JC
New York Times reviews Rachel Factor’s one-woman-show, J.A.P. Through song and monologues, Rachel explores the journey she has taken from Hawaii, to being a rockette at Radio City, to converting to Orthodox Judaism and moving to Israel. She talks about how she assumed that her opportunities in the entertainment industry would be limited once she converted to Orthodoxy, but she is experiencing just the opposite. She is now on an American tour and will be presenting to women only, across the country (Orthodox Judaism prohibits her from performing in front of male audiences). She has already inspired hordes of Orthodox women about following their dreams. (Thanks to Emilie Hammerstein for the heads-up on this story!)

The mostly Orthodox women who come to the show by the hundreds are lured by Ms. Factor’s story, the all-female religious environment and the chance to peer into the MTV and Hollywood dance worlds otherwise closed to them. Among people who grew up Orthodox, many have come to take their beliefs for granted, one audience member, Michelle Luwish, said, explaining Ms. Factor’s allure. “For someone who had been on Broadway to give up singing in front of men, to give up the seemingly glamorous aspects of life to take on a seemingly restrictive lifestyle in such a joyous way,” she said, “it’s inspiring to anyone who is on a spiritual path.”

Growing up in Honolulu, Ms. Factor had all the advantages of a prestigious prep-school education, she says in the production, but felt ashamed of her Asian looks. She opens her show by re-enacting her childhood efforts to create creases in her eyelids with tape and eyelash glue. Despite the ignorant comments she often encountered, like “What country are you from? No, where are you really from?,” she embraced her culture and set out to date Asian men. But she met and fell in love with Todd Factor, a television commercial producer, who told her it was important that his wife be Jewish. Her reaction, as she recalls in her show: “Well, it makes a lot of sense then that you would be dating me!”

Though she reports that some ultra-Orthodox believers have criticized her show as “inappropriate,” audiences are mostly enthusiastic about the production. Shayna Goldsmith, 25, who organizes women’s programming for Aish Hatorah, an Orthodox outreach organization, saw the show last month near her Upper West Side home and said it sent a potent message to women who are, or are thinking of becoming, Orthodox: “It’s important for people to see that you can be Orthodox and still use your talents in a powerful way.”

By the way, the title of the article is an interesting one: “True to Her Orthodox Beliefs, if Not to Her Roots”…it makes some kind of judgement about the perceived lack of Japanese-American influence in her current life. To me, it’s yet another example of people’s discomfort with the idea of fluid and changing identities.