Shebrew in the City
"I Found Love" - An Interview with Cantor Stefano Iacono
When the echoes of Michael Jackson's beats ignited a young Stefano Iacono's love for music, little did he know it would pave his way to becoming a cantor. Join me, Nicole Kelly, as I chat with Stefano on Shebrew in the City and share a symphony of anecdotes that illustrates how his musical zeal intertwined with a spiritual awakening. Together, we'll explore the nuances of his melodious journey, from acquiring guitar skills out of envy to finding solace in the strums that now feel like an extension of his soul, all while uncovering the serendipitous twists that shaped his path to the harmonious role he cherishes today.
In this extra packed episode of Shebrew in the City, come on a journey of discovery and heart as Stefano takes me beat by beat through his life, his conversion to Judaism, and his work in the clergy today. This episode includes musical excerpts from "Out of the Closet" A fearless celebration of queer music and the voices who inspire us that was hosted by Cantor Stefano Iacono at Congregation Rodeph Sholom. For a live video of the whole concert please visit:
https://rodephsholom.org/aiovg_videos/out-of-the-closet-a-fearless-celebration-of-queer-music-and-the-voices-who-inspire-us/
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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
When the echoes of Michael Jackson's beats ignited a young Stefano Iacono's love for music, little did he know it would pave his way to becoming a cantor. Join me, Nicole Kelly, as I chat with Stefano on Shebrew in the City and share a symphony of anecdotes that illustrates how his musical zeal intertwined with a spiritual awakening. Together, we'll explore the nuances of his melodious journey, from acquiring guitar skills out of envy to finding solace in the strums that now feel like an extension of his soul, all while uncovering the serendipitous twists that shaped his path to the harmonious role he cherishes today.
In this extra packed episode of Shebrew in the City, come on a journey of discovery and heart as Stefano takes me beat by beat through his life, his conversion to Judaism, and his work in the clergy today. This episode includes musical excerpts from "Out of the Closet" A fearless celebration of queer music and the voices who inspire us that was hosted by Cantor Stefano Iacono at Congregation Rodeph Sholom. For a live video of the whole concert please visit:
https://rodephsholom.org/aiovg_videos/out-of-the-closet-a-fearless-celebration-of-queer-music-and-the-voices-who-inspire-us/
TopDogTours is your walking tour company. Available in New York, Philly, Boston, & Toronto!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
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Stefano Iacono:I'm your beauty, your my beast. Welcome to the Middle East.
Nicole Kelly:Hi, this is Shebrew in the City. I'm Nicole Kelly, and today I am talking to Cantor Stefano Iacono. How are you doing this lovely morning?
Stefano Iacono:I'm doing well. This is, if something is usually after your bedtime, what is it when it is before your wake up time?
Nicole Kelly:I don't know. We should come up with a word for that but, I, feel like that's most of the day for me.
Stefano Iacono:Can you make sure not to tell the US senior clergy that I said that though?
Nicole Kelly:I know Rabbi Ben was already in his office when we got here and he was in Washington DC yesterday and then the night before he had a. He's crazy, I don't.
Nicole Kelly:I need, I need whatever he is vitamins he is taking. So I'm really excited to talk to you. When we were kind of pitching the idea of the podcast, you were actually one of the first people I thought of as a guest, because you have such an interesting and beautiful and unique story that I think a lot of people would be interested in hearing about or possibly relate to. So, kind of jumping in in regards to your relationship with music, you play the guitar and you have an amazing voice. When did you first become interested in music? Was it something that you're was kind of cultivated within your house? Is it something that you were the first person in your family to be interested in that? How did that come about?
Stefano Iacono:So I didn't grow up with other musicians in the family, but I have been annoying them with my own music since.
Stefano Iacono:I think I was like two and a half Michael Jackson's black or white on MTV was my jam and I would go around the house making up words to it and from there, you know, I just I never really stopped singing and I started writing music in elementary school and realized that I wanted to be able to accompany myself, started playing piano and in my first example of vanity that I look back on and now laugh was that I hated not being able to take the piano with me. Oh, I was jealous of my friends who could sit down with a guitar and just sort of you know, pick up and play anywhere they went. And so, out of spite, I learned how to play guitar and it became my primary love. I just never put it down.
Stefano Iacono:I feel most comfortable. It's an extension of my body. You know, I breathe with my guitar and I sit at home and I write with my guitar. And it's funny, I don't I don't always listen to music, but I'm always making music. It just it comes out of me and so I needed to channel it into something and the circuitous path that led me to the canter it. I'm very grateful for it because this is the culmination of all the things I love.
Nicole Kelly:It's amazing you found a job that kind of, like you said, has all different aspects of all the things that you really love and feel connected to. When did you start playing the guitar?
Stefano Iacono:So I was in high school, okay, and I just, you know, was very frustrated that my friends could do their thing and I wanted to join the party. So I picked it up and you know, within a couple of years, was picking up gigs at coffee shops, playing covers and sharing overly personal emotional music Like imagine bad dashboard, confessional like, but without a backup band. So we're talking tragic, just comically bad over sharing. But it grew from there and I would play bars and restaurants and invariably, by like hour two and a half, someone who did not get the message that I'm playing jewel and Alana Smoresette songs would start screaming for free bird.
Stefano Iacono:I'm like sir I just think I'm not taking requests. Right and I'm like read the room Like that's. That's not what's coming out of me today, but needless to say, it was something I enjoyed doing and it was not the right fit. I wasn't able to bring the audiences of Central Texas what they wanted.
Nicole Kelly:I surprised they weren't requesting Christian rock music or we went. We went to a wedding and in Texas it's the only time I've ever been to Texas and we were waiting for the wedding to start and there was definitely like Christian rock and I was like this only makes me slightly uncomfortable Positive, encouraging, and what was ironic is the groom was Jewish, so oh yeah. I was like there's. This is a very interesting presentation of music, considering that one of the people who's getting married is not is not Christian.
Stefano Iacono:Oh, for sure, and you know that's one of the interesting things of Texas. You'll find out that some of like the startup bands that then get famous like six pence, none the richer, you know, kiss me. Yeah, oh, I am a millennial.
Nicole Kelly:Yes, it's like from she's all that that was a very important moment for all millennial girls was her coming down the stairs with that song and they are surprised.
Stefano Iacono:A Christian rock band.
Nicole Kelly:They are not. Yes, that's so crazy. Yes.
Stefano Iacono:Lifehouse. Dare you to move? You know that that that piece, same thing there.
Nicole Kelly:I know that the Christian rock movement is a very lucrative movement and I was looking at the Grammy nominations this past week and there's lots of different categories within Christian music. I know there's a huge movement we need to make, we need to get is there a Jewish music Grammy category? And if not, we need to get on top of that.
Stefano Iacono:I think we fall in world.
Nicole Kelly:World because we, because we are all over the world.
Stefano Iacono:I'm going to, I'm going to let that be the frame.
Nicole Kelly:Okay, I know I was going to go somewhere else with that, but I was like I'm not going to be repeating anti-Semitic tropes on my podcast. Um, okay, so Grammy nomination committee, let's get on the Jewish music, though. I feel like Debbie Friedman probably would have won every year. Always While she was alive. Um, so you said you also played piano. Do you still? Do you have like a keyboard in your house? I you know, I see one in your office, so you still actively play piano.
Stefano Iacono:Yes, and I am embarrassingly as a bad of a student now as I was in fifth grade. Um, I just don't practice enough.
Nicole Kelly:Everyone who plays piano other than literally professional musical directors and pianists says that, and I was. Someone tried to teach me to play piano and I was like this is not my journey. But you know, I feel like every adult I talk to is like I need to practice more.
Stefano Iacono:Yes, it's like there are too many options. What 81 is that? Is that the number of choices? Like guitar has six strings, leave me alone.
Nicole Kelly:Like that's a little bit more simple. That's enough choices for me. Do you play any other instruments or have interest in learning any other instruments?
Stefano Iacono:I have always wanted to play flute, I've always wanted to play ukulele, I wanted to play French horn and I was like oh cool, each of these is a completely different modality. Let me, let me devote another corner of my life. Yeah, it becomes a whole thing.
Nicole Kelly:The ukulele is similar enough to the guitar. I think that would be easy to pick up and it's very portable. So you know, you can literally take it with you everywhere, which is nice about the ukulele and there's not so different types of ukuleles. Patrick plays the ukulele and in our old apartment we had a little more wall space. They were all displayed on the wall Like it was a music store, yes, like we literally had the industrial like hangers that they have at like a tar center, and I'm hoping someday we'll have an apartment again where we can hang them because it was really cool. So you also write songs. Who talked about starting to do that? You know, when did you learn to read and write music and what were some of your early songs about? If you started so young, I want to know. You know, were they about the strife that you were going through as an elementary school kid? Or you know I wrote pop songs?
Stefano Iacono:You wrote pop songs as an elementary school kid. Yeah, you know, I loved pop music.
Nicole Kelly:Well were some of your favorite pop artists other than Michael Jackson, like you said.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, for sure. Mid to late nineties, I was all about the Spice Girls. I loved the idea that they wrote their own five part harmonies.
Nicole Kelly:I was fascinated With the posh spice at the bottom she sounds like a bass if you listen to the music. She literally sounds like a bass.
Stefano Iacono:Oh God, love her. We love, we love, we love, we love posh. But you know, that was really the format that I learned to write in. Otherwise, I was listening to whatever my parents were listening to, the cranberries counting crows, and so I learned song structure from like adult alternative. But then I translated it through, you know, Britney Spears, Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, finding out, you know here's the right number of verses into a chorus, into a bridge, a refrain, and then going there, and it was always love songs, a topic that no eight year old knows anything about.
Nicole Kelly:There's some adults that don't know anything about it, so I think you're fine there.
Stefano Iacono:But you know just things like heartbreak. I loved writing about heartbreak. It makes no sense but in a way it's one of the most universal concepts in songs Most songs are about love of something, usually a person, sometimes you know food or something like that.
Nicole Kelly:But I feel like I've had moments of revelation where I'm like, oh, most songs are about relationships, because everybody for the most part, has relationships and it is a universal thing people can understand. I feel like we would have been friends when we were in elementary school because we listened to the same music and I was also like overly serious.
Nicole Kelly:I feel like I was in such a hurry to grow up because I wanted to be taken seriously and shocking, I'm still not taken seriously. So it's the sad truth of me trying to grow up. So I feel like I need to be a part of my daughter. It's like no one's going to take you seriously. Just have some fun being a kid, because I was like I'm reading adult books and I'm watching adult movies and I want to be. You know, I want to be an adult. I was in such a rush and now I have to pay taxes and you know, worry about things like that. We just got the email for a CPA. Being like this is how much money you owe to the government, and I'm like government, I don't want to give you my money.
Stefano Iacono:It felt like it could be eight again and writing love songs.
Nicole Kelly:Listening to the Spice Girls. You know, did you like the Spice Girls movie? What are your thoughts on the movie? My sister still talks about it frequently, like at least every month or so. It kind of comes up in conversation.
Stefano Iacono:So I think I can say objectively that it was cinema perfection and I think it will stand the test of time. That feels like an objective statement to me.
Nicole Kelly:You know, for a certain age group of people, I think that's true.
Nicole Kelly:Maybe for my parents not so much, but definitely for the millennia, especially the geriatric millennials, which is a term I love because you know, I remember before the internet and when people got newspapers delivered, but I also now have a smartphone. So I feel like, for the geriatric millennial, spice World was a very formative film. Alan Cumming is fantastic in it and there's smart jokes and you know it's about girl power, which I think, if I'm being honest, spice Girls were probably the first time I was introduced to feminism. I mean, you can make fun of all that, but it was about feminism and I think it introduced that to a lot of young women and men and I think that's super important. So it is a classic film and it should obviously be put in the Library of Congress as an important to. I don't know well, they're not American, but what is it to get from the Library of Congress? It has to be important to American culture in some way, but if we could make that happen, I think it's important to preserve that history and I'm only like 5% joking.
Stefano Iacono:I'm happy to submit all of the videos of me being a perfect sporty spice to show the impact it had on American culture, like you know, just really. And you know, the thing is they were smart, they were, they were smart and I don't know if we realize that today.
Nicole Kelly:I distinctly remember like they used to sell Spice Girls candy, Like they were. They were smart and they were also making money for me. So you know, I don't, I can't really think of another music group that sold candy with their faces on it.
Stefano Iacono:So Lady Gaga got her Oreos.
Nicole Kelly:Yes, oh yes, she's also smart and also a queer icon because I feel like the Spice Girls are, and maybe we're like. I'm not queer so I can't speak to this, but maybe like early icons for young queer people and being like I love their fabulousness.
Nicole Kelly:Oh yeah, and they were pretty fabulous. Because they were, they were pretty fabulous. So, speaking of being smart and queer in music, you talked about playing coffee houses and restaurants in Texas. Did you ever think of moving to a place like Nashville or Los Angeles and just pursuing singing and songwriting as your main career?
Stefano Iacono:Oh yeah, there was a plan for the whole family to uproot and move to Seattle for a while.
Nicole Kelly:Oh, my goodness, seattle, which I found out like last year, was the seat of a lot of bands in the 90s.
Stefano Iacono:I clearly was not paying attention to that, because I only found that out and I you know part of me may have been chasing that feel. I wanted to be in a grungy space and then do my twist. I had kind of a folksy twang to my voice but I modeled everything I did after Alanis Morissette's jagged little pill.
Nicole Kelly:Yes, Did you see the musical? No, I did not. Very serious for me, even for a musical. I didn't see it, but I know the plot and I was like I don't know if I I want to see the 90s angst. Yeah, that's what we need right now.
Stefano Iacono:I can't imagine it translating and I can't imagine it being watchable today Like it's, just because it's not even cynical. Well, it was happening.
Nicole Kelly:It came out like like technically qualified for the Tonys after COVID and Patrick was like that's what we need right now in this postcode world is 90s angst.
Stefano Iacono:Right, it's like no, we've got Olivia Rodrigo, she's bringing the updated version of it, but like there's definitely a space for, or I also really enjoy the Lance Marsot music as a child.
Nicole Kelly:There's definitely a space for an eight year old to be belting. You want to know? Yeah, but as I did, I mean yes. Again, I feel like we would have been friends. We should like go back in time and become pen pals.
Stefano Iacono:Maybe our parents can have the same conversations with us together about why we shouldn't sing that in the grocery store.
Nicole Kelly:I just think we remember I had a babysitter for part of elementary school and I was belting, unbreak my heart in the car and she was like laughing and I was like I don't understand why. This is funny because I took singing very seriously in the car and I still do. So I hope my daughter, who also is already at like two and a half, like trying to belt and sing like Julie Andrews, that she will sing inappropriate music because I feel like it is a is a rite of passage.
Nicole Kelly:So, going back to what we were actually talking about, so you were planning on moving to Seattle. Why did that? Why didn't that end up happening?
Stefano Iacono:Well, to be honest, I started to get a little good at music, okay, and realized that I was hating it. I loved performing and sharing and getting very emotional and being deep in my feelings and then creating something that was supposed to be beautiful. But I didn't want to do it for strangers every day anymore and it just. I wanted something a little more reciprocal. I didn't want an audience, I wanted I don't know a community yeah.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. It can be a little isolating being a performer because it's like the other, and then they leave and then you never see them again and there's no you know. Unless you know, you somehow have some sort of like stage or experience. There's no communication about the experience. Everything can also be really great because of that, because sometimes you want to just do it and then leave, but like, but, if you want, if your whole MO is to connect to people, that it can be very isolating, especially because not all audiences are respectful. So for sure.
Nicole Kelly:I can definitely imagine that being the case if you're working in restaurants and bars and people are, you know, not paying attention or being obnoxious. That would be frustrating.
Stefano Iacono:And it really hurt me in the beginning. But even that you know you kind of get over it. But then you realize there's there's only so far that creating something, that space can go when it's just you, and it's just not what I wanted to pour my energy into Like to have a collaborative community experience.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah.
Stefano Iacono:And it takes so long to come down from a performance. You know, once you're really in it, like there's, there's no chance you're going to bed yeah.
Nicole Kelly:I feel like that's why I still keep actor hours, because after shows we would go out to like TGI Fridays and I get home at like 4am and I've never really left that. But that's a problem because my daughter has to be at school at 8.45.
Stefano Iacono:Exactly so.
Nicole Kelly:I usually just like throw on clothes and look like a troll and I'm like, you know, trying to get her hair done, and I'm like, okay, we're doing this, but then I'm now awake so I can't go back to sleep. Yeah.
Stefano Iacono:Look, I'm a worrier, and so I had to have a very frank conversation with myself one day. I was like, okay, what if you did achieve your goal? What if one day you are touring all over the world and you have a band who backs you up, and you have management and this and this, and that you're going to really sleep in a different place every day. Hopefully, you sleep and you're going to get up and you're going to do your press tours and you're going to do your thing and you're never going to do anything else and you're going to have to always be in top notch condition for a performance that's not doing it for you anymore. Yeah, it can be.
Nicole Kelly:I mean, there is something I think some people you know I don't know why, I'm thinking of Taylor Swift, but like there's a high you can get from performance oh, absolutely, and I think a lot of people chase that high but it can be very isolating, it can be exhausting. I don't know when this is going to air, but I was just at the DC March for Israel and against anti-Semitism and I had to leave at six am and got back at 11. And that's, you know, like a touring day, and I didn't even give a show. I totally get where you're coming from. So, speaking of writing songs, I absolutely love the story about how you told your husband you loved him, because it's very creative, and I would love if he would share that story with us.
Nicole Kelly:Absolutely so well, how did you meet your husband?
Stefano Iacono:So we met in Texas on gaycom way back when it was a city chat room based. Oh we're in a chat room. Oh yeah, and this is before apps.
Stefano Iacono:This is like in the dawning of online dating. This is 2010. And so we ended up having conversations, like I said, as big chat rooms. So everyone in town is in this chat room and you're talking about all sorts of things, and I was a bit of a know-it-all, and so was he, and I had a pretentious streak, you know, trying to, you know, make a name for myself in the world. I can say it was cute now, but it was insufferable then. And out of the blue, he sent me a message and said hey, do you want to meet at this bar? And you know I had just turned 21. He wasn't even 21 yet. So we're sitting on the picnic table outside this historic space that was once a Jewish community center and is now like a three-story queer bar In.
Nicole Kelly:Texas yeah, in Texas he's got this big exes. It sounds like a setup to a joke.
Stefano Iacono:I know Every part of it. Every part of it sounds so crazy.
Nicole Kelly:I know that they were like former JCC.
Stefano Iacono:Obviously, this needs to be a gay bar, of course, and so it's got these, like you know, the stars of David on the cornices everywhere and it's beautiful and people are just like getting down to the latest.
Nicole Kelly:you know, I can see people dancing to Kylie Minogue, like you know that's the vibe If this place still exists, because if it does, I feel like I need to make a trip specifically to go there.
Stefano Iacono:The Bonham Exchange, yes, and John Bonham, and Houston, in San Antonio, I believe. And it is still there, it's still thriving.
Stefano Iacono:I will be looking this up and maybe making a journey to Texas just to take some Instagram photos and be like, yes, the best part is that, you know, we were sitting outside of this space and just happened to be having the most serious conversation and we talked about literature. You know, we went from like I know why the caged bird sings to what were the foundational texts that you read at way too young of an age, that traumatized you and you know. And then it turns to Judaism and so it just. It was a shocking first conversation with someone who I admittedly had not impressed online Because you know, we butted heads.
Stefano Iacono:Like I said, I was a know-it-all, I was always on a soapbox, I was very, very politically active in those days and convinced that people just weren't doing enough. And just it worked. We just spoke from the heart and I calmed down for a second. It must have been the only calm couple of hours of my life and I just remember thinking this feels like a really bad movie, like what are the odds that we would be sitting outside of this bar and, you know, come out to each other as people who are interested in converting to Judaism? Like it still just sounds fake.
Nicole Kelly:One could say possible, but shared.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, I mean, that's how I see it now. Yeah, but obviously in the moment I was just like did you read something? Did you know that about me? Like why did that come up Like today? I would have definitely been suspicious that someone had been on my social media and was like trying to gaslight me or something.
Nicole Kelly:This was before you could stock somebody online. Oh yeah, we had MySpace and MySpace only, and MySpace was like a place for showcasing your favorite song or you know kind of pitting your friends against each other about who you liked the most.
Stefano Iacono:Oh yeah, I think Facebook had like just started being a thing and it was just for college students. Oh yeah.
Nicole Kelly:Yes, I remember this, and I went to a performing arts college, so I couldn't get a Facebook because we didn't have college emails, and that was kind of the prerequisite for that. So you meet your husband and you fall hard. And how do you tell him that you love him?
Stefano Iacono:About two months in I realized the feelings were just intense and when I can make up my mind, it's very definite and I wrote this song called I Found Love, and it came from one night when we were asleep. I made sure he was asleep and I said I love you, but I was studying Hebrew at the time and I was still afraid that even if he was awake he'd hear me and know what I was saying, and so I said I need to have it and it was my favorite moment of my life so far and I decided to put that in a song, and so I sing this like dramatic I found love, la la, la, la la song, and the very last line is that I dropped that. I whispered this in your ear as you were sleeping and instead of calling him and saying hey, I love you, or dropping that on a date or something, I sent him an MP3 of the demo. I emailed it to him.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, I didn't even say anything about it. And then what was it? Three minutes and 48 seconds or something later he called me and I did not pick up.
Stefano Iacono:I told a secret while you were sleeping and when you woke I just couldn't find the words. But I told you pillow so sweetly, and nobody, nobody was hurt. But way, yeah, yeah, where do we go from here? Is there a place for us to hide? Cause I found love hiding on cover, hiding on smother, hiding from truth. Yes, I found love hiding on cover, hiding on smother. I was hiding from you. I wanna hold you tighter and the wind is holding me now and faith is the only peace that we need anyhow. But way, yeah, yeah, where do we go from here? Is there a place for us inside? Cause I found love hiding on cover, hiding on smother, hiding from truth. Yes, I found love hiding on cover, hiding on smother. I was hiding from you. And way, yeah, yeah, where do we go from here? Is there any turning back? I knew you'd have a thought. I said Well, did you hear that? Well, I said I love you. Oh, and now?
Nicole Kelly:I do.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Very much that, and to this day he makes fun of me for it, and it's the best thing to be teased over, because I was just like you know, this is the truth and I want you to know. But also, oh God, what if he doesn't feel this way? You know what if this is too much and I lose it all? But it was gonna be worth it. I had to let him know and then, you know, the second time he called, when I did answer, he said I love you too, and I was like, oh okay, what now?
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, like who said this was the next step. And this was before gay marriage was legal, obviously. So it would have been like, okay, do we, you know?
Stefano Iacono:I mean, this was before people had boyfriends on TV in prime time and it was still just not very accepted by 2010,. You know, we're like don't ask, don't tell was still in play. Yeah, when we were dating and that was just the culture you tried not to stick out and anytime you had pride, people would be angry about it. Because what are you going on about? What are you trying to shove in people's face and show that you're different than? And you're different is good, and so then, if your difference is a good thing, are you saying you're better than others?
Nicole Kelly:It was nonsense but yeah, I lived in hell of a new one. Prop 8 was a huge thing and it was just kind of scary. How, for no reason, people, I don't know maybe this is because I'm Jewish and you know I'm not a terrible person I don't think what other people do affects me in that way, so I don't have never really understood that.
Stefano Iacono:People didn't want to see the institution change. People didn't want to have to think, because?
Nicole Kelly:marriage is such, you know, I know, with the high divorce rate and people cheating and and I love to joke.
Stefano Iacono:I mean I even let our kids know please don't let anyone ever tell you that you should have a biblical marriage. Read the text. That is just not how we get married.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, it's men sleeping with their wives' servants to have children, and, yeah, it's not a good basis for that. So, speaking of the Bible, can you tell me where you are originally from I know you said you're from Texas and what your religious upbringing was like?
Stefano Iacono:I'm from San Antonio, texas, which, I love to remind people, is the sixth largest city in the country.
Stefano Iacono:It is an amazing place.
Stefano Iacono:I love, love, love my hometown. If we could put it in Brooklyn, I would still live there and I, because it was such a big town it is predominantly Catholic. Okay, I didn't know that. And then the other half is some kind of Protestant, mostly evangelical, very, very small Jewish community of which I was not yet part. I was raised knowing that we were people who called ourselves non-denominational Christians.
Nicole Kelly:See that to me, we call it Christian with a capital C, which is, you know, the crazy born-again people.
Stefano Iacono:So when I hear non-denominational.
Nicole Kelly:I think of ultra-religious Christian people Like the Quirrell movement.
Stefano Iacono:And really what it is is making sure that you don't have to apply a label. It is just, and that's why there's so much room for it being you know diplomatic words here For it being an exercise in fundamentalism or in being something very open. And we fell more on the open side, mostly because we didn't affiliate. So my mom comes from a long line of Pentecostal ministers and that didn't fit her anymore and so she stopped practicing, I think early, early in life, with her family, and my dad immigrated from Italy when he was in middle school and his whole family is Roman Catholic and he really struggled with his faith and the way it was practiced in his family. So my parents made the conscious decision not to raise us formally anything.
Stefano Iacono:So we knew the name because in Texas people would ask Like they ask you know now what school do you go to, what do you do, what church do you go to, what?
Stefano Iacono:a weird intro question and you know, but it asks where's your community based? And you know, and it's not a question about how religious are you and what kind of religious are you, but where do you go when you're sad? Where do you bring food when something happens in the community? So it's like it makes sense. It's just not the precise question. So we had to have an answer, but it wasn't an answer for fit. Today my mom says that she raised us to secular.
Stefano Iacono:She would never have used that word back then Because you know it meant atheist, which is also not what secular means.
Stefano Iacono:But it meant that we had the room to explore and my parents expected us to explore, and then I did. I loved the Bible. I really was fascinated with the idea of this ancient text that we carried and update and still have a relationship with, and I got very into the new King James version of the Bible and I would just read and read, and partially because I had heard that there were these handful of verses about why being gay was a sin and I was going to go to hell, and so I was obsessed with that concept and I had to know everything about it, and so I was mostly reading it as a litigator. I needed to know what was being said about me in this book that was being weaponized and following me my entire life and ultimately I found out, like they don't have a case, like it just doesn't support that there's a lot of things that they're like it says this in the Bible and I'm like.
Nicole Kelly:It also says not to wear mixed fabrics, but you know, I don't think that's something we're also following.
Stefano Iacono:It ended up like showing me that my greatest passion in life was going to be getting in the heads of biblical authors, being like what in the world did that mean? What were they so scared of? Why couldn't you mix these two fabrics? What did it mean if you did, and why would that get you shunned and expelled and you know whatever else? And I needed to know why something that I didn't think was bad about myself was going to get me in hell, which was a place that I couldn't really find any reason why it needed to exist, and that was my religiosity. It was always trying to find some answer, because I was shown a worldview that said this faith always has an answer.
Nicole Kelly:Which it doesn't, and that's one of the things I love about Judaism, maybe because I'm an intellectual, because I like to question things and I'm like why.
Nicole Kelly:You know, and that's, I think, one of the cornerstones of Judaism is questioning and trying to grapple with these questions. And that leads me to my next question what was your first exposure to Judaism, being, you know, in Texas, where there obviously are Jews, you know we're everywhere Because you know, like the world music. So what was your first exposure to Judaism? Did you meet someone who was Jewish? How did you hear about Judaism?
Nicole Kelly:You know, I like to say that I didn't really meet people who weren't Jewish until I was five, so kind of maybe the opposite experience of what you had.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, around the time that I was starting to realize that I was gay. So in elementary school I was very aware I was put in after school care at the JCC, which was right next door to my neighborhood, and it was mostly because it was convenient to my parents, really, that you thought everyone there who worked there was really lovely and nice and the hours lined up with what they needed Practical reasons. And then, you know, we litch about candles every Friday and we ate challah and I got to learn about what this was and one of my best friends started sharing her relationship not even her beliefs, but her relationship with her religion with me and I was fascinated because what I had was belief. What I did not have was practice. There was no version of Christianity that I was practicing and I was like, what do you mean? There are things that you do.
Stefano Iacono:My Protestant family was so scared of ritual. They were literally nervous about the Catholic side of my family Inserting things or doing, and it turns out both sides were actually very nervous about religious difference. So, surprise, having a convert in the middle of things really spices it up. But I loved that Judaism allowed for questioning. That was the first thing, Because when I said that, you know what I was raised in presented itself as with the answers.
Stefano Iacono:The first thing I learned about Judaism was that it does not and it will not there's. It's extremely rare to read anything in modernity that says here is what it is. Rather, here are the years of tradition, years of interpretation, the years of expanding the practice to mean something, and we are always reading between the lines and trying to figure out what was the point. That makes more sense to me. That is an active engagement in something, and I wanted to be someone whose religion does something. And so when I found out, you know, you've got these rituals, and then you know, of course I was a kid, so Hanukkah just seemed incredible and I loved that the calendar moved, you know, because I didn't really understand at the time how the Hebrew calendar didn't have anything to do with the Gregorian calendar, but it seemed exciting, like you never knew when a holiday was going to fall on you.
Stefano Iacono:Which is stressful as an adult but fun as a kid, I guess, and I feel like every time it would come back, there would be some new thing they were doing.
Nicole Kelly:Well, there's so many holidays.
Stefano Iacono:There's so many holidays.
Nicole Kelly:It's an obscene amount of holidays.
Stefano Iacono:But you know, you live by a calendar and I wanted that. I wanted to have something that was going to be an active part in my everyday and you know, every Jew, every Passover, has to decide whether or not to do it.
Stefano Iacono:You have to reconcile your life with that date on the calendar. Whether you are sitting at an Orthodox Seder or you are you know, I don't know eating matzah-ball soup at Katzah, you are choosing whether or not to do the thing that all of the Jews are doing Like. That is an active participation that I didn't have in my religious identity growing up, and I'm grateful for that, because it left room for exploration.
Nicole Kelly:When did you decide to officially convert? Is it something that just kind of was always there and you didn't realize it was an option? Or was it something that, when you became a little bit older, you were like Well, I'm going to go through with this process.
Stefano Iacono:So for the longest time I did not know. It was an option.
Nicole Kelly:I thought I was like oh, you thought you had to be born Jewish, yeah.
Stefano Iacono:I thought I will be someone who has a love for Judaism, who reads Judaism. I never thought I would be going to synagogues. I thought that would be off limits to me and I also didn't know about Reform Judaism. You know, I read the entire shelf at Barnes Noble on Judaism and guess what doesn't make an appearance back then Reform.
Nicole Kelly:Judaism, which is Surprise. Well, back then, yes, I feel like the form movement is much more prevalent now, and visible, yeah, it is much more visible.
Stefano Iacono:And then finding out that actually all of the Jews that I knew, all my friends in school, were Reform Jews. It was funny to not have grasped that. And so it was a couple of years of shopping around at different houses of worship. We tried the Unitarian Universalists, we went to the Hindu temple, we tried several versions of Christianity modern, progressive movements and some traditional stuff and ultimately we felt the most at home in the Reform synagogue in San Antonio.
Stefano Iacono:Now, mind you, I had absolutely no idea what was happening. The first time I gathered the courage to go, you know, fully two years after I had realized Judaism was the path for me. That's how long it took me to come to synagogue. But the first time I heard my canter chant the Chatzikarish, I was like there is something in this melody that's carrying a history of experience that is both intensely particular and just incredibly universalistic, because when I was reading the words, I was like there's nothing in here that anybody I know couldn't say I'm into, and I just I'd never experienced what I call a backward compatible religion. I was like, you know, if I shared this prayer book with my grandma, this very devout Catholic woman who to this day is just like one of the best Catholics that I know.
Nicole Kelly:She gets the award.
Stefano Iacono:I'd show this to her and I know she would see God in it. Like she would understand what we were doing.
Nicole Kelly:I'm still wowed by that. It's interesting that you talked about the music being connection, because I feel like sometimes what I'm at service is it's almost like a primal connection to the music, so I definitely understand that. Can you walk me through the steps of reform and conversion? I recently found out from Rabbi Julie that you don't have to be told no three times.
Stefano Iacono:Indeed.
Nicole Kelly:Which you know is perpetuated through media. So what was the process? From deciding you were going to convert to officially becoming a Jew?
Stefano Iacono:Um, for me it was getting comfortable with my local synagogue, first trying them all out. Went to the Orthodox synagogue it was lovely. Went to the conservative synagogue it was absolutely lovely. Went to the Forum synagogue and was like, okay, this is what's going to align, both spiritually and, at that time, like I said, it was very political and it was going to align politically with what I was looking for, Um, and so I, you know, started to attend, became a regular, got to know a couple of people, um, and then you know, asked what the options were and I said, well, we've got an intro to Judaism class. So we signed up for the class, Um, it was a weekly lecture series.
Stefano Iacono:We did that for like eight months and then there's a Hebrew component for like another six, six weeks, Um, and then you have a whole bunch of follow up stuff. So you end up filling up an entire year and want you to live the year according to the Hebrew calendar, um, see what you're going to feel and experience at each of the holidays and important milestones, so that you you've tried it on fully before you commit. And you know it differs a little bit depending on where you go, but for the most part. It's a year of study and experience so that you know fully what you are choosing, and that's sort of where the tradition of being refused three times comes from. You have to really want this.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, it's a major life decision.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, yeah, it's a really big deal, and we're one of the few faiths that actually makes it not difficult, because it's not supposed to be difficult, but makes it a process that you have to totally opt into over and over and over, because, well, what we say here, um, when we're educating um potential converts, is you're putting on a name tag that a lot of people have a pretty intense feelings about, and so you have to really be doing this because you're committed to it, because it will change the way some people in the world interact with you and, hopefully, it changes the lens with which you see the world.
Nicole Kelly:So I know you and your husband converted together. Do you think that, um this process made it much more of a shared experience as opposed to something extremely personal?
Stefano Iacono:Yes, and I will be upfront with you. Um, I was initially a little uncomfortable with the question, chose not to say anything just cause it's you know it's. It's such a private like I choose to be very, very public.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah.
Stefano Iacono:Um with, with my process, because I want to make sure people know that they can do this too. Um, we don't advertise, I mean, we don't, we don't, we don't proselytize, but I think we could advertise a little bit. Um, but it also converting with him, was that that just the most intensely spiritual experience? Because we had completely different approaches to Judaism then and now, um, our practices shift, our beliefs evolve and deepen and we fell in love with different things. At the start, I loved Talmud um, which just sounds crazy, but I loved the sacredness and recording arguments and debate to make sure that if you got it wrong, you could go back later and be like, okay, well, the other thing I thought of was this so maybe we can, you know, tease that out a bit.
Stefano Iacono:Um, but I didn't convert for God, and this is as someone who prayed every single day, like with my family, and then, you know, before bed, my personal practice was also to pray and it was are you there, god? It's me, margaret style prayer. Um, and that came later. That came like a long time after learning the liturgy and being present in services that I picked up on that part of it and, um, it was just. It was incredibly special to be able to bounce ideas off of my husband and see. You know what? What does this spark in you? Why does this move you? Cause I loved being moved by all of it. Um, I wouldn't have changed anything. It's the most incredible process and I firmly believe that that's why we have people like prospective converts today attend the class with their partners if they have a serious partner, because it just it is even if the partner is Jewish, even if the partner is Jewish.
Stefano Iacono:Yes, because if one of you is going to dramatically change your life, your partner needs to witness it and needs to help you reintegrate everything that you are cause. You're not actually changing, you're changing the box. Like you're, you are just affirming things that we're going to come out through Judaism. You have to. You have to be able to support each other through the process so that, when you're done, you can meaningfully be Jewish. Like, what does it mean to be Jewish in your home? What's that going to look like for someone who didn't, you know, grow up with the music and grow up with this sense of I'm Jewish? Because it's really hard to fill in that gap and learn what's going to be in your blank, like, why, why did you do it? It's the first thing everybody wants to ask you, and so you're going to need help workshopping that and and and exploring it, and I think the best way is with a partner.
Nicole Kelly:It's beautifully put. I think it can be like the way I've always kind of thought it as a very isolated experience but, I, think you know taking that journey with somebody is is a beautiful thing. Do you feel like you were always Jewish? You just happened to be born in a family that wasn't Jewish.
Stefano Iacono:It is so funny? Um, because, yes, in a way that I can't really explain, you know one. One day and I can, I can see where I was the morning. I had this feeling. It was in front of my parents' old house in San Antonio. One day I woke up and it was the first day that I had a thought Like I. I recalled a memory from my childhood and just subconsciously referred to myself as Jewish back then.
Stefano Iacono:Like I felt like I had been a Jewish kid, or it was like it was something deep within you that was always there.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, um it just it fits so well. When I finally put it on that I thought maybe this was always there and I just never pulled it out and tried it for myself. I also found out that a few years before his death, my grandpa shared all of these Jewish artifacts with me in like an old Tanakh that I have here in my office. That was among his possessions and he apparently had been similarly in love with Hebrew and the idea of Judaism. So I don't know, I think for people who are seeking, there's a magic to exploring faith and religion in general, and when I found that coat, I was just so excited for it to be mine. And one day, a few years later, yeah, I woke up and it was as if there had never been a moment where I wasn't wearing it. The past was just harmonized. And I feel that way now, and I think that is still the weirdest part.
Nicole Kelly:So people, you're making me cry. I do have a question that I've always been kind of curious about. I know a lot of. Obviously, when you convert, you are denouncing other religions. I know that you literally say that right A lot of people who are not Jewish. Christmas is a huge deal for them. And I talked to people whose husbands have converted and almost like mourning the loss of Christmas. Was this difficult? I know it's a huge thing for a lot of people who aren't Jewish. Is this something that you found difficult to give up?
Stefano Iacono:I am definitely an exception to the rule and I tell people. So I don't even share this with conversion students because I don't want to influence anyone's beliefs or anything. I was angry about Christmas, you were angry about Christmas. Oh yeah, by the time I was converting I was just like, oh that old thing.
Stefano Iacono:Like I would feel the rage simmer up at the beginning of October when they started playing Christmas music in the stores, because I'd found this thing that I loved, that felt completely mine and completely me, and I felt like, when Christmas would come out, it was challenging this new light that I had found, that I wanted to shine.
Stefano Iacono:I was like no, there are other options, don't you know? There are other options. I felt like I was running around screaming to the townspeople there are other choices. And I was taking it out on Christmas and it was completely misplaced. I fought with my family. I was like I don't want to take a photo in front of the tree, I don't want to exchange gifts on that day. This is the wrong position.
Nicole Kelly:I will say Christmas can be very overwhelming in America and it becomes a lot. And I feel like Christmas is some people who live their lives more secular. It becomes the only religious thing they do, even if it's not religious. It becomes their whole personality. So I can understand the anger about that.
Stefano Iacono:I was making it, I was totally deflecting. It wasn't about Christmas. It was about struggling to feel legitimate in the tradition that I had chosen, that everybody I knew knew that I had chosen that. I felt very green. I felt like I've only been. I'm a Jewish two-year-old. How am I going to have anybody respect me and understand that my holidays, my life cycle, is different. You can't just include me now in these other things that, even if you're a secular person observing Christmas, it is a Christian tradition. People who are not Christian can participate in Christian traditions, but that doesn't mean that the thing that means the thing now means something more universalistic. Today, what I say is Christmas is beautiful, giving gifts is important, the lights are stunning, especially in New York the music is gorgeous.
Nicole Kelly:Oh, New York Christmas.
Stefano Iacono:New York does Christmas the best. Yes, it is beautiful. I grew up with six Christmas trees in the house. We would decorate them.
Nicole Kelly:It took weeks, so it's the universe, christmas trees and you know what is most beautiful. And will you find any pine needles until April?
Stefano Iacono:Yes, eventually my mom changed to fancy pre-lit the plastic trees which are a lot of use, easier to handle. But it is absolutely beautiful. And the thing is I didn't yet know how to make it feel like Christmas the warmth, the happiness, the family togetherness, the matching sweaters, the warm drinks, the tradition the songs.
Stefano Iacono:I didn't yet know how to do that in Judaism, and so the reminder of Christmas and that I had done that before and I'd found this piece and I was now kind of floating trying to figure out my way I took out that rage on Christmas had nothing to do with Christmas. That was my personal war on Christmas. So there is a war on Christmas. It's just your personal war, Poor job at all kinds of things.
Nicole Kelly:I feel like though, being an American Jew, it is a difficult thing because it's such an all-encompassing season and it is like, hey, this too and I know Hanukkah, which I'm going to be doing an episode has become very commercialized to kind of combat. I'd be like, hey, we can do ugly sweaters, we can do Hanukkah gingerbread houses and Hanukkah bushes. But I think the holiday season for Jews is kind of it's just kind of weird in general living in America and it being such a commercialized and overemphasized time of the year.
Stefano Iacono:It is.
Nicole Kelly:So you have a bachelor's in women's studies, which I think is pretty rare for a man. What made you decide to choose that as a major?
Stefano Iacono:Indeed, out of the nine graduates the year I graduated in that college, only two of us were men. First of all, I wanted to do something different. Before I knew I wanted to be a clergy person, I thought I wanted to be a senator.
Stefano Iacono:So it's not hard to see how the singer-songwriter thing was really only sparking a part of my love, and I loved theory and I wanted to understand myself better.
Stefano Iacono:I wanted to understand sexuality. I wanted to understand how it influences the way we interact with the world, and I was convinced, based on what I loved about the Torah, that there was going to be enough in there about relationships and how we position ourselves with the divine, because everything that we have in our culture that's anti-woman, anti-lgbtq, anti-other, a lot of our anti-Black tradition comes from a place of religiosity, and it's not because religion said these are the right things. It is because someone with bigoted ideas realized religion is a powerful tool and I wanted to be someone who could be on the inside, be in religion, work in religion and use the tools of liberation to access religion in a more holistic way. And I thought who better to go in and tell a whole bunch of Jewish people about how exciting Judaism is than somebody who chose it three years ago? But I thought you know what, if I'm not going to feel like I'm doing it wrong because I'm not doing Jewish the way my grandma did, what have I got to lose?
Nicole Kelly:Yeah.
Stefano Iacono:And so I went into this women's sexuality and gender studies program and I said, hey, do you think there's a chance I can do an independent study with a Jewish focus? And I said, what do you mean? And I said, well, I read this really cool stuff in this compendium of legal Jewish ethics called the Mishnah that talks about the diversity of genders in ancient society. And they said, oh, okay, we've never heard anything like that. And they let me run with it. Wow, and it got to be this intensely Jewish, very gender expansive period of study and it helped me understand my own defensiveness, the things that I respond to from society when I hear you know a homophobic slur, instead of now responding in a place that is no, I'm not, that, it's okay. What? Where does that come from? Where does that idea come from? How are they failing to know me? And then, of course, I'm still thinking well, they're idiots.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, I still get very angry about it, but realizing that I wanted to know what made society this way, and so women's studies is a way of bringing anthropology, sociology and psychology together and just saying, well, here's our best estimation of how we got here, that's so interesting.
Nicole Kelly:I'm obsessed with Holocaust history and education, and a lot of the books I've read are about, you know, leading up to why people feel this way. But I guess I've never really thought about other marginalized groups. That's so interesting, so talk me through. When you decided to become a member of the clergy?
Stefano Iacono:Growing up, I thought I wanted to be if not you know some kind of a politician, a youth pastor. You know it was the only model I knew from movies. I didn't know anything else about clergy other than you know, like the priests were a thing. But when I got more involved Jewishly, I realized that, you know, the cantorate, specifically, was going to combine my love of music, my love of pastoral care. You know the moments we get to be with people and celebrate them or mourn with them. So music, pastoral care and lifelong learning.
Stefano Iacono:I wanted to have an excuse to surround myself with books and just get lost in arcane knowledge. That's what I wanted. There's a little bit of it that felt like Harry Potter. I wanted to be pronouncing these blessings and connecting with people and finding meaningful ways to mark our time on earth. I had spent time with people who tried to give me answers and I realized there's so much more joy and power in helping people discover their questions. There's no other way to do that and I didn't want to be a therapist, so this just made sense, but your job does kind of entail a little bit of that.
Stefano Iacono:We refer out when things are above our pay grade. Yeah, you got to be very careful, of course, but it you know, I wanted to feel things with people and experience things with people, because it helps punctuate your own existence. It's an incredible privilege when someone comes into your office and cries about what they're feeling. It's an incredible privilege when you stand with an entire family, with a 13-year-old who talks about their Holocaust survivor grandparent and how reading the Torah is an act of defiance in the modern age, or burying a Holocaust survivor and holding a family that knows that now there's so much more weight on their shoulders to keep the story going.
Stefano Iacono:It must have been at least a hundred years. We must have cried an ocean, an ocean of tears. We wandered through the coldest, darkest night and you were waiting for me there, a spark of light. And you were waiting for me there, a spark of light. And you were waiting for me there, a spark of light. And you were waiting for me there, a spark of light. And you were waiting for me there, a spark of light. And you were waiting for me there, a spark of light. And you were waiting for me there, a spark of light. You were quiet, so tight.
Stefano Iacono:I never felt my heart could fly away. I can't believe I get to be with you every single day. Forever is a long, long, long time. I'm beloved, I am yours and you are mine. You are my love. I am yours and you are mine. I see you and I know this is not how I thought my life would ever go. Now I see you were meant for me and I was meant for you. Yes, I was meant for you. I see you were meant for me and I was meant for you. I see you were meant for me and I was meant for you.
Stefano Iacono:I get to play active and passive roles in so many people's lives and I just wanted to be someone who could sort of help them organize the emotions and the spirituality around them, because I mean, god knows I can't organize anything in my personal life.
Nicole Kelly:It's so much you can control. So walk me through the process of kind of start to finish, of becoming a ordained canter in the reform movement.
Stefano Iacono:So the first step, you get an undergraduate degree of some kind. Then you apply for school Cantors and rabbis in the reform movement go to the same school. It's a five-year program where you get a master's degree and then you write a thesis and then you get ordained the first year. Now for rabbis and cantors, for like the last, I think, like 25, 20 years maybe the first year is in Jerusalem, so that's where you learn Hebrew study text, get deeply into the practice of the calendar and all of that. You learn the liturgy. And then you spend four years in one of the stateside campuses we just Cincinnati's in the process of closings. That was one of the options, but now it's gonna be LA and New York and you spend four more years taking graduate level courses ranging from rabbinic text, bible, classical repertoire, so like chanting the things that you hear the golden age cantors chanting. We have to learn all of that. You know we have to learn how to daven traditional service. There's like a year long workshop that covers just the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and how to chant it. There's a year for Yom Kippur and then you know, you learn how to do things like funerals and weddings. So you get a lot of book learning. There's a lot of very cool theoretical stuff that you do, and then there's a bunch of practice, because you have to somehow cram music school because you didn't have to major in music.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, to go to cantorial school. It just means that you're glutton for punishment if you do what I did. I was just on a panel with prospective students a couple of weeks ago and they're like do I need to major in music? I said no, but are you good at music right now? Because if not, this is going to be a slog Like it is. It's a lot of work. You graduate with close to like 200 hours. You get to learn a little bit of everything, but it sets you up to know what are the things that you're gonna study for the rest of your career, and so it's.
Stefano Iacono:It's formative. You, by the end of the process, you know what your passions are and you know what kind of service job you want. And most cantors today end up in congregational settings, and I knew that's what I wanted. I wanted to work at a large congregation with a big history and an amazing team, and so for me it was. You know, when this job came up and I met this clergy team. I was like, okay, well, I'm in if y'all are it. It's like like sending a little notice as circle. Yes, yes, for you.
Stefano Iacono:It's like I wanted to write them a song and email it to them and then not pick up the phone just in case.
Nicole Kelly:It is a big deal finding you know a lot of people spend their entire careers in one place, so it's it is like finding a life partner, finding the right congregation that you fit in.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, you have to. You have to be able to serve the people what they need and know when to step back and not make it about yourself.
Nicole Kelly:What is the drop rate at school?
Stefano Iacono:That's an excellent question.
Nicole Kelly:Because it is such a involved process, I think a lot of people probably enter it not realizing how much work it is, or I think so a good fit A good.
Stefano Iacono:So it's already a pretty small, selective group of people that choose to go to seminary, like of any kind, and so then when you have the Jewish seminaries, that's even smaller. When you have the reform one, it's an even smaller, smaller group.
Stefano Iacono:So I think in my year, for example, across all campuses we had 45 students okay and that's the cantorial and rabbinical process and the education route and I think at the end of it, I think somewhere between 35 and 38 of us were ordained. There's a little bit of a drop-off. It's mostly people realizing this isn't what I wanted to do because, you know, a half of us entered before we even knew who we were. It just that's how school works yeah you know it's grad school.
Stefano Iacono:And then you know there are, of course, people who don't make it through and I think that is also because it wasn't the right fit. Because you know, if you like, I tell the students rather flippantly if there's nothing else that you can do, that means everything's pointing you toward this. And if all of these things, all of these various paths of the clergy, are what are going to fulfill you, keep refilling your cup and make you someone who can always be giving, then there's nothing else that's gonna be able to do that for you. And you have to. You have to find the way through and the school will work with you. There are people who you know add an extra year, go through it that way. You know it is a really grueling process, but I think it has to be.
Stefano Iacono:You have to be fully formed and able to articulate who you are before you can step in and and help people and celebrate them yeah, even as something as simple as celebrating people, you have to be able to show up and love them, and you have to have sorted out your own issues before that so a few months ago you put on a concert.
Nicole Kelly:So how did that come about and how did you choose the theme and the material?
Stefano Iacono:so one of the requirements for ordination in the Cantorial program is a senior recital, and oh, that's fun and it it would have been, except that mine was scheduled during the pandemic. Oh, that's not fun, yeah. And so I had big plans to do, you know, multi-genre. I wanted a band and and I wanted other people to sing with me and all of a sudden my option became zero. Or recording with just a pianist in one side of a room and me and the other side, and nothing. I wanted to do. None of the repertoire that I had dreamed of worked that way.
Stefano Iacono:I wanted to lift up queer art and art that spoke to queer people, meaning stuff that has, like, become queer, you know cuz, like, for example, barbara strice, hand queer icon, not actually queer, yeah, and yet who would ever question? Of course I know. And I wanted to celebrate the music that informed the people who did all this before me so that I could be this, you know, naive, young, queer person who was gonna go out and become a clergy person and save the world and be there for other little queer kids. You know, but it really was a. Here's the music that got everyone else through, and these are our, these are our fight songs, our pride songs, our very powerful moments, and I wanted to show that you can make it religious music by sharing the intent that was under it.
Stefano Iacono:Everything in the liturgy is supposed to arouse something in us. It is supposed to bring us closer to God or each other or creation, and, and all of this was the same, you know, and any song that I pick off of this list, like goodbye yellow brick road. We're looking at Elton John acknowledging this, this divergence in his life in which he had to choose. Do I continue to do this thing, which isn't necessarily the easy path, because his life was killing him, or am I going to brave the wild and be me? I mean that it's, it's the most apt metaphor for coming out. And so it was. It was stuff like that, you know, come to my window. The first, like super outbridge, is that I don't care what they think. What do they know about this love anyway? Things like that before we were even a blip on anyone's political radar, things that were defiant and important, things that I want our queer kids today to be proud about no chill, and yet I shiver.
Stefano Iacono:There's no flame, and yet I'm not sure what I'm afraid of, and yet I'm trembling. There's no storm, yet I you thunder and I'm breathless. Why, I wonder? Week one moment, then the next, I'm fine. I feel as if I'm falling. Every time I close my eyes and flowing through my body is a river of surprise. Feelings are awakening. I hardly recognize as my. What are all these new sensations? What's the secret? They? I'm not sure I understand, but I like the way I feel. Oh, why is it that every time I close my eyes, he's there, water shining on his skin, the sunlight in his hair, and all the while I'm thinking things that I can't wait to share with me. I'm a bundle of confusion, yet it has a strange appeal. Did it all begin with him? And the way he makes me?
Nicole Kelly:I like how a he makes me how did you end up having the concert?
Stefano Iacono:here. Hmm. So when I couldn't do it through school, I was actually really annoying, I'm sure, to the administration of my school and I said look, that format is not gonna work for what I want to pull off and I'm confident that can pull this off. I just need time, I just need a postponement until I can do this live somewhere.
Stefano Iacono:And so my school is like, okay, fine, we think you're trying to find a way out of this. But they said yes, and so I dove into the thesis and then, when I was here, I brought it up one day and this incredible, incredible clergy team and our amazing operations folks and our communications folks realized this could be something really cool, really big, and so they decided to co-sponsor my senior recital with the school and you know I wanted to celebrate this place too. You know, congregation wrote of Shalom is one of the first congregations in the country to employ out queer people, and I wanted to honor that because it that's why I'm here.
Nicole Kelly:It's the people of this community they kept me in New York how does being a gay man inform your faith and how does being Jewish inform your identity as a gay man?
Stefano Iacono:love the way that's worded. I've never been asked that way, so they are both part of like a composite lens. Being a gay person means being something that people feel like they understand because there is, you know, the same desire to find love, live life, do the do this, but then understanding that everything that's been built in society wasn't built for you, wasn't built on your assumption. Something as simple and innocuous as having to tell a contractor who's going to be in my apartment doing some work that I won't be there but my husband will be, and just anticipating that on the other end of the line this stranger might think feel, say whatever it is that they're going to say that's prompted by this. That is just a fact about who I am.
Stefano Iacono:So you're always a little bit, no, I am always a little bit on edge and doing the most that I can to make sure that I'm not preemptively defensive about anything.
Stefano Iacono:You know I lived in a city so I didn't experience the the grossest homophobia, but I, you know I worked in childcare and I was told, you know, parents would be more comfortable if you don't hug the children here, and you know being told that. You know we can respect that you and Alex, my husband, love each other, want to live together, but it's, you know, it's just not the same as a marriage and like those are. Those are small ish things, but every part of that contributes to your worthiness, and so my, my love of Judaism is this idea that everything that was created, everything that exists now, is an ongoing process that we're involved in, and I love the idea that being Jewish is also being very different. World is also not built for Jews. The world is not built by Jews, and knowing that I was becoming part of a community of people who are already used to living in the margins, yeah, makes the whole. It permeates the literature. It permeates it at the biblical level, because we were just, you know, wanderers.
Stefano Iacono:There weren't Abrahamic faiths yet we are still figuring out how not to just be warring clans of violent people, and then, you know, it permeates the. After the destruction of the temple we get to see how Jewish law comes about by people who were so scared of what could befall them. And then after that we have literature built on folk practices and traditions that developed in hostile host nation nations. I said well how profoundly comfortable that is to me. As someone who knew they were gay in South Texas at eight, I distinctly remember being called slurs by grown men because I represented something that scared them, something that they didn't understand, and that ignorance reminds me of the ignorance that I encounter wearing a kippa, which I chose and choose actively to do it as a name tag. I choose to be very publicly Jewish because it's not a skin I want to be able to take off and getting to see how people will come to you out of ignorance in that way too, all built on their fears, all built on their assumptions. For me they're very similar lenses and experiences and they are what make me fight and push back to make all of this worth it. And when you do, you get to see what you're fighting for and what really matters.
Stefano Iacono:You know I think queer people face. You know, the worst fear of coming out is that you'll lose the people you love and once you're willing to make that decision, you get really good at cutting things out of your life. I was very lucky I got to keep all of the people who really mattered to me, but I don't have second cousins because of this and that is painful. And yet it also made me appreciate more all the people who stayed. And it's the same with anything else in my life since knowing that, yeah, okay, I cut out Christmas and I'm not saying that everyone who converts needs to do that. Please don't if you love it but it made me make sense of all of my Jewish options and really dive in deep and I found great appreciation in so many things that I would never have picked up if I didn't need to what importance do you think there is in having gay clergy to Jewish queer?
Stefano Iacono:youth. I wish I'd had some. I think every time there's a queer person who can stand up and be an adult who's allowed to talk to children, it is showing children that we are okay, that we are safe. Every time I wear a kippa in a gay bar in New York City, everyone in the room with religious trauma finds me because they want to talk to me about how I am possibly both of these things in this space, and it is because religion again has is a tool that can be used by people with horrible beliefs but is not inherently that. And yet the vast majority of us have been at the mercy of someone who's using that tool for that purpose and so, like I help them no, I just listen. I don't actually do anything.
Nicole Kelly:I don't have to do anything. You're still able to just kind of like sip your drink.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah you know I'm, you know, doing my thing. I just wanted to go out on Thursday yeah, I really, I really should know by now, after seven years of doing this in New York, but it it's amazing to then hear people over and over come to the conclusion oh, that was people it wasn't religion.
Stefano Iacono:It wasn't religion or it, and it could have been one. Particular sects professed beliefs, but that is also not religion. Like, you, can always go further back and find what something could have been or should have been, and, honestly, there are so many options out there that, like just saying that because of one organization or another, that you know you can't be queer and religious, is nonsense. What we need to be more comfortable with is if you don't want to be religious, you have found connection elsewhere. Religion is just one way to connect to something beyond yourself, and for too long it has been closed to queer people because we present another option. You know, if you want to live in a world in which we are literally just parallels of biblical people, well, they weren't people doing what they wanted to do, and so it makes sense that you would create a rigid version of a society that only allowed for a man and a woman and children, and this and this and that, and so when I get to, you know, teach a group of fifth graders about the Torah and I get to stand there as a gay man and talk about well, you know, my husband and I we're studying this passage. It shows them that, oh, this actually can apply, like we can glean wisdom in the way that the ancient sages did.
Stefano Iacono:There is nobody in the year 200 in the Middle East whose life resembled ours. If they can get something out of this document, so can we, and we're not obligated to try to come to the same conclusions or even have the same process. And I think having queer clergy, and specifically gay male clergy, is an important way to defy conceptions that anybody has to be any particular way. Like I can use my male privilege in this space to subvert the notions of masculinity and do it in a way that I'm basing it on my understanding of God and the Torah and mostly just encouraging everyone to do it their way. That's what we have to do. That's why it's so hard to be Jewish, is that you have to figure out your way. So, yeah, they should see me struggle, and I hope that encourages them to do the same.
Stefano Iacono:I would dial the numbers just to listen to your breath, and I would stand inside my head and hold the hand of death. You don't know how far I'd go to ease this precious ache, and you don't know how much I'd give or how much I can take just to reach you. Just to reach you, oh to reach you. Come to my window, oh, call inside. Wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window. I'll be home soon, keeping my eyes open. I cannot afford to sleep Forgiving away promises. I know that I can't keep. Nothing fills the blackness that has seeped into my chest. I need you in my blood. I am forsaking all the rest, just to reach you. Just to reach you, oh to reach you. Come to my window, call inside. Wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window, I'll be home soon.
Stefano Iacono:I don't care what they think, I don't care what they say. What do they know about this love? Anyway, come, come, come to my window, I'll be home, I'll be home, I'll be home, I'm coming home. Come to my window, oh, call inside. Wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window, I'll be home, I'll be home, I'll be home, I'll be home, I'm coming home. Come to my window. Oh, call inside. Wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window, I'll be home soon.
Nicole Kelly:So you visited India in 2019, what was that like, and can you tell me about the Jewish community there that you discovered?
Stefano Iacono:I will say first of all, it was the most incredible, just beautiful place. I only went to Mumbai and a city called Kochin in the south, in the state of Kerala. This was with a trip run by JDC and twine, that's the Joint Distribution Committee. They have just for ages protected, established and connected Jewish communities across the world to make sure that we know just how many versions of us there are out there.
Stefano Iacono:Which is very important work. Right, it goes in with what you were talking about earlier, that we can actually expand our own understanding of all of this when we look at the ways that other people are doing the same thing that we're doing. So this was a trip organized by the JDC and it took, I think, 20 American clergy students and put us with 20 Israelis and 20 Indian Jews and we went through Jewish Mumbai. We saw the sites of where they had the attacks. I think it was 7-11 when it happened. For them it was like there it was a terror attack. Some terror cell from Pakistan had come in and wreaked havoc for a while in the city, and so we got to see what that looked like and how it is still rippling out in the community and people are still grappling with this in a place where Jews lived in peace in their host. Nation is the only country in the world that never persecuted its Jewish population.
Nicole Kelly:India, really India.
Stefano Iacono:And so holding those two truths, seeing like standing in the site of this anti-Jewish terror attack and learning about how this is a host nation.
Nicole Kelly:How long ago was that terrorist?
Stefano Iacono:attack. Oh gosh, that's something that I should absolutely know. It was in the last 20 years, last 15 maybe In my head 10 years ago was the 90s yeah, I don't need to tell me Okay, so it was in 2008.
Stefano Iacono:Ah, okay, yeah, yeah, and that just that feels so bizarrely modern, like that's Obama era, yeah, like that's crazy to think about. And so you know, that was one of the settings. And then we went to the south, to this city called Kochin, where they have a street called Jewtown, and it is because it was a big, thriving Jewish community. The Jewish community in India is like 4,800 years old, or something that's a little old.
Stefano Iacono:It's a little old and I don't ever quote me on numbers. I'm not the history or numbers person. The idea is they'd lived in peace, they got to flourish. There were multiple different communities that came up with their own flourishes on Jewish practice, incredibly tight knit, and, you know, they lived side by side with the mostly Hindu community. Which struck me the most about the trip was that we got to tour these old synagogues that aren't used by Jews anymore. There are there are, I think, right now, 4,500 Jews left in India. The community continues to make aliyah to Israel and otherwise they mostly live in Mumbai.
Stefano Iacono:But these synagogues are an absolute pristine condition because they are lovingly and pridefully taken care of by the Hindu folks who live in those communities, and when we would come through, people would be so excited. I work here to clean it and keep it beautiful every day, and all I have wanted was for a Jewish community to come in and pray and I was just. I was like what are you talking about? I've never, I've never encountered that. You want me to come here and pray?
Nicole Kelly:They want the Jews to come. You want Jews.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, that's not usually how people feel about Jews, yeah, and to hear how these other young Jews experienced being Jewish in India and you know it's such a cliche, but finding out how similar we all are, yeah, it was amazing. Gosh, I want to go back. I will never, I will never forget how incredible a Shabbat dinner is in India.
Nicole Kelly:What did you?
Stefano Iacono:eat, oh my gosh, I mean the best versions of all of your favorite food at your favorite Indian restaurant. Oh my gosh.
Nicole Kelly:I'm clearly writing down a trip to India to visit the Indian Jews.
Stefano Iacono:Yes, yes, oh, that's so cool I mean, that's even I already think it's so cool when you have a cuisine that decides to go kosher, because that's so fascinating to me. And if you're not Jewish and you own the business, you can actually be open on Shabbat and still be kosher, which is just even more incredible, because who doesn't want more kosher food available on Saturdays? But to have it be people who, whose whose stories start in India and are bringing it here. It's just it's. It's incredible to see how expansive and just beautiful Judaism is wherever it finds a home. And all the music was so similar that that's what's funny. Today they, they sing a lot of the music that we do. I couldn't really figure out why, and I would ask questions. I was like, you know, was this my assumption? Coming from the West and being a white person was okay. This must be considered more legitimate and you have either subconsciously taken this on or it's been forced on you, um, and I don't think that's the case.
:It sounds like when folks there travel they pick stuff up and they like yes.
Stefano Iacono:And so they're only doing things they love and I'm just like, okay, that's that's the best. Um, but that's something I would love to study and be more involved in the community and learn about. My only Shabbat experiences there were with the traditional community who didn't use instruments. Okay, and so it was. Um, that was exactly what I was looking for and was very curious about. I wanted to see how the particularities of Indian music, you know, for example, using something like a shruti box that's going to get that beautiful drone sound going throughout a whole piece and you can hear how you move tonally through a piece, even with this one note being like this incredible acoustic hum you feel through your body. But they don't use that. Yeah, On Shabbat they were, they were observant and didn't. For those of you that you think, are more observant and didn't.
Nicole Kelly:For those of you that don't know, you're not, technically I don't even. This is a weird way to say you're not supposed to use musical instruments on Shabbat. However, I love services with music, so I'm a little biased in regards to the observancy of that.
Stefano Iacono:Well, it comes from a prohibition of changing a string. You're not allowed to do the repairing act that would have been like part of creation. So, like you can't play a liar or a guitar today, because if you broke a string you might be inclined to change.
Nicole Kelly:I thought it specifically had to do with the act of playing the instruments, not the pairing. That's very interesting. It's presented that way.
Stefano Iacono:And yet, if we look at the Psalms, we played all the instruments in the temple, like worship required choruses and instruments, and all of this it became when we started, like after the destruction of the temple. We wanted to make sure we were never transgressing any of the commitments, and so we built fences around them. So it's not that climbing a tree is forbidden on Shabbat, it's that breaking a twig is forbidden, and so to avoid breaking a twig, you cannot climb a tree. This is the same way. So to make sure that you're not repairing something, you can't play the instrument, because if you puncture the drum, you might want to go tan some hide and refashion your drum.
Nicole Kelly:You might it's which clearly we would be doing in 2023.
Stefano Iacono:I'm like what makes you think I wouldn't have a whole arsenal of instruments? I was like, oh, okay, we broke a string. All right, picking up the-. Here's another guitar, here we go. It's like the.
Nicole Kelly:Olympic skiers take like 30 pairs of skis.
Stefano Iacono:Exactly.
Nicole Kelly:It's like I have 15 guitars just waiting on the Bima for me.
Stefano Iacono:I mean, there are two guitars just in this room and I don't lead services in here, so we would be well covered.
Nicole Kelly:I learned something new every time I talked to somebody. I love that. I because I thought it was literally just the playing of the music.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, and I mean there might be another interpretation too, but the like the prohibition comes from the. What would you do because of this? And so if you eliminate that, and now that that is such an ingrained thing culturally, you'd have a whole bunch of people who'd be extremely turned off by music on Shabbat, and so it would be like earth shattering. You know, when we in seminary the year in Israel, the Cantorial and rabbinical students lead a service in Jerusalem and for a long time it was the only high holiday service in the country where you would have someone playing piano and we had instruments, and so people would come as guests for the novelty, people who had never in their lives been to synagogue, and then also very traditional people would come because they'd be like what do you mean? What do you mean?
Stefano Iacono:There it's Yom Kippur, you can lie on the street. What do you mean? Someone over here is playing piano, Like this doesn't make sense with our cultural understanding of what this day means. And so, like I totally, totally understand that, but I personally and this is going to sound mean I'm so bored when there is no musical instruments.
Nicole Kelly:I remember because I grew up in a conservative synagogue people with pitch pipes and I was like I was the first to suppose for that, and I was also in the children's choir and I was like this is weird. Yeah, I like music.
Stefano Iacono:You have to be like virtuosic to be singers who don't need music.
Nicole Kelly:It's also harder to sing.
Stefano Iacono:It's much harder.
Nicole Kelly:You know, and I feel like you know, these people have like perfect pitch that they were just always magnificent singers with no music.
Stefano Iacono:No.
Nicole Kelly:No no.
Stefano Iacono:The short answer is no, and that's why there's like the congregational slide things just change pitch slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. But also, if no one's recording, no, it's true.
Nicole Kelly:It's always like when. It's like when a group of people sing happy birthday. It's like pick a note, pick a key, pick a key, and then people will just change.
Stefano Iacono:Yep, and I'm always like naively hoping that everyone's just going to coalesce around one of the keys.
Nicole Kelly:Don't want another note I do like when people in the congregation naturally harmonize with each other which I really like.
Stefano Iacono:That is a treat.
Nicole Kelly:There's a couple of prayers where that just automatically happens and I love those moments. But yeah, I really enjoy the musical aspect.
Stefano Iacono:Oh yeah.
Nicole Kelly:Did your husband move with you to Jerusalem?
Stefano Iacono:Yep, he took that plunge and he got a job at the library of the seminary before I was officially accepted.
Stefano Iacono:Oh.
Stefano Iacono:Now, because he knew that. You know we've been still needing to be paying for food, yeah. So yeah, I mean he was a and is still just big time go getter who made all that possible.
Nicole Kelly:I love that you had that support. I feel like, especially if you hadn't spent time out of the country, that could be a very it's a very different lifestyle and because you're in the middle of all of that, it would be a little, it could be a little isolating, especially because it's the first year and you don't necessarily know anybody going there.
Stefano Iacono:And it was such a sinkerswim moment for me because, like my first attempt at college before the singer-songwriter era, was such a objective failure that I was, you know, just terrified of putting all of my eggs in one basket and then go into the Middle East Speaking a language that I'd only learned for a year and doing that and he sacrificed a lot to come with me. He put his own stuff on hold to work in a library to help pay for groceries while I was studying in Jerusalem. And then he did the same thing. You got a job in New York before I even started school so that we could pay rent and do our thing. It wouldn't be here without him.
Nicole Kelly:It's so great to have such a supportive partner, especially when it's especially when it's something you know. It's not like you were going through medical school or law school where there was necessarily going to be a big payoff.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, yeah, like security, for sure, clearly infamously overpaid, obviously.
Nicole Kelly:So there is a conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, which I will not name names, where someone left a huge endowment I don't know if he's still the head rabbi, but the head rabbi made a million dollars a year. Wow, which like is insane. It's insane.
Stefano Iacono:It's like the part of me that, like screams for ethics, is just like oh no, how could you?
Nicole Kelly:And then the jealous part of me is just like girl. Making a million dollars a year as a rabbi is. I feel like it's almost like the anti-clergy salary, like not that, like you know your Catholic priest, where you're supposed to live in poverty, but it's like you shouldn't be making a million dollars a year. Though to that congregation. Maybe they are worth a million dollars a year. You?
Stefano Iacono:know I like to think that I'm worth a billion, but part of that knowledge is knowing that I would never ask for anything close. It's true.
Nicole Kelly:Is there anything else you want to talk about or say, or any messages you have for anybody who might be listening?
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, you know I use this corny metaphor all the time about Judaism being a buffet, and what's so important about conversations like this is just that it's one more voice out there that's saying you're an active participant in your own religious life and there's no one way to do anything ever in any tradition. And the scariest part is deciding that you are going to try something. And so if I could give one message to anybody listening, it's try it, do something. Do one thing, ask somebody you know, go to a place.
Nicole Kelly:It's interesting that you say that because I feel like even things that are very traditional in how I grew up, like, for example, shabbat, sometimes it can feel like imposter syndrome a little bit you know like lighting the candles you're like, but I'm not like super observant. What do I have to do this?
Stefano Iacono:So I feel like it's a very valid point For sure, and you know the hard work after you do it is figuring out what in the world it means. But that can come later. You can figure out what it means and why you're doing it along the way. Just try the thing and if it doesn't fit we've got more to try on for you.
Nicole Kelly:So this last portion of the show I kind of equate it to the actor studio. I even stole some of their questions. It's just kind of like short form questions that I ask all of my guests so what is your favorite Yiddish word? You can throw in Hebrew word too, because I know you probably know a lot of those.
Stefano Iacono:Recently I've really loved the word spilkes. Rabbi Deborah Goldberg taught me that term when we were talking about our two year olds to kindergarten age kids she's like, okay, do we need to stand up and get the spilkes?
Nicole Kelly:out, Spilkes out yeah.
Stefano Iacono:And now that is like very much just how I feel at the end of my work day. Yeah, I'm always saying that word in my head.
Nicole Kelly:Yeah, what about a Hebrew word that you your?
Stefano Iacono:favorite Hebrew word. Oh, a favorite Hebrew word. Oh wow, I don't want to sound basic.
Nicole Kelly:Sometimes things are basic for a reason.
Stefano Iacono:You know, the first thing that comes to mind is like Keef Kef, the brand of, like Israeli Kit Kat, that's so fun.
Nicole Kelly:It's called Keef Kef.
Stefano Iacono:Yeah, I love that so much, I'm fun.
Nicole Kelly:I love that. What is your favorite Jewish holiday?
Stefano Iacono:Oh, sukot, for sure. Anytime you can like, build a fort and sleep in it and eat beautiful foods and decorate it Like that's my jam right there.
Nicole Kelly:If you were to have a bar mitzvah today, what would the theme of your party be?
Stefano Iacono:You know, I think it would have to be Lady Gaga, like I'm thinking like up until art pop.
Nicole Kelly:That's very specific.
Stefano Iacono:Like fame monster Cause, like I want to go back to, like my high school days, and that would definitely be my theme. I want to come out and like just a bunch of sparkly beadwork. Um, boosty a moment.
Nicole Kelly:That's definitely a party I would want to go to. Please invite me to this bar mitzvah.
Stefano Iacono:Well, god willing, coming soon to congregation road of Shalom, the cantor's bar mitzvah, we'll see.
Nicole Kelly:Really, there's some talk, that's so that, okay, we can splice this in. So we never actually talked about this. So did you have like a actual bar mitzvah after you converted?
Stefano Iacono:No, no. After I converted, the next thing that was slated for my congregation was adult confirmation. Okay, so I did that instead and it was amazing, um, but I have promised all of my students and there I've had like 90 benign mitzvah at this point and I've promised them that I will do one as well on that very uh, intimidating Bima, and I might even wear heels in honor of all of our amazing bonot mitzvah who can carry the Torah that way.
Nicole Kelly:So we'll see, that's the legitimate thing, and I was reading something on Instagram about the myth of the congregation having to fast for 40 days as a Torah gets dropped. Yeah, that's not a real thing, but I've heard that some congregations they will split up the fast, so it ends up being that people don't fast individually for 40 days, but it's 40 days collectively, which it's very terrifying. Every time I would have to hold the Torah, it's really terrifying.
Nicole Kelly:So I was happy to know that that's not like a real thing where I would cause people to starve to death if I dropped it.
Stefano Iacono:It makes me double. It makes me rethink my off color joke at rehearsals when I tell the kid like okay, uh, no, don't drop the Torah, but don't worry, if you do, I'm not fasting, I'm going to make all of your guests, so that's so funny.
Nicole Kelly:Well, if, if, when you do have your bar mitzvah, I will be there for the service and I will throw candy at you if you're, though there's some people who don't like that, the candy throwing thing. So, going back to our questions, what profession other than your own would you want to attempt?
Stefano Iacono:Uh, for a long time I thought I wanted to be a senator. Oh really, and I'm still. You know, I love politics, I'm a news junkie and I would still love to like give some sort of public service um thing like that a shot. But I don't know. I think I found something where I get to more talk about the joy and fix society in spiritual ways. Um, but yeah, that always. That always appealed to me. I love the idea of working on legislation and affecting change, but the demands were a little bit different and I don't really want to be a lawyer.
Nicole Kelly:No, no, no it's. I can't imagine being a politician. It's just constant Everything. Oh yeah. All right. So our last one is if heaven is real and God is there to welcome you, what would you like to hear them say?
Stefano Iacono:Oh, what a fun question. Um, my hope is that, just like some of my favorite songs from my childhood start playing, um, and God just says, hey, there's a great taco bar in the back, uh, and here is a terrific dirty martini, uh, and we go from there and it's just moment, my moment.
Nicole Kelly:I think yours is probably the most my favorite answer, that we've gotten to that so far, because I do honestly like the true music from your childhood, like I love the idea of being like welcomed with this therapeutic, emotional music that you feel calm and the two doesn't love a taco bar.
Stefano Iacono:I know I mean. The crazy thing is the album would be jagged little pills, so I'm not sure how calming that is.
Nicole Kelly:Not. I mean not therapeutic nostalgic more than therapeutic 90s apathetic, you know, rock. Thank you so much for joining me. This has been Nicole with Shebrew in the City.
Stefano Iacono:I think it's time we found a way back home.
Stefano Iacono:You lose so many things you love as you grow. I miss the days when I was just a kid. My fear became my shadow. I swear it did. Wherever is your heart? I call home. Wherever is your heart, I call home. Though your feet may take you far from me, I know Wherever is your heart. I call home. You made me feel like I was always falling Down without a place to land, somewhere in the distance. I heard you calling. We heard so bad, so let go of your hand. Wherever is your heart? I call home. Wherever is your heart, I call home. Though your feet may take you far from me, I know Wherever is your heart. I call home. Woo, even when your high can get low, even when your friends you love is still alone, we always find the darkest place to go.
Stefano Iacono:God, forgive our minds. We were born to roam. One, two, three. Wherever is your heart? I call home. Wherever is your heart, I call home. Though your feet may take you far from me, I know Wherever is your heart. I call home. Oh God, forgive my mind. Oh God, forgive my mind when I come home. When I come home, oh God, forgive my mind. There's a road that's long and winding and hollers home, I'm calling home. Oh God, forgive my mind. Oh God, forgive my mind when I come home. When I come home, oh God, forgive my mind. Oh God, forgive my mind when I come home, to road of Charlotte. Wherever is your heart, I call home. Wherever is your heart, I call home. Though your feet may take you far from me, I know Wherever is your heart. I call home. Wherever is your heart, I call home. Wherever is your heart, I call home. Though your feet may take you far from me, I know Wherever is your heart, I call home. Thank you.
