Patrick Beaulier, known formerly by his professional name as Patrick Aleph, is an American writer,

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

ger,

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

er,

non-denominational A non-denominational person or organization is one that does not follow (or is not restricted to) any particular or specific religious denomination. The term has been used in the context of various faiths, including Jainism, Baháʼí Faith, Zoro ...

rabbi and spiritual leader, educator, and retired

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

musician. He has been the lead vocalist for the bands The Love Drunks, Can Can, and Ice Bats. He is also the co-founder and creative director of PunkTorah, a non-profit website and Jewish outreach organization, and its subsidiaries OneShul.org and Darshan Yeshiva, an online

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

and

yeshiva A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...

, respectively. He has written for ''

Jewcy ''Jewcy'' is an online magazine of Jewish pop culture and offbeat news. The site was launched on November 15, 2006. ''The Guardian'' has described ''Jewcy'' as "a cultural icon" and "at the forefront of a reinvention of Jewish identity by you ...

'', '' The Atlanta Jewish Times'', and ''

The Times of Israel ''The Times of Israel'' (ToI) is an Israeli multi-language online newspaper that was launched in 2012 and has since become the largest English-language Jewish and Israeli news source by audience size. It was co-founded by Israeli journalist Dav ...

'', and hosts the semi-weekly ''Rabbi Patrick Podcast''.

Early life

Beaulier grew up in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

. His parents came from a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

background but raised him without religion. Despite this, he became interested in faith on his own and converted to Judaism through the Reconstructionist movement in his early 20s. He later said that his "decision to become a Jew was about ethical monotheism. God demands of us a righteous life."

Music career

One of Beaulier's first bands was The Love Drunks, which released their self-titled debut album through

Alive Records Alive Naturalsound Records (also known as Alive Records) is an independent record label formed in 1993 in Los Angeles, California by Patrick Boissel, specializing in garage rock, punk rock, punk, psychedelic rock, psychedelic, and blues rock. It ...

in 2006. In 2007, Beaulier formed the

band Can Can with guitarist Mary Collins and drummer Josh Lamar, whom he met through the local music scene. As the band's songwriter, Beaulier incorporated subtle lyrical references to his Jewish faith. The band released two albums, ''All Hell'' (2009) and their

JDub Records JDub Records was a non-profit record and event production company that produced Jewish music and cross cultural musical dialogue. JDub, unlike most record labels, derived half its annual income from foundations and individual donors and the other ...

debut ''Monsters & Healers'' (2010), before going on hiatus in 2011. Can Can was featured in the film 1/20. During the hiatus, Beaulier and Collins formed a

no wave No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...

side project called Ice Bats.

PunkTorah and rabbinical work

In April 2009, after an unpleasant experience at a

in Atlanta, Beaulier began recording his own divrei Torah on the weekly

parsha The term ''parashah'', ''parasha'' or ''parashat'' ( ''Pārāšâ'', "portion", Tiberian , Sephardi , plural: ''parashot'' or ''parashiyot'', also called ''parsha'') formally means a section of a biblical book in the Masoretic Text of the Tan ...

and posting them on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

under the name PunkTorah, referring to his background as a punk singer. Following the popularity of the videos, he co-founded PunkTorah with Michael Sabani as a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...

non-profit, under which he create
PunkTorah.org
a combination

, multimedia network, and

online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members engage in computer-mediated communication primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, on ...

aimed at disaffected Jews. Beaulier was also featured in a parshah video by Bimbam (formerly G-dcast.com) Beaulier and Sabani started a fundraising campaign in August 2010 to creat
OneShul.org
an expansion of the online distance

minyan In Judaism, a ''minyan'' ( ''mīnyān'' , Literal translation, lit. (noun) ''count, number''; pl. ''mīnyānīm'' ) is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain Mitzvah, religious obligations. In more traditional streams of Judaism ...

im they had been hosting via PunkTorah. That same year, they founded another PunkTorah subsidiary, NewKosher, through which they published ''Birkat Hamazon'', a bentcher incorporating

recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish (food), dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main r ...

essay An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

s, and

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

from Jewish writers like Matthue Roth, Leon Adato, and Michael Croland. Beaulier is the founder and

rosh yeshiva Rosh yeshiva or Rosh Hayeshiva (, plural, pl. , '; Anglicized pl. ''rosh yeshivas'') is the title given to the dean of a yeshiva, a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and th ...

o
Darshan Yeshiva
a

virtual school An online school (virtual school, e-school, or cyber-school) teaches students entirely or primarily online and offline, online or through the Internet. Online education exists all around the world and is used for all levels of education (K–12 ...

training students for Jewish spiritual leadership. The yeshiva currently includes an online Jewish conversion course. After serving a Jewish congregation based in

Midlothian, Virginia Midlothian ( ) is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated area and census-designated place in Chesterfield County, Virginia, U.S. Settled as a coal town, Midlothian village experienced suburbanization effects and is now part of t ...

, Beaulier founded Kehillah, a Jewish congregation in

Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...

which hosts events throughout the area's city and suburbs. In January 2019, Beaulier became the director of innovation for Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary, an online rabbinical school. The school includes

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

and

Reform Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

rabbis educating and ordaining post-denominational rabbinical students.

Bibliography

*''Birkat HaMazon: A Community Bencher'' (2010) (with Michael Sabani) *''NewKosher Jewish Vegan Cookbook'' (2011) *''Ahava Rabbah: The OneShul Community Siddur'' (2011) *''PunkTorah: The First Anthology'' (2012) *''Choosing To Be Chosen: Essays By Converts to Judaism'' (2012)

Discography

With The Love Drunks

*''The Love Drunks'' ( Alive, 2006)

With Can Can

*''All Hell'' (Self-released, 2009) *''Monsters & Healers'' ( JDub, 2010)

References

External links

RabbiPatrick.comPunkTorah.orgDarshanYeshiva.orgJewishPluralism.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleph, Patrick 1983 births Living people 21st-century American male singers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American rabbis 21st-century American singer-songwriters 21st-century converts to Judaism American male bloggers American bloggers American male non-fiction writers American religion and spirituality podcasters American punk rock singers American Reconstructionist rabbis Converts to Reconstructionist Judaism Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish bloggers Jews in punk rock Musicians from Atlanta Vegan cookbook writers