Zimriyah. Why has it changed?

Zimriyah.  It is by far the most anticipated event of first month, either because you absolutely love or hate it. It amazes me that, as a camp, we have such a hard time motivating campers to enjoy a peulah of shira, but we can get campers to sit down for hours and hours over the course of first month to memorize 3 songs complete with hand-motions, stand-ups and sit-downs. It is one of the few times through the whole summer that we treat Gurim like they are a legitimate aydah,[1] and Zimriyah is often the focal point of a camper’s summer. But Zimriyah has not always looked like what we know it to be now. 

People sometimes ask, when did Zimriyah turned into what it looks like today?

In 2010, one of PJ’s[i] jobs after coming back from Naaleh was to transfer the old Zimriyah recordings and other camp videos from tapes to DVDs. Yavneh wanted to be able to watch their old videos on more modern viewing devices. I noticed something amazing while PJ and I watched the videos. Even just 10-15 years ago Zimriyah looked very different. The songs were a lot simpler, there were no extra ‘wow factors’ embedded in the songs (including no H/S[2]), and the hand motions consisted of arm swinging and occasionally putting hands on neighbors shoulders. Frankly, there was little energy compared to what we see today. Even in 2002 when I was in Leviim, I remember learning the hand motions to our best song Henei Matov.[3] The hand motions were: raise your right hand, raise your left hand, lower your right hand, lower your left hand, clap. Pretty pathetic. Even Kfirim cannot get away with such mundane hand motions anymore.  To make matters worse, in Leviim ‘02, we didn’t even know the words to our Shir Yisraeli. How then, in 2010, do we have a Zimriyah in which Leviim and Kerem mashed up a number of popular songs, where Kfirim had soloists for every song, and where Arayot had a solid performance but didn’t place at all?[4] I attribute this to three factors that has sparked change in Zimriyah:

1.       Aydot like Kerem ‘03 and songs like Maalot ‘01’s “Like a Prayer”.

2.       The music that teenagers are listening to as well as YouTube sensationalism.

3.       Change in the camp mentality which has made Zimriyah a more central component of the summer, leading to more time-consuming and rigorous practice sessions..  

For now, I won’t go into much detail about the first and third points since I will return to them later. However, Kerem ‘03 as an aydah and the performance of “Like a Prayer” by Maalot ‘01 revolutionized how Zimriyah is performed. Kerem ‘03 was about style and creativity. Even though in any given year, they were not always the dominant aydah, they always brought something new, imaginative and original to the table. Their hand-motions were consistently fantastic; they exuded a confidence and happiness that set them apart from their competitors. This pushed other adyot to follow suit, realizing that the best way to win was not with monotonous arm hand motions and singing Yerushalim Shel Zahav.[5]

In the same light, “Like a Prayer” changed the simple method of composing a Shir Aydah: find a singable song, write Hebrew words, use the original arrangement, throw in a few hand motions, and you’re done. Even though it wasn’t officially a medley or a mash up,[6] “Like a Prayer” resembled something of the sort because of all of the added elements to the song. It was fantastic.

I believe that a major contribution to this change in Zimriyah is the content that kids and counselors watch and listen to while they are not in camp. Musical artists these days are pushing the envelope for visual sensationalism by combining music and art, and for the first time ever, we have 24/7 access to them on Youtube. One of the reasons Lady Gaga is so popular is because of her outlandish music videos that music is not only about verse and chorus. Similarly, artists like GirlTalk do exactly what I will argue makes for the best type of shir aydah. Extract elements of different songs, mash them together, and create an original work of art. In this era of mass media and free distribution, kids have access to all the tools they need to create art of their own. Counselors and Kerem see this, and try to do it, to a lesser extent, for their aydot. 

Finally, camp itself has undergone monumental changes over the past ten years. The types of campers that it attracts, and the overall mentality of these campers and those who run the camp, are more geared towards active participation in camp activities. Kids who do well socially are the ones who enthusiastically take part in camp activities, not the ones who skip them. This is the reason why adyot can have Zimriyah practice every day, sometimes for two peulot back to back, why we pay someone to come to camp to record us sing, and why my campers in 2008 were willing to learn a hat dance.[7] We explore and experiment beyond what is expected of us in the hopes of wowing our peers and achieving a status of excellence that will go down in Yavneh history. Overall, Zimriyah is far better than it was just 10 years ago and I hope when I visit in 10 years, it will have grown even more.

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[1] According to the my rankings, that will be explained in a later subsection, they actually outperform Kfirim and Arayot

[2] Harmonies and Solos. I use this term a lot so I have abbreviated it.

[3] We ended up being the only aydah not to place for that category because of a three-way tie for 3^rd. This prompted a joke at Parsha Players where they said “Everyone’s a winner at Machaneh Yavneh…except for Leviim”

[4] This fact is debatable, but at least they weren’t horrible like Arayot usually is.

[5] Performed three times over the past 10 years. There has to be some rule about limiting this. 

[6] The distinction between medley and mash-up: a medley is when you take a bunch of songs and put them together, however, you only sing one song at a time. Some examples are Maalot ‘05 Car Wash etc. medley or Maalot ‘07 Beatles medley. I would even consider Arayot 09’s All The Above etc. a medley. Even though they use “All The Above” as the chorus, they still only sing one song at a time. However Leviim ‘10 and Kerem ‘10 both used mash-ups for their shirei aydah.

[7] Epic Fail. More on this later.

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[i] Sam Stock, K’09. He is most known by the nickname that ELi Aroesty- Cohen K'00 and K'07 gave him after the hockey player, PJ Stock. His nickname was so popular that Ben Stock M’10 was known as LPJ or Little PJ.