Tag: Temple Israel

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Music Music Features

Happie Hoffman Leans Into Love

Happie Hoffman (Photo: Dave Creaney)

When imagining a musician on tour, a series of stock images probably go through your mind: a scruffy van loaded with gear, T-shirts in bad need of a laundromat, fast food wrappers stuffed in the back of an amp. But in reality, musicians have their antennas out for any venue that works, traveling not only by road, but by rails, air, and even on the high seas. Take Memphis native Happie Hoffman, aka Happie, a singer/songwriter in the indie-pop-folk vein who recently played a cruise ship. That alone isn’t that novel — there are many musically themed cruises of the Caribbean — but this one left from Tromsø, Norway, bound for the Arctic Circle. 

If that sounds like a dream vacation to any Memphian oppressed by the current heat wave, there was far more to it than that, and it’s emblematic of Hoffman’s unique commitment to community. She describes her fellow passengers not as fans or patrons to be entertained, but as “about 150 friends, friends of friends, and creative entrepreneurs.”

Uniting all these friends was a desire to heal the world in multiple ways. The many friends on the tour came together under a few organizations that approach the issues of our day in complementary ways. “The cruise,” says Hoffman, “was in partnership with a morning dance company called Daybreaker, the Pachamama Alliance that’s working on saving the Amazon and the rain forest, and the Belong Center. Their mission is to help end loneliness.”

The Daybreaker organization may be unknown to some, though word of their unique mission — “to dance with reckless abandon at daybreak, sans substances, turning nightlife on its head” — has rapidly spread over the past decade. And it’s evolved beyond dancing, with multiple global destinations and “immersive expeditions to the most tender parts of the planet … raising millions of dollars for climate initiatives,” as their website explains. Along the way, co-founder Radha Agrawal wrote the book Belong: Find Your People, Create Community, and Live a More Connected Life and founded the Belong Center. 

And, given that the poles are indeed some of the “most tender parts of the planet” in this age of climate change, Hoffman’s journey makes more sense. “I have played on four voyages to Antarctica over the past two and a half years, that started with this group of friends traveling, and this was our first time going to the Arctic,” she says.

It all dovetails nicely with Hoffman’s concern for community in all its manifestations. As detailed in our 2022 feature on her, her melodious voice first found an outlet at Temple Israel, eventually leading to her being named cantorial soloist there. “I’m a fully integrated part of the clergy team at Temple Israel,” she said at the time. “My aim is to move people spiritually, and my mode of doing that is music.” 

She now lives full-time in New York City and is no longer as involved in Temple Israel services, singing mainly during the High Holy Days here, but the quest to move people spiritually has remained. Lately, her approach to that has not been through Jewish spiritual music or protest songs about the petroleum-based economy, but through her own observations about love. 

Happie Hoffman as a child with her father (Photo: Ann Margaret Hedges)

Indeed, her latest songs, dropping as singles throughout this summer and ultimately culminating in an EP this fall, focus solely on love. Still, that leaves a lot of emotional territory for her to explore as she travels and performs, single-mindedly pursuing her secular music career. The first single, for example, which dropped last month, is all about her father. 

“This album is about different cases of love in our lives, whether they be romantic, or dear friends, or familial,” she says, adding, “and familial love is a beautiful aspect of that, a very real one.” It’s evoked beautifully by the album’s title track, “Shooting Star,” a meditation on how fleeting our lives are, even as the love between a parent and a child endures. The video for the song is being released on Wednesday, July 3rd, and it’s a work that comes very much from the heart. 

“I wrote the song when I was home for the holidays, in a songwriting session with one of my best friends and cowriters, Ori Rakib. And as we began to write the chorus, he did a thing that people writing music often do. He said, ‘This song is about your dad.’ And I immediately started crying. And then the song poured out of us.”

Songs that pour out from that emotional place are what Happie Hoffman is all about, and these days, with the world in turmoil and climate disasters looming, she may well have found the key to the higher sense of community that we’re capable of, one that can span the globe: the many faces of love. 

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Music Music Features

From the Synagogue to Pop, Music is Happie Hoffman’s Way of Life

Happie Hoffman (Photo: Shervin Lainez)

Should you attend services at Temple Israel in Memphis, there may soon come a day when you recognize the cantorial soloist’s voice as the same voice in the latest indie pop internet hit. It may seem unlikely, but in Memphis all things are possible. Of course that part about the latest hit is pure speculation, but it’s not far-fetched, given that the leading musical voice of Temple Israel is Happie Hoffman, a singer with uncanny pop instincts.

Yet, while the artist known as Happie is already turning heads, with two performances at this week’s Austin City Limits Festival, don’t think that her work at Temple Israel is an afterthought. Indeed, the singer’s love of music was born in the synagogue, and her ongoing work there remains at the core of her being. “I hold space for people spiritually in Memphis, and they see me as a spiritual comfort and leader. I’m a fully integrated part of the clergy team at Temple Israel. My aim is to move people spiritually, and my mode of doing that is music.”

It all started half a lifetime ago, when the singer, now 30, was still in high school. “I’ve been singing at Temple since I was a teenager,” Hoffman says. “That’s where I really learned to sing in front of people, and learned to sing Jewish music. One of my mentors in the Jewish music world told me, ‘Happie, your voice is beautiful. Why don’t you try learning guitar? You could do so much.’ That person was Rick Recht, a prominent Jewish musician based in St. Louis, who would often travel to Memphis to mentor young musicians. And at that point, I bought a guitar off of Craigslist and started watching YouTube videos on how to play.”

It was a pivotal moment in the singer’s life, and following music’s call has already taken her around the world, often singing Jewish spiritual music at significant historical, political, and religious sites. That came about through the BBYO (formerly the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, Inc., now known only by the acronym) and a musical partner Hoffman met there named Eric Hunker. “BBYO is very big in Memphis. It’s the world’s largest Jewish teen movement. Eric and I met through that organization, inspiring teens around the world,” Hoffman says. “We worked — and still do some work together — in Jewish spiritual communities around the world. We played in Auschwitz, at the United Nations, in Russia, in Moldova, and all over Eastern Europe. We both feel incredibly lucky to do this work, and inspire and connect with people musically. I’m very grateful that we’re able to still work together.”

The two also worked in more secular forms, as with their 2016 album, It’s Yours, a largely acoustic work in the Americana vein, featuring their stellar harmonies. Two years after that, they released Hamavdil, an EP of their Jewish spiritual music. Then, in 2020, she was named cantorial soloist at the synagogue where it all started. “Taking this position a few years ago was a return to home,” she says.

That was only a year after the end of Eric and Happie’s collaborative first chapter, though, the singer stresses, “We still work together.” Lately, known simply as Happie, she’s pursuing a more individual path. And her appearance at the Austin City Limits Festival in Texas this week is “definitely a milestone,” she says. “I’ve been playing around New York with my band since February. This is our first big festival, and it coincides with the new music and album in the coming weeks.”

The new album, Heartbreak Season, due November 11th, chronicles Happie’s quest for a deep romantic relationship, mixing acoustic instrumentation with sleek, radio-friendly electro-ambience. “My Jewish music was vulnerable, and letting people know they are not alone,” Hoffman says of her new direction. “In some ways this new music is no different — it’s about being open — but I am writing about my heart, so these songs are personal in a different way. My hope is to help people connect to their emotions through music. Whether I’m singing Jewish spiritual music or indie pop. I want to try to help people tap into that space, where they can access emotion.”

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Father Ben Bradshaw’s ‘Soul Food’ — Food for Body and Soul

Father Ben Bradshaw, a former professional chef, is host of ‘Soul Food.’

Father Ben Bradshaw is host of Soul Food, but this isn’t a show about how to make sweet potatoes, fried chicken, and collard greens. It features Bradshaw by himself or with special guests talking about food or making it — and faith.


The videos are on Bradshaw’s Facebook page and the Facebook page for St. Michael’s Catholic Church, where Bradshaw is a priest.

It’s fitting Bradshaw, 47, makes these videos; he was a professional chef before he became a priest. He studied in the United States and France. Among his jobs was working for Erling Jensen when Jensen was at the old La Tourelle restaurant.

“Really, the only thing I know is food,” Bradshaw says. “I started cooking when I was 17. I went into the seminary when I was 27.”

The videos, he thought, were “a way to connect with people and not be preachy or finger-waggy about anything.”

He goes everywhere from restaurants to festivals in quest of food. “The whole goal is faith and food.”

And, he says, “It’s good for me ‘cause it gets me out of the office. Plus, there’s not really a culture in the world that doesn’t have traditions based around faith and food. It’s kind of cool as a priest and a former chef you see both of those worlds coming together.”

Growing up in Cooper-Young, Bradshaw became the cook in his family at a young age. His mother hated to cook. Bradshaw remembers when he was in the second grade and asked his mom what was for dinner. “She said, ‘You tell me. There’s the kitchen. Go help yourself.’”

Bradshaw went to culinary school at Johnson and Wales in Charleston, South Carolina, the New England Culinary Institute, and Ecole Lenotre in Paris, where he studied pastry making.

After he graduated, he worked at Ben’s restaurant, Restaurant Raji, and City Bread Co. in Memphis.

Becoming a priest had been on his mind, but it was when he did mission work in Russia that he decided, “You know what? I need to figure this out. I kind of tentatively started making plans over the next few years.”

He studied to be a priest in St. Louis, Washington, and Rome. “When I was in the seminary I did a lot of cooking, too. Mainly, most of it for people in the church.”

Over the years, Bradshaw spent a lot of time with Hispanic people. “They taught me a lot about how to cook from their countries, whether El Salvador, Guatemala. Every state in Mexico is totally different in their approach to food. And even to their faith.”

He began the Soul Food series when he was at the Church of the Resurrection. “Everybody eats. One of the things we try to do is use food as a medium. So, we talk about food in different cultures.

“We try to mix it up. Sometimes I’ll be cooking with other people. Sometimes me. Sometimes we’ll go to other places. Anything from a picnic to a restaurant to a kitchen that’s based around food. We’ll do anything from creme brulee to butternut squash bisque, chicken Florentine. I’ll talk a bit — a minute, no more — about the faith. The Christian faith of people.”

He did a Soul Food video with Rabbi Micah Greenstein. “That one’s really simple. I just made chocolate chip cookies.”

Rabbi Micah Greenstein was a guest on ‘Soul Food’ with Father Ben Bradshaw.

Bradshaw took the cookies to Temple Israel, where Greenstein showed him around. “At the end he prayed over me in Hebrew. It was really, really beautiful.”

The recent videos deal with “quarantine cuisine,” Bradshaw says. “I want to help people get their minds off the situation in the world community at this point.


“We made Baked Alaska. We tried to think of things people have around the house to keep kids busy. We made flourless chocolate cake, which we used to make at La Tourelle. We made flowers with Starbursts and Tootsie Rolls. We just made homemade pizza. e made ramen noodles. A lot of teens get into ramen noodles.”

Life is so different because of the COVID-19 crisis, Bradshaw says. “We’ve become a nation of monks. It’s kind of a monastic lifestyle we’re all leading at this point.”

He hopes after all this is over “people will really appreciate each other’s company a little more. Everybody needs other people. Even people that are fiercely independent need other people.”

To watch the shows, click here: http://soulfoodpriest.com/soul-food-episodes/

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Food & Drink Food Reviews

Q&A with Hungry Girl’s Lisa Lillien

Do you love potato skins but hate carbs? Are you powerless in the face of a Starbucks Caramel Macchiato? Do you feel that a life without waffles would not be worth living? Then Lisa Lillien has a recipe for you.

Lillien is living the food writer’s dream. Ten years ago, the self-proclaimed “foodologist” started a daily email service called Hungry Girl. In it, she helps people make healthy diet swaps so they can still enjoy the foods they love. Popular recipes include the De-Pudged Pigs in a Blanket (134 calories) using fat-free franks and reduced fat Crescent Rolls, and Banana Split Bits (182 calories), with strawberry yogurt instead of ice cream.

When she started, she had just 75 subscribers. Ten years later, that number has grown to 1.2 million. In the meantime, Lillien has become the head of a multimillion-dollar food empire. She has written nine New York Times bestselling books; she has her own show on Food Network; and she pens regular columns for Weightwatchers.com and People.com.

Lillien has a Memphis connection. She’s married to Memphian Dan Schneider, producer of such Nickelodeon shows as iCarly and Victorious.

This Sunday, she’ll be at Temple Israel to offer food tips and discuss her rise to fame. She will also sign copies of her new book, The Hungry Girl Diet.

The Flyer caught up with Lillien to talk about yo-yo dieting, pasta blindness, and the barbecue pizza at Pete and Sam’s.

So, you’re married to a Memphian. How’d that happen?

Well, Dan and I were both working for Nickelodeon at the time, and we met through a mutual friend. He was living in L.A., and I was living in New York at the time, so we had a long-distance relationship. I had the opportunity to visit Memphis a bunch of times while we were dating. I love Memphis!

What do you like to eat when in town?

Have you ever been to Pete and Sam’s? It is literally the best pizza in the universe. I was on The Best Thing I Ever Ate — the show on Food Network — and I took them to Pete and Sam’s and showed them the barbecue pizza.

Growing up, you had a difficult relationship with food. What was that like?

I grew up with a yo-yo dieting mom; she literally was on every fad diet you can think of. So, I grew up with this mentality that you’re either on a diet or off a diet. When you were on your diet, you couldn’t have one bite of anything that would be considered a non-diet food. And when you were off your diet, you were just gobbling up everything under the sun. It was a very old-fashioned way of thinking, and unfortunately, I think a lot of people still feel that way.

So what’s the right answer?

I try to live by the 80-20 rule, which means 80 percent of the time, I’m making the right choices and eating what I should be eating. The other 20 percent of the time, I have a little more fun and go a little crazier. What I finally learned is that it’s about changing your lifestyle and making choices that you can live with every day.

When did you know it was time to start Hungry Girl?

I remember, I had gotten these pastries from a local low-fat bakery, and I didn’t trust the calorie counts. I was eating them, and I was like, these taste way too good to have 150 calories. I think I’ll take them to a lab. And I actually did! It was a very Seinfeld moment. I drove an hour, I took them to a lab, and I spent something like $600 to have them tested. And it dawned on me that, you know, I think a lot of people want this information, but not a lot of people would actually take the time to get it. That’s what pushed me over the edge to launch Hungry Girl.

How do you order at a restaurant without loading up on starches and fats?

In Memphis? It’s not easy (laughs). But, when I go out to dinner and look at the menu, I’ve trained myself not to see certain things. I don’t see the cream sauces, and I don’t see the pastas. Instead, I’ll look at the soups — are they broth-based? And I’ll look for things like shrimp cocktail or mussels, things that I know would be smarter choices.

Think fast. There’s a box of donuts in the break room. What do you do?

I guess first I would say, “Why the hell is there a box of donuts at Hungry Girl?” (laughs) No, I think people should really try not to eat donuts at work. I feel like you always feel like you made the wrong decision if you eat a donut at work. You should always have something in your desk that’s a smarter choice.

Such as?

Keep a VitaTop muffin in your desk. They have 100 calories; they’re all-natural; and they’re loaded with fiber. Or keep a Quest Bar in your purse. I love Quest Bars. They come in great, sweet flavors like chocolate-chip cookie dough and apple pie. And they’re loaded with protein and fiber. I’ll have one of those, and it’ll keep me full for four hours.

What’s one tasty, healthy change that people can make today?

Invite no-fat Greek yogurt into your life. Seriously, it will change your life! My favorite brand is Fage. It’s loaded with protein, and it’s an ingredient that you can do so many different things with — whether you’re making salad dressings or sauces, or just eating it for breakfast with fruit.