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Jewish Identity Through Burlesque
An Interview with Burlesque Performer Minnie Tonka
Interview by Sarah Pumroy
It’s the second night of Hanukkah, and I’m sitting at the bar, eating greasy potato latkes and staring at naked Jewish women. I knew there was an active burlesque scene in New York City, but never checked it out until I was invited to ”Menorah Horah” in December.
There were the typical elements of a burlesque show – the slow, seductive shedding of long gloves, skirts, and undergarments piece-by-piece to vaudeville music. But there was also (nearly) naked dancing with menorahs, women wearing pasties in the shape of Hanukkah candle flames, and jokes about Manishewitz wine and other Jewish cultural references.
Why does Manishewitz, pasties, and nudity feel like so much fun? It should have felt dirty, even blasphemous. I was intrigued, and wanted to interview one of the performers from that night, Alyssa Abrahamson, aka Minnie Tonka, who has been performing for audiences in New York and across North America since 2003. Minnie Tonka spoke to me about her Jewish identity and what it means to be a Jewish burlesque performer.
Although the term “burlesque” has become synonymous with female striptease acts, the word also can be used a verb meaning “to mock” or to caricature something. But while Minnie Tonka’s Hanukkah show was certainly outlandish and humorous, it was clear that it wasn’t rooted in mockery of Jewish traditions. As she explained to me during the interview, burlesque is actually an art, one where she can showcase her pride for her Jewish identity. Be sure to check out Minnie Tonka at her upcoming show, The Burning Bush vs. The Second Coming on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010.
Alef: You’re involved in something known as “Jewish Burlesque,” can you tell us exactly what that is?
Minnie Tonka: For me, Jewish burlesque is about creating and performing a burlesque act with intentional Jewish content. For example, I have an act to Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You” that is about a Jewish gal feeling guilty about loving bacon. Or, the Schlep Sisters (my duet with Darlinda Just Darlinda) has an act that we call, “Schlepping through the Desert” where we tell the story of the Exodus through burlesque.
But, this question really deserves a conversation. Just like the question “what is Jewish art?” there is no simple answer and it will depend on who you ask. Is art “Jewish” because the artist is Jewish even if there is no Jewish content? Or is art Jewish because it has specific Jewish content? I know some non-Jewish performers who have Jewish-themed burlesque acts, such as a dreidel act. Would that be considered Jewish burlesque? On the same note, would a Christmas-themed or Easter bunny act be considered Christian burlesque?
In my experience, people in the burlesque community do not use the term “Jewish burlesque” (except for me, Darlinda Just Darlinda or Susannah Perlman of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad). People in the Jewish community use this term because, I believe, it comes from a place of ownership, pride, and sometimes an attempt to appear innovative or edgy.
Alef: Why did you choose to incorporate Jewish identity into your performances?
Minnie Tonka: Since Jewish identity and creative expression was something I was very involved in and passionate about both professionally and personally when I first started performing burlesque six years ago, I made it a point to be very “out” about my Jewish identity through my performance. In 2004, I co-founded and continue to produce an all-Jewish burlesque revue – Kosher ChiXXX. It was important to me to showcase talented Jewish burlesque performers and give them the opportunity to think about their art in a new way – within the context of a relationship to Judaism. But, the acts don’t always necessarily have specific Jewish content. At that time, I’m not sure anyone in NYC was doing any specific Jewish-themed burlesque acts. For all the performers, including myself, it was a new, challenging, bonding, and empowering experience.
Alef: How did audiences reacted to this new type of burlesque?
Minnie Tonka: Over the years, I am proud that I helped create a name for “Jewish burlesque.” It has been rewarding and validating in many ways. For example, when I started performing and “Jewish burlesque” was very new, people would (and still do) come up to me after shows and thank me. They thank me for showing that Jewish pride and identity can be expressed and celebrated in many different ways.
I have a friend, Trixie Minx, who is the director of Fleur de Tease Burlesque Revue, based in New Orleans. I met Trixie at the New York Burlesque Festival in 2006. The Schlep Sisters performed our Hava Nagilah act and Trixie introduced herself, thanked us, and said she was surprised and inspired by our performance. She is Jewish and said she had never considered incorporating Judaism into her burlesque acts. Since then, Trixie has created and performed a few Jewish-themed burlesque acts that are fun and fabulous. She’s a very talented lady!
Alef: How did you get into burlesque and why did you go into Jewish burlesque specifically?
Minnie Tonka: My burlesque debut was in the winter of 2003/2004 with the Schlep Sisters. Darlinda was the person who inspired me to try out burlesque. We met and talked about all sorts of artsy things. She was really interested in burlesque and she sparked my curiosity. I love choreography, I love dressing up, and costuming. I have a background in dance and figure skating, so being in front of an audience was nothing new to me (although it had been years since I had last done it). I always surrounded myself with artists but, at the time, didn’t have a specific artistic outlet myself. I wanted to explore my creative side and this seemed like a great opportunity. At first, I was intimidated by and uncomfortable with the striptease aspect, but I took it on as a creative challenge. Six years later, I’m still hooked and going strong!
Alef: Have you ever been criticized for “sexualizing” Judaism?
Minnie Tonka: For me, burlesque isn’t about sex; it’s an art form and it is about creative and artistic expression. I have never been criticized for “sexualizing” Judaism. Over the years, I have only received compliments and praises for expressing my Jewish identity through burlesque. Many people are searching for ways to connect to Judaism and it demonstrates that there are many different ways of connecting to and celebrating our heritage and tradition. It can be validating and encouraging to many people.
Alef: What do you enjoy most about being in the Schlep Sisters?
Minnie Tonka: The Schlep Sisters are FUN! I love collaborating and choreographing acts together. Our differences really compliment each other and whatever we do it always a creative and inspiring learning experience. I am very excited to say that we are producing an upcoming springtime holiday show: The Burning Bush vs. The Second Coming: The Ultimate Burlesque Showdown, which is on Saturday, April 3rd at Le Poisson Rouge in downtown Manhattan. It’s going to be a fun and fabulous show that showcases both Passover and Easter acts with some of NYC’s most talented burlesque performers like Dirty Martini and Tigger!. This show is not to be missed!
Read more articles from Issue 08: “The Sex Issue.”
The Importance of Lights in Winter
By Ian Epstein
Connecticut winters are reliably mild. When the mercury drops into the teens, it’s an event. The single digits retain a certain exotic quality due to an infrequency you can count on two hands using single digits. Not so in Chicago, where I feel like a Connecticut emigrant living in a foreign country. Here, December is reliably gray and sometimes the sky is too cold to let clouds float at all. December in Chicago marks color’s departure as everything turns white or black or gray or gets covered in dust.
On one of these colorless days, I saw a family of three on a mission somewhere. The dad was carrying the baby in a backpack and mom was leading everyone down the street. They were on their way back from one of those urban forests that sprout every year in the weeks before Christmas, selling firs and spruces that have been bundled up and made available for the season, and forming small oases of evergreen along densely packed corridors full of concrete and brick. This mom and dad with the baby on his back were swaying slowly as they walked home with a fir tree held up between them. It was a bushy, sweet smelling blob of green, about the length of a person suspended in mid-air. The baby in the backpack greeted the color and smell with outstretched arms.
This is a trip I never made. Hanukkah, the holiday celebrated in my family, is about assimilation and resistance to it. It’s about the Maccabean rejection of Greek influence. Hannukah is literally a holiday about dedication – that’s even what the word means. And there’s an undercurrent that runs beneath the frying of latkes, twirling of dreidles, and the lighting of candles that says faith and dedication yield great rewards from what might seem like just a little oil and dim light.
But as a kid, Christmas was a holiday with bright lights and lots of gifts and those are powerful enticements. That’s the perfect recipe for young kids, who are drawn to that combination of things-you-want and shiny objects, like moths to the flame. Maybe it was the influence of these ideas that inspired me to snap a hemlock twig off a tree in our backyard. I stuck it in a block of wood with a drilled out hole and I crossed my eight year old arms. My holiday jealousy cobbled together a cliché and I had a Hanukkah bush, which I dedicated to my single digit perception of the holiday. I dressed the hemlock twig in lights that twinkled with the colors of my envy.
But then there on the street watching this family brave the gray and the cold, I suddenly understood something about this indoor tree in winter that had nothing to do with the things-I-wanted-but-didn’t-have – it was a seedling and a reminder that spring was on its way from very little green, not unlike light that miraculously lasts longer and longer. From that vantage, it was suddenly a lot easier to see the similarity between lighting candles night after night in your living room and pulling a living tree out of the cold to wrap it with light.
Photo by Ralph Hockens, licensed under Creative Commons.
The Jew Who Loved Christmas
By Briana Goldman
In the words of Andy Williams, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” Each year as the air turns crisp, the leaves change color, and the light throw-blankets turn into heavy duvet covers, I turn into a Jew obsessed. A Jew obsessed with Christmas, that is. I become fixated on roasting chestnuts and ice skating–I even recently downloaded the Elf soundtrack. This may seem a bit at odds with my Jewish background, my fellowship at a Jewish organization, and my amazing ability to consume gelt in large quantities. However, I’ve never embraced Chanukah as fully as I’ve embraced Christmas. Chanukah has never had the same universal appeal to me. Hardly anyone knows the complete lyrics to “I had a little dreidel,” and Judah “the Hammer” Maccabi sounds like the name of a pro-wrestler. Needless to say, our marketing has never spoken to me in the same way that nutcrackers and sugarplum fairies have.
My friends constantly question my enthusiasm for candy canes and stockings, with askance ranging from, “do you even celebrate Christmas,” to “do I have to buy you a present?” My parents think I’m misguided and wonder if they could have served me more latkes growing up, or shipped me off to an Orthodox boarding school. By way of explanation, I now offer this: it truly is the most wonderful time of the year, no matter what religion you practice or what holiday you choose to celebrate. I celebrate the parts of the season that echo the core tenets of Jewish spirit.
To me, the season means not just celebrating Christmas or Chanukah, but celebrating the holidays (or the pieces of each holiday) that bring families closer together, volunteering at your local soup kitchen, or hanging out with the elderly (even if that just means Grandma and Grandpa). The best part about the holidays is that the time when you normally come home, throw your jacket on the ground, shove some food in your mouth, and then go to bed, gets put into slow motion. During the holidays you can come home, hug or kiss whomever may be waiting, sit down and talk with them over a hot meal, sing, laugh, and tell stories about winters past. You go to bed with a smile on your face. This is the stuff that the holidays, and Jewish culture, are built from and made of.
Judaism is built on celebrations with your friends and family. From the fun to somber (Chanukah to Yom Kippur), we gather everywhere from our living rooms to the synagogue to worship as a group, and the holiday season embodies this celebratory reunion. By trying to convince my parents to watch Miracle on 34th Street, making a fruitcake for Grandma, or serving soup on Christmas day, I am celebrating Christmas. But, by embracing the traditions of Christmas as fully as the rest of my family has embraced Chanukah, I’m embracing the foundations of Judaism.
Photo by Laurenatclemson, licensed under Creative Commons.
‘Tis the Season
By Stephanie Silberstein
As a child, I was fortunate enough to encounter only covert anti-Semitism, most of which was probably unintentional. Of course there were the Christmas concerts and the assumption that Santa visited my house too. But I never encountered people who no longer wanted to be my friends when they found out I believed Jesus was a man and not an object of worship.
Nevertheless, I was lonely growing up, especially around Christmas time when everyone else had this holiday that I didn’t share. I never wanted Christmas lights or a tree, but I wanted to belong. I wanted to look forward to getting gifts on Christmas morning and I wanted to believe those gifts came from Santa. At the same time, I was afraid that G-d would be angry at me for these thoughts. My childhood understanding was that Christmas was only for non-Jewish people, and that any Jewish person who paid any attention to it at all would be punished for having incorrect beliefs. I thought that I was like the Wicked Son in the Passover Hagaddah, who would not be redeemed because he didn’t care about Passover’s significance.
The word “holy” means “separate,” and in theory the Jewish people (the “chosen” people) are supposed to be separate from all others in the way they show their allegiance to G-d. Unfortunately, in modern America this translates to being left out of Christmas celebrations and other widespread traditions. It means being unable to worship as easily as those who belong to the more dominant religious tradition and it sometimes means being looked down upon, pitied, or hated for having a different religious belief.
It is really a shame that the holidays which are supposed to be fun for children, can be a time of such division between Jewish and non-Jewish children. Just as Christmas has become secularized and commercialized, Chanukah is being treated by many Jewish families as an equally secular holiday. As a result, many Jewish children grow up feeling like they are missing something instead of taking pride in the historical and cultural meanings of their holiday.
Stephanie Silberstein is the author of the Chanukah-themed novel Winter’s Silence.
Photo by Michel Filion, licensed under Creative Commons.
Tropicana Christmas
By Lucy Gillespie
When I was a kid, I had a tutor to help me prepare for Secondary School. She had me write a creative piece on Christmas and so I wrote about Christmas in England – the one I had read about in Enid Blyton books, and had seen suggested by intricate shop windows. My mum happened to be in the kitchen when I read it, and she laughed out loud. “What the hell do you know about Christmas?” she asked. Even Mrs. Gilby agreed that the piece was not up to my usual scratch.
“Nothing,” was my answer. I knew absolutely nothing about Christmas.
Going home to see my mother’s family was part of the contract when my parents moved to England. Three weeks in Florida from December 6th until December 31st, or divorce. Every year, the great battle of the Maccabees was reenacted in my house as my mother fought tooth and nail against our Elementary School for a much, much higher purpose than Education. Sicknesses were faked, high airline ticket prices were invoked – anything to get us onto that plane and into the steamy Florida air, where Blue and Silver joined Red and Green upon the walls, and where “Happy Holidays” had long since won out over “Merry Christmas.” The three of us called her “mum,” and she had gotten used to it, but singing Christmas Carols was far, far beyond the line.
Our Channukah feasts were America’s feasts – the grand, spic-and-span carvery table of the Sizzler, and it’s breakfast equivalent, Shoney’s. And it simply wouldn’t be the holidays without a soft mint and a toothpick to cap up our mid-afternoon dinner, then falling asleep, stretched out in my grandparent’s Cadillac on the drive home. Pulling into the drive of Galt Towers, we (the cousins) would alight sleepily in the Florida air as winds of hurricane-capability splayed and tossed the palm trees.
On Christmas Day, when the Flea Markets and Dollar Stores were closed, my grandmother would take us to the movie theatre at 10am, and we would sneak around from screen to screen to concession stand and back to screen. Then, charged with popular culture, we would head back out to the great Churches of Retail – for we were truly in the Jerusalem, the Bethlehem, the Mecca of beloved stuff – and buy sneakers emblazoned with Aladdin or The Lion King motifs. When we got back to England, they would be the talk of the playground. We saw those films months before anyone else, and we had the merchandise to prove it.
In my mid-teens, the Florida trips dwindled, and my dad showed his true colors one year, unloading a plastic tree in a box from the car after a trip to Costco. Since then, we’ve carried out the traditional routine – presents, stockings, Mince Pies. But however hard we try to adapt to this beast called “Christmas Spirit,” the magic is gone. I can’t help but think that the big draw to a stereotypical Christmas is the anticipation, and the sense that you’re getting something you need – spirituality and presents alike! Thanks to my mother, what I need to make my year complete is that trip to the travel agent in June, three weeks to pack my suitcase and perfect my American accent, and eighteen hours of five large individuals at boiling point in airports before the sweet, sweet relief of a beach-front condo. I still dream about those buffets, the Swap Shop Flea Market and its Three-Ring Circus, the pile of presents on my grandmother’s wraparound sofa, half-hazardly covered in a sheet to protect them from the vying fingers of all of the cousins. Tables a mile-wide with relatives that look like me, and who know what I know - that it’s Channukah and Channukah alone that has brought us together.
Christmas, frankly, will never hold a candle to that.
Photo by Arthur Smokes, licensed under Creative Commons.
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