For arts enthusiasts seeking new ways to mark the Passover holiday this spring, one concert might rock their notions of women in Jewish culturecontemporary and Biblical.

Oranges ROCK the Seder Plate, a concert sponsored by KFAR Jewish Arts Centeran arts organization that promotes and produces Jewish programmingwill take place during Passover April 4 at Boocoo Cultural Center in Evanston.

The concerts theme originates from a story-turned-folk-myth, which inspires some modern families to place an orange on their Seder plates as an act of feminist solidarity during the Passover Sederor holiday mealobserved one-to-two times during the holiday, which takes place from March 29 to April 6 this year.

The concert will include three Jewish acts with a feminist twist: Girls in Trouble, featuring violin-looper and singer Alicia Jo Rabins; Naomi Less, a Jewish chick rocker; and Stereo Sinai, with married duo Alan Jay Sufrin of Skokie and Miriam Brosseau of Wisconsin performing Biblegum Popa take on bubblegum pop with versus lifted from Biblical and text and prayers.

Theyre all innovators and theyre all doing new Jewish music in a very interesting way, said Adam Davis, KFAR founder and director.

According to popular legend, feminist-Jewish scholar Susannah Heschel gave a lecture in Miami Beach, during which she received an interruption by a male rabbi who said, A woman belongs on the bimah like an orange belongs on the Seder plate.

The myth inspired women to put oranges on their Seder plates as a feminist statement.

However, according to Heschel, the story was twisted, and her ritual began after a visit to speak at Oberlin College in the 1980s, when she came across a feminist, student-written Passover Haggadah, or prayer book, recounting a Seder where participants used bread crustsa non-kosher food during Passoveras a symbol of gay exclusion and rebellion. Using an orange instead, Heschel said she encouraged her Seder guests eat the fruit slices and spit out the seeds of homophobia in solidarity for marginalized groups in the Jewish community.

To me, the orange is a symbol of coming together and not leaving anyone out, Heschel said. I think Pesach (Passover) is a good time to remember that all of us went out of Egypt together.

These women are metaphorical oranges on the Seder plate, exploring the roles of Jewish women in song, Davis said.

Passover is the festival of freedom and the time of our liberation, Davis added, and can be applied to modern forms and understandings of oppression.

Rabins of Girls in Trouble, a Baltimore, Md. native and New York resident, translated her Biblical studies in Israel as well as her interest in poetry into indie-folk music for an American audience. Her songs tell the lesser-known tales of women in the Bible through her first-person perspectivewhat she calls a form of Midrash, or Biblical interpretation.

Theres a lot of amazing, often dark stories of women in the Bible that people dont know, Rabins said.

The idea that people can be proudly Jewish and engaged with it and committed to it, but also be a feminist and committed to that toothats what the orange symbolizes, she added.

Less, a Highland Park native and Northwestern University graduate, takes public engagement a step further with her music and outreach efforts.

My stuff is a real combination of listener-friendly edgy pop, meets lyrics that have tribal rootsJewish tribe[I] try to tap into the ancient [and] bring a modern voice to it, Less said.

Less focuses on personal identity, both in her music and in the workshops she holds across the country, encouraging young girls to enter into the music industryan area she said she considers to be male-dominated.

Im really dedicated to trying to encourage girls to express themselves naturally and to find ways into creating and performing music that are exciting and inviting to them, Less said.

The concert will run from 3 to 5 p.m. April 4 at Boocoo Cultural Center and Caf, 1823 Church St., Evanston. Tickets will be $12 in advance and $15 at the door. For more information, go to www.kfarcenter.org.www.kfarcenter.org

By Blair Chavis|Triblocal.com reporter

Photo of Girls in Trouble submitted by  Shulamit Seidler-Feller

Photo of Naomi Less submitted by Charles Abrams Photography

Photo of Stereo Sinai submitted by Stereo Sinai