PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism (PICZ)
Bible Rap
All About My People
The Bible Rap Curriculum ("All About My People") provides a new medium for young Jews to engage Judaism, Jewish heritage and Jewish texts, whose primary goal is to build peoplehood connections between younger, school-age children. It will resonate with Jewish youth by fusing a cutting edge source-based curriculum with hip-hop, this generation's most powerful mode of cultural communication, with Jewish discourse.
Matt Bar has had success as a folk-singer, a rapper and above all a folk-rapper -- with a song used on episode MTV's "The Real World," a featured appearance on NBC's Hip Hop Nation Notes from the Underground, opening for Outkast, Jurassic 5, Tom Paxton and Matisyahu and selling 5,000+ total albums. Matt moved to New York to attend the Jewish Theological Seminary and play music in the big city. As a day job Matt began working as Hebrew school teacher. What started as a personal strategy for Bar to engage his Hebrew School students has developed into a potential educational enterprise that has grabbed the attention of not only present and soon-to-be educators, but entrepreneur agencies and music producers alike.
Goliath Battle Rap. Here is an exlusive first glimpse into Matt's Bible Rap curriculum, bootlegged from the PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism Networking Night.
Matt performs at the opening dinner for ROI, a global summit for young Jewish innovators, at the Israeli Museum last summer.
