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Jewlicious student volunteer Goldie flashing her West Side gang hand signal. It’s an LA thing, don’t worry…

Man, we’re working here like pig dogs – meetings, preparations, decorating, organizing, etc. – We can’t believe that in 24 hours 800 people will stream through the doors of the Alpert JCC and the Jewlicious Festival 5.0. Things are all over the place and yet… already we’re getting the nice press. Thank you kind members of the Fifth Estate. Dan Brown over at eJewishPhilanthropy gave us a very kind shout out in a blog post about Jewish LA – he called Jewlicious “largest youth festival of its kind…” We are? Really? Golly, that’s kinda scary…. Also, LA Blueprint, run by the recently wed Miriam-no-longer-Eljas (Mazel Tov! Oooood yishama, beh harei Yehuda….) ran a nice story about the Festival where it was described as follows:

Whatever flavor of Jewish-ness you consider yourself, you’re likely to have a rockin’ time at the Jewlicious Festival 5.0, Feb 27 – March 1 2009, in Long Beach, California, dubbed “an event unlike any other weekend in Jewish history”. Will it compare to the splitting of the sea? I can’t say for sure, but from the music lineup and endless list of activities and programs, it does stand a good chance. Essentially, a Jewish Woodstock, Jewlicious Festival is a three-day gathering to unite Jews from all backgrounds to share a gigantic Shabbat sleepover complete with inspiring discussions and yummy food, rock out with the biggest names in the Jewish music scene, and celebrate all things Jewish.

Finally, the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles wrote a pretty in depth piece about the Festival that included interviews with our staff, presenters and entertainers:

When the first Jewlicious festival, Jewlicious @ The Beach, launched in April 2005, co-founder Rabbi Yonah Bookstein and his team rented out a few rooms at the Alpert Jewish Community Center in Long Beach to host about 100 participants. Four years later, they are booking the entire facility to hold Jewlicious 5.0, which is expected to attract 800 Jewish students and young professionals… At the Saturday night concert, Y-Love, a black Orthodox rapper, will be spitting rhymes on the same stage as Moshav, a Los Angeles-based alternative folk-rock band, and Rav Shmuel, a 6-foot-5 Chasidic rabbi who is popular in New York City’s anti-folk scene. On Sunday afternoon, Inbar Bakal, a secular but traditional Sephardic Jew, will sing her own versions of biblical texts set to old Yemenite melodies. The fact that the bands have very different backgrounds, but all perform over the same weekend, speaks to the festival’s goals of promoting Jewish unity and celebrating Jewish diversity.

So to repeat the common themes – Jews, music, inspiration and unity. Thanks for the kind press – I trust the Festival will live up to the expectations!