting in line for the bathroom, I turned to the guy behind me and started up a conversation. He had been looking at a map of Israel on the wall. What a perfect conversation-starter, I thought.

Me: "Are you Jewish?"

Jewboy: "Yeah."

Me: "Have you been to Israel before?"

Jewboy: "Me, no."

Me: "Have you heard of Birthright? You know you can go to Israel for free for ten days. Free roundtrip flight, nice hotels, good food."

Jewboy: "WHAT?! Just because I'm Jewish?!"

Me: "Yep."

Jewboy: "But I'm only a quarter Jewish. My grandma is Jewish."

Me: "Your mother's mother?"

Jewboy: "Yeah. Can I still go?"

Me: "Yeah, totally. When you get home, go look up "Birthright" on Google, and sign up for that ish."

So, of course I thought to myself, "Dang it all, why didn't I bring some Birthright quartersheets with me?" It's not like I ever carry around Birthright quartersheets, but it would have been a good time to start. But the whole point is, if throwing a quasi-Jewish-themed party on a Saturday night at the Co-op really makes Jews show up, I'm down to sponsor that ish in the future. Although, in principle it's not about the party itself, but about the potential of giving those unaffiliated Jews important Jewish experiences in the future. So next time, I'm bringing Birthright quartersheets.

Click here for more pictures.