The professor who opened for Hendrix
JTS Bible scholar Alan Cooper on Conservative Judaism, interfaith studies, and what it was like to sing at Woodstock

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

You can be the former professor of Bible and director of the School of Graduate Studies at Hebrew Union College.

You can be the first teacher to hold a joint professorship at the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Union Theological Seminary, JTS’ Christian neighbor near Columbia University in Manhattan.

And you can hold, as of July 1, the Elaine Ravich Chair in Jewish studies at JTS, a plum honor donated by philanthropists Elaine and David Ravich in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary.

In short, you can be Alan Cooper, and still the first thing a visitor is going to want to ask you is: What was it like to sing at Woodstock?

Steeped in Jewish culture and tradition since his childhood on Long Island and his early education at the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County in West Hempstead, the South Orange resident has a classic scholar’s resume — with one exception: As a member of the 1950s revival ensemble Sha Na Na, Cooper sang bass when the group played Woodstock in the summer of 1969.

Growing up, he “had nothing to do with rock and roll at all,” said Cooper in an NJJN phone interview. “I’ve always been a classical music fan ever since I was a kid. But I always enjoyed singing.”

As an undergraduate religion major at Columbia looking for an extracurricular activity, he joined a vocal group called the Kingsmen.

It evolved into Sha Na Na, a 12-member ensemble that adopted a greaser style and a song list of ’50s doo-wop hits in an era of long hair and electric instruments.

“It was great,” he said of the Woodstock appearance, even as he recalled the heavy rains, nearly impassable roads, and the group’s ultimate arrival at the site on the back of a farmer’s tractor.

He hit the low notes as Sha Na Na sang “At the Hop” by Danny and the Juniors shortly after dawn on a Monday morning, just before the legendary performance by guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Cooper watched from backstage and still remembers Hendrix’s set as “amazing.”

But Cooper never really considered abandoning religious studies for a career as a rock singer. “I wasn’t enamored of the lifestyle, and I always saw myself heading into something more academic. But I certainly had fun while I was doing it.”

For years, Cooper said he left his career as a rocker out of his biography, “but people just kept asking me about it, so I stuck it in.”

He said he “appreciates” other people’s fascination with his singing career, “and I also appreciate the fact that there is an element of performance in teaching. There is no doubt about that. A successful teacher is also to some degree a successful performer, so having some stage experience is not an impediment to successful teaching.”

These days, Cooper’s only a cappella singing is done on the bima at Congregation Beth El in South Orange, where he sometimes leads Shabbat services.

Similar stuff, different ways

He said he is “delighted to have the Ravich chair. It’s fun to have your position named after someone.”

Since 1997, he has been a member of the JTS faculty, focusing on the area of medieval Jewish biblical commentary.

But the job requires Cooper to “cross the street” as part of “a very innovative joint appointment,” devoting half of his teaching time to JTS and half to UTS.

“I teach similar stuff, but in different ways,” he said. He devised some of his courses for Christian students, others for Jews who are far more fluent in Hebrew. “With the Union students, I tend to work from translations and bring Hebrew in at the level that is appropriate.”

Much of the curriculum is identical. “The book of Psalms, for instance, hasn’t changed much in about 2,100 years,” he noted wryly.

But there are many differences between the two sets of students he serves on opposite sides of Broadway.

“The JTS students, particularly the rabbinical students, tend to be more homogenous — younger on average,” he said. “The Union students are more diverse in terms of age, in terms of backgrounds, in terms of race and ethnicity and religious inclinations. It is a fascinating mix of people who are great fun to teach.”

He said, “Any Jewish students who are interested in studying New Testament would be well-advised to study with some of the fine faculty at Union, and vice versa. Christians who are interested in Judaism come to JTS to study.”

Contemporary issues surrounding Israel crop up on both campuses along with historical considerations, and Cooper said he hears a broad spectrum of views on both campuses.

“Although at JTS there is of course a strongly pro-Israel, quasi-official policy, and students don’t always feel free to express concerns about that or to differ with it — although that spectrum of views is there,” he said.

“There are pro-Palestinian views at JTS, and then there is a lot of discomfiture with the Israeli government policy. It doesn’t get expressed as freely as it would at Union, but it doesn’t mean that support of Israel doesn’t get heard at Union as well. It is a question of what people feel free to address.”

As he looks toward the future of JTS, Cooper said he views the June 2006 retirement of chancellor Ismar Schorsch as a time for the Conservative movement “to make a fundamental decision about its future direction.” The movement, he said, is struggling to “hold the center” between “the blandishments of liberalization on one side and the temptations of the false security of Orthodoxy on the other side.”

Cooper said he favored “a woman appointed as chancellor. I think the time is right, I think there are some qualified people, and I think it would make a very powerful statement about the movement’s current and future direction.”

Cooper’s wife, Tamar Frank, is a teacher at the upper school of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union in West Orange. His daughter writes copy for Kim’s Video, a chain of stores featuring what New York Magazine called “hard-to-find music and bizarre videos.” His son is entering his sophomore year at Columbia, where his prime interest is in Latin American studies.

As a 40-minute interview neared its end, the professor said, “I don’t know what the emphasis of this article will be. I hope it will be on the teaching of Bible studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary.”

And yet, there is a twinge of good-natured nostalgia as he looks back on his years with Sha Na Na.

“The one thing I would regret is that the guys who stuck with the group ended up making a lot of money,” joked Cooper, who left Sha Na Na when he graduated from Columbia in 1981, “more than I did as a struggling academic in the early years of a teaching career.”

Robert Wiener can be reached at rwiener@njjewishnews.com.