For Rebecca Ashkenazy, performing has always come naturally.
“Since she was born she’s been singing and twirling and whatever,” Rebecca’s mother Gayle Ashkenazy said of her 12-year-old daughter. “My husband and I both being musicians, she’d sing along with the piano with us.”
In preparing for her Bat Mitzvah over the past few months, Rebecca and her parents decided to use that talent to support girls and women who are effected by the Orthodox Jewish law of “Kol Isha,” which restricts women from singing or dancing in public.
The Ashkenazy’s are holding a benefit concert for orthodox women in the performing arts, which will be held on Sunday, Dec. 18 at 3 p.m. at the Great Neck Arts Center.
The benefit, which is Rebecca’s Bat Mitzvah Chesed Project, costs $15 to attend.
All proceeds will benefit Kol Neshama, a Los Angeles based non-profit conservatory aimed at providing artistic training and performance opportunities for girls and women who are effected by “Kol Isha.”
To coincide with “Kol Isha,” the concert will feature all female performers and will have a completely female audience.
“Women have started to have women-for-women-only concerts,” Great Neck resident Gayle Ashkenazy said. “Those women that feel that they, like my daughter, really need a venue to sing, they need to express themselves. They have created venues for women to sing.”
The chance to perform in conjunction with her religious beliefs, while giving back to the local Jewish community, was too good an opportunity for Rebecca to pass up.
“It’s definitely very special to me because this is something that I’ve been struggling with,” Rebecca said of the Kol Isha Jewish law. “I know a lot of people have been too. I know that when I’m helping other people, I’m also benefitting myself. I guess I really want it to change people’s perspectives that women have a voice and it really does mean a lot.”
The idea to hold the all-female concert came through some Internet research by the Ashkenazy’s, which showed that similar concerts are being held in Jewish communities all across the country.
“We said to our daughter ‘look there’s this whole world that we didn’t know about,'” Gayle Ashkenazy said. “It’s developing and we started to research and we saw that this organization is popping up and this one and this one. We said ‘let’s be a part of this and let’s offer a venue for women that wouldn’t otherwise perform.'”
So, the Ashkenazy’s began assembling the roster for the performance, which currently includes singer Alana Greenspan, dancer Beth Jucovy, comedian Joan Weiner, the Yeshiva University High School for Girls choir and singer Shaindel Antelis.
“We hope through this concert we can publicize the idea that girls, women can fully participate in the arts and find an audience for it and they can express themselves,” Stewart Ashkenazy said. “We are hoping that this will continue the trend of such concerts and provide more opportunities for women.”
Rebecca will serve as host for the event, introducing each performer. She is also singing “One Day” by Matisyahu, while Gayle Ashkenazy is planning to provide the musical accompaniment for Jucovy’s performance.
“I’m not nervous,” Rebecca said. “I sing all the time. I sing songs on the radio or any of that stuff, but it’s bad stuff. We kind of want to show that there are really meaningful, good songs out there that should be heard.”
While this will be the first all-female concert the Ashkenazy’s are producing, it won’t be the first public performance for Rebecca, who has performed at the Roslyn Jewish Community Center and the Great Neck Public School Summer Theater Arts Program.
“I love to sing and I love to act and I love to dance,” said Rebecca, who attends Yeshiva Har Torah. “All three, your really can’t do in front of men.”
Rebecca also took summer courses in film editing at Great Neck South High School and produces her own films and music videos.
That she has now chosen to augment her secular performances with the all-female benefit concerts, is something that has been truly special for the Ashkenazy family.
“We’re very proud,” Stewart Ashkenazy said. “Rebecca has always been a very creative person and I’m pleased that she has expanded her own personal creativity to encompass the community, especially the community of Torah-observant women to provide them with a forum for expressing their talents.”
The show, which is expected to last two hours, will be followed by a 30-minute reception, where dessert will be served and the performers will have a chance to meet the audience.
“Basically when you become bat mitzvah, you should do a kind deed that helps other people,” Rebecca said. “Some people would give all the other leftover food to the poor, or there’s all types of things. We decided to have a concert to benefit the woman in the arts who can’t sing or do any of that stuff.”
“It would make them feel good.”
