{"id":53574,"date":"2020-02-12T04:47:37","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T10:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=53574"},"modified":"2020-02-12T04:47:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T10:47:37","slug":"hes-jewish-shes-muslim-his-jazz-bands-song-date-a-jew-talks-about-the-pressures-surrounding-their-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/hes-jewish-shes-muslim-his-jazz-bands-song-date-a-jew-talks-about-the-pressures-surrounding-their-relationship\/","title":{"rendered":"He\u2019s Jewish, she\u2019s Muslim. His jazz band\u2019s song \u2018Date a Jew\u2019 talks about the pressures surrounding their relationship."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By GABE FRIEDMAN<\/p>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014 Sammy Miller and his girlfriend Misha grew up in vastly different cultures: Sammy was raised Jewish in suburban Los Angeles, while Misha was raised Muslim in Karachi, Pakistan, moving to the United States when she was 12.<\/p>\n<p>Miller also happens to be a musician \u2014 he leads Sammy Miller and the Congregation, an up-and-coming poppy jazz group that sounds like a cross between the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Ben Folds Five.<br \/>\nNow he\u2019s written a humorous song, titled \u201cDate a Jew,\u201d about the pressures he and his girlfriend felt during the early days of their relationship.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cDate a Jew\u201d music video, which features stunning shadow puppetry by the Hit the Lights! Theater Co., is premiering here.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Date a Jew | Sammy Miller and The Congregation (Official Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KEzttPEA1q4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n\u201cThere was one thing in this world my momma said, you gotta date a Jew,\u201d Sammy sings at the start of the song.<br \/>\nA few lines later he sings that Misha \u201clearned at the mosque\u201d not to date Jews.<br \/>\nFortunately, in real life, the pair got past the early hurdles. Miller approached Misha when he was 16, at a Model U.N. conference for high school students.<br \/>\nHe wasn\u2019t the type to make a bold move \u2014 even now at 28 he speaks softly and chooses his phrases deliberately \u2014 but he walked up to her and told her he thought she was pretty.<br \/>\n\u201cShe didn\u2019t say anything because it was kind of a weird thing to say,\u201d Miller said.<br \/>\nSo nothing came of that at first. But about 10 years later, Misha showed up at one of Sammy\u2019s concerts, in Chicago. The rest is romantic history.<br \/>\nThese days they share each other\u2019s traditions \u2014 Sammy recalls, for example, how Misha sat with him through his grandfather\u2019s shiva, and how he then learned about Islam\u2019s equivalent of the Jewish Mourner\u2019s Kaddish prayer.<br \/>\nThe philosophy of openness preached by the song dovetails perfectly with Miller\u2019s musical ethos as well: making jazz fun and accessible again to all. Miller, a Juilliard graduate, believes that the contemporary jazz world has become too serious and insular, which starkly contrasts with some of the genre\u2019s icons, like the late Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, who were storytellers.<br \/>\n\u201cI\u2019m trying to create material that is very much of our moment, which is my experience. \u2026 We\u2019re not dressing up in bow ties and pretending like it\u2019s 1927,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to create space for people to be themselves, and I feel like Misha did that for me and I did that for her.\u201d<br \/>\nMiller isn\u2019t very religious these days, but just about everything about his band\u2019s aesthetic has a Jewish vibe, from the congregation in the name to the album title\u2019s Exodus reference to the Moses-like staff pictured in some promotional photos (like the one attached to this article).<br \/>\n\u201c[\u2018Leaving Egypt\u2019] is us leaving the conventions of our jazz world,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWe\u2019re leaving what we knew for something unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"He%E2%80%99s%20Jewish%2C%20she%E2%80%99s%20Muslim.%20His%20jazz%20band%E2%80%99s%20song%20%E2%80%98Date%20a%20Jew%E2%80%99%20talks%20about%20the%20pressures%20surrounding%20their%20relationship.\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7137],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53575,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53574\/revisions\/53575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}