Thirteen Iranian Jews have five American friends. And the quintet can wail a tune. In this case, the tune is “Thirteen Jews.” The subject is the plight of the baker’s dozen of Iranian Jews facing espionage charges in Tehran. And the ensemble goes by the name Honorable Mentchen Simcha and Blues Review.The group performed the percussion-driven, Middle Eastern-flavored number on the Central Park stage at last Sunday’s Salute to Israel parade.The song typifies the Mentchen’s traditional mix of message music and spiritually tilted feel-good tunes, making up what rhythm guitarist, vocalist and songwriter David Kerner, following the Hebrew calendar, calls “soulful folk rock for the seventh millennium.”For Kerner, a Midwood resident, the composition was a natural.“It’s been an ongoing saga for over a year now,” explains
Kerner, who works for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater New York’s Task Force on Cults and Missionaries. “The 13 Jews have not been allowed contact with their families or legal representation. The song grew out of that frustration.”As the song explicates, “Their only crime was being born a Jew/For that and teachin’ their kids Hebrew/But, then again, what else is new?/Their only crime was being born a Jew.”Eight of the 13 accused Iranian Jews have pleaded guilty, though supporters insist they did so under duress. Last week authorities arrested two Muslims on charges of helping the Jewish suspects spy for Israel.“Thirteen Jews” isn’t Honorable Mentchen’s first protest song about a controversial espionage case. Also on their playlist is “Justice Denied,” their two-year-old musical appeal for Jonathan Pollard, the American-Jewish former Pentagon employee serving a life sentence for spying on behalf of Israel. “I was in the kosher pizza place on Ave. J,” recounts Kerner, “wearing my ‘Justice for Pollard’ button. “A young man approached me and asked, ‘Who’s Jonathan Pollard?’ Ruben ‘Hurricane’ Carter had Bob Dylan. I thought maybe it was up to Honorable Mentchen to create a song for Jonathan Pollard.”Following through on the song’s refrain, “You can be free if we all do our part,” the band recites the phone numbers of President Bill Clinton and Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak, urging listeners to call and register their support for Pollard’s clemency.Other of the group’s songs include “City of Gold,” which they describe as “a harmonious, surrealistic blending of Carlebach and Descartes with the Moody Blues and the Rabbi’s Sons”; “Essence,” a distillation of Reb Nachman of Breslov’s teachings; “Hatikvah Take Two”; “Goodbye Missionary Boogie”; and “Hard Davening Blues.”Honorable Mentchen was born two years ago when Kerner and fellow Jewish-issues activist Zalman Schreiber met at a demonstration against Hebrew Christian missionaries and their conversation turned to their shared pet passion, rock music. Since then, the band, supplied with material written by Kerner and Schreiber, has appeared across the spectrum of local and national Jewish radio shows. Once a month, they show up at the Carlebach Chasidim of Brooklyn jamming series at Midwood’s Congregation Ahavath Achim. They also have their own Web site, www. HonorableMentchen.com, where visitors can sample “Thirteen Jews” and other songs, and are gearing up for their first full-release album CD.Like many creative partners, Kerner and Schreiber, the band’s driving forces and co-songwriters, are in some ways near-polar opposites. Kerner, 42, turned to both the guitar and Orthodoxy later in his life.Schreiber, 49, and a native of Kensington, grew up in an observant home steeped in music. His father was a cantor. His brother, known professionally as Mickey Lane, scored a hit record, “Shaggy Dog,” in the l960s and now works as Honorable Mentchen’s keyboardist. (The other band personnel, all Orthodox Jewish males, are Raphael Rose, lead guitar and Joey Fischoff, drummer.) Schreiber’s sister, Shonnie, played for a time with Mickey Lane in the group the Bright and Early Kids. Schreiber himself did a long stint with the Stanley Miller Band, a well-regarded New York City simcha ensemble, and now works as a master engineer for Digital Audio. He produces and engineers all of his current band’s work.“I grew up with [Yossele] Rosenblatt and Presley,” he remarks. “I was always torn between rock and religion.” Of course, Kerner, Schreiber and their fellow Mentchen hope that, ultimately, a happy conclusion to the drama of the Iranian defendants will render their song a tuneful historical relic. In their words: “There’s a warm breeze blowin’ through the Persian skies/Past the musty courtroom where the gavel lies/And now we’re prayin’ for an Esther and a Mordecai!/May our prayers be heard by The One on high.”Says Schreiber: “My daughter told me, ‘It’s sad to hear such a good song about such a sad story.’ ”
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