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As Zionism and making aliyah have become increasingly problematic for diaspora Jews over the years, Rastafarian reggae singers and dancehall toasters worldwide continue to proudly rejoice in the ideals of Zion and the Promised Land. In fact, based on the politically-charged titles they have historically given their records, one would think that Rastas are even more pro-Israel than right-wing Evangelicals, let alone conservative Jews untroubled by Israel's conduct in the Occupied Territories.
International reggae superstar Alpha Blondy, for example, has issued albums such as Jerusalem, Masada, and Elohim, and has even written a tribute to the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ("Rabin Lo Met" or, "Rabin Isn't Dead"). Yet somehow, when Blondy sings about such subjects, one would never associate them with the kinds of terms that have become increasingly synonymous with Israel, like checkpoints, housing demolitions, targeted killings, and the like.
As an Israeli-American music critic, Rastafarian philo-Zionism has always fascinated me, as it does documentary filmmaker Monica Haim, whose work-in-progress, Awake Zion, uses it as a springboard to explore the relationship between reggae music and Jewish culture. Awake Zion has taken the Colombian-born/Miami-raisedyeshiva girl from Brooklyn to Kingston to Halutza Be'er Sheva. Starting out as a master's thesis in cultural journalism at NYU's Gallatin School, the film took on a life of its own, screening at the San Francisco and Montreal Jewish Film Festivals, the Miami Museum of Science, and even for the Beta (Falasha, or Ethiopian Jewish) Israel crowd at the Sheba Film Festival in Harlem.
Perhaps even more fascinating than the Jew-York-City hipsters who com4bine klezmer and ska that Haim features in her film-like Adonai & I and King Django- are the Jewish Rastas she meets in Israel. This politically active group, living off the land and eating liai (natural), raises interesting questions about the relationship between identity and place: they may live in the physical land of Zion, but with an apartheid wall so close by, do they really feel like they're in the Promised Land? Is Zion a police state or a state of mind? What sustains them? The Torah or just a bass-heavy sound system and a really good spliff? Or is it simply that Reggae soothes the war-torn soul?
As "Rasta" Guil Bonstein (known as the...