Patrick Aleph

{{Infobox musical artist

| honorific_prefix =

| name = Patrick Aleph

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| birth_name = Patrick Beaulier

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| genre = Punk rock, garage rock

| occupation = Singer, songwriter, writer, rabbi

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| years_active = 2006–present

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| past_member_of = The Love Drunks, Can Can, Ice Bats

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| website = {{URL|rabbipatrick.com}}

}}

Patrick Beaulier, known formerly by his professional name as Patrick Aleph, is an American writer, blogger, podcaster, non-denominational rabbi and spiritual leader, educator, and retired punk musician. He has been the lead vocalist for the bands The Love Drunks, Can Can, and Ice Bats. He is also the co-founder and creative director of PunkTorah, a non-profit website and Jewish outreach organization, and its subsidiaries OneShul.org and Darshan Yeshiva, an online synagogue and yeshiva, respectively. He has written for Jewcy, The Atlanta Jewish Times, and The Times of Israel, and hosts the semi-weekly Rabbi Patrick Podcast.

Early life

Beaulier grew up in Atlanta. His parents came from a Christian background but raised him without religion.{{cite book|author1=Michael Croland|title=Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk|date=Apr 30, 2016|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=129|isbn=9781440832208|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0cHWCwAAQBAJ&q=michael+croland+%2B+patrick+aleph&pg=PA129|accessdate=26 May 2017}} Despite this, he became interested in faith on his own and converted to Judaism through the Reconstructionist movement in his early 20s.{{cite web|author1=Renee Ghert-Zand|title=To convert to Judaism, click here|url=http://www.timesofisrael.com/to-convert-to-judaism-click-here/|publisher=The Times of Israel|date=Dec 13, 2013}} He later said that his "decision to become a Jew was about ethical monotheism. God demands of us a righteous life."

Music career

One of Beaulier's first bands was The Love Drunks, which released their self-titled debut album through Alive Records in 2006.

In 2007, Beaulier formed the punk band Can Can with guitarist Mary Collins and drummer Josh Lamar, whom he met through the local music scene. As the band's songwriter, Beaulier incorporated subtle lyrical references to his Jewish faith. The band released two albums, All Hell (2009) and their JDub Records debut Monsters & Healers (2010), before going on hiatus in 2011. Can Can was featured in the film 1/20.{{Cite web|title=Patrick Aleph|url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3955085/|access-date=2021-05-05|website=IMDb}}

During the hiatus, Beaulier and Collins formed a no wave side project called Ice Bats.

PunkTorah and rabbinical work

In April 2009, after an unpleasant experience at a synagogue in Atlanta, Beaulier began recording his own divrei Torah on the weekly parsha and posting them on YouTube under the name PunkTorah, referring to his background as a punk singer.{{cite web|author1=Jessie Miller|title=Q & A: Patrick Aleph|url=http://atlantajewishtimes.com/2012/08/q-a-patrick-aleph/|publisher=The Atlanta Jewish Times|date=Aug 13, 2012|access-date=February 28, 2016|archive-date=February 6, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170206022341/http://atlantajewishtimes.com/2012/08/q-a-patrick-aleph/|url-status=dead}} Following the popularity of the videos, he co-founded PunkTorah with Michael Sabani as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, under which he created [http://www.punktorah.org PunkTorah.org], a combination blog, multimedia network, and online community aimed at disaffected Jews. Beaulier was also featured in a parshah video by Bimbam (formerly G-dcast.com)

Beaulier and Sabani started a fundraising campaign in August 2010 to create [http://www.oneshul.org OneShul.org], an expansion of the online distance minyanim they had been hosting via PunkTorah.{{cite web|author1=Sue Fishkoff|title=New sites make shul and online-only experience|url=http://www.jta.org/2010/08/20/life-religion/new-sites-make-shul-an-online-only-experience|publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|date=Aug 20, 2010}} That same year, they founded another PunkTorah subsidiary, NewKosher, through which they published Birkat Hamazon, a bentcher incorporating recipes, essays, and poetry from Jewish writers like Matthue Roth, Leon Adato, and Michael Croland.{{cite web|author1=Itta Werdiger-Roth|title=The Vegetarian Bentsher From the South|url=http://forward.com/food/134184/the-vegetarian-bentsher-from-the-south/?attribution=tag-article-listing-1-headline|publisher=The Forward|date=Dec 23, 2010}}

Beaulier is the founder and rosh yeshiva of [http://www.darshanyeshiva.org Darshan Yeshiva], a virtual school training students for Jewish spiritual leadership. The yeshiva currently includes an online Jewish conversion course.

After serving a Jewish congregation based in Midlothian, Virginia,{{Cite web|last=REMMERS|first=VANESSA|title=Chesterfield's tattooed rabbi was a punk rocker first|url=https://richmond.com/discover-richmond/chesterfields-tattooed-rabbi-was-a-punk-rocker-first/article_d067b4eb-ace5-5209-a8e2-67bb0305cd34.html|access-date=2021-05-05|website=Richmond Times-Dispatch|date=18 June 2017 |language=en}} Beaulier founded Kehillah, a Jewish congregation in Richmond, Virginia which hosts events throughout the area's city and suburbs.{{Cite web|title=Jewish community in RVA|url=https://kehillahrva.org/our-leadership/|access-date=2021-05-05|website=kehillahrva.org}}{{Cite web|last=Times-Dispatch|first=ABBY CHURCH Richmond|title=WATCH NOW: Bringing a 'flashpoint of light' during the pandemic, Kehillah makes Rosh Hashana services easy|url=https://richmond.com/news/local/watch-now-bringing-a-flashpoint-of-light-during-the-pandemic-kehillah-makes-rosh-hashana-services/article_618187b5-657b-535f-9a95-5228e003b088.html|access-date=2021-05-05|website=Richmond Times-Dispatch|date=18 September 2020 |language=en}}

In January 2019, Beaulier became the director of innovation for Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary, an online rabbinical school. The school includes Conservative and Reform rabbis educating and ordaining post-denominational rabbinical students.{{Cite web|url=https://jewishpluralism.org/leadership/|title=Educational and Administrative Team|website=jewishpluralism.org|access-date=2019-02-14}}