If you're like me, you blew your bat mitzvah money about ten years ago. Lucky for us, Michael Dorf wasn't so dumb. Dorf stashed away his bar mitzvah dough and later used it to open the Knitting Factory music club, helping pioneer Jewish music into the 21st century.

But while Dorf has always been a good businessman, Jewish music wasn't always his bag. Now 37, Dorf first started in the music biz 13 years ago when his longtime friends asked him to manage their rock band, Swamp Thing. Dorf, who was then a first-year law student, traveled to New York to help break the band—and to move in with his girlfriend in Queens.

Facing the pressures of Swamp Thing's dwindling cash flow, Dorf opened a gallery and performance space in a dilapidated building, dipping into his bar mitzvah savings to help pay the bills. At the time, Dorf says, the New York music scene "was desperate for a new venue ... The improvisers, the free jazz players, the new generation of funk/groove-influenced players, the world-beat-influenced, and any other instrumental artists who weren't playing swing or fusion or weren't famous enough to fill a club needed an alternative space."

Dorf admits to having little knowledge of alternative music genres back then, but thanks to his business savvy and eye for talent, the Knitting Factory is now world-famous, best known for experimental jazz. The Knit, as true hipsters call it, has become a haven for artists on the fringe, both Jewish and non-Jewish alike. Musicians from the Jazz Passengers to John Zorn—representing genres from ambient to zydeco and back again—have all found a home at the club and on its various record labels: Knitting Factory Records, Shimmy Disc, and the recently created Jewish Alternative Movement (JAM).

The audience is as diverse as the musicians are talented. On any given night at the Knitting Factory, you are as likely to encounter aging hippies as you are techno geeks; as likely to be grooving with middle-class suburban couples as you are hardcore punks or downtown scenesters. In one room, you may find a poetry slam, while upstairs psychedelic avant-gardists Red Krayola will be warming-up for their next set. The vibe is unpretentious, fun, and hip.

But perhaps the most remarkable facet of the Knitting Factory is the sense one gets of a "Jewish underground." Although the Knit has long hosted New York's top experimental Jewish artists, Dorf hopes to push the envelope of the Jewish music scene through his new JAM label. Even for Dorf, the new label is Jewishly diverse. Recent releases on JAM include, With Every Breath, the Shabbat music at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, and a collection from the Middle Eastern inflected group, Zohar, which offers a unique blend of Sephardic liturgical music and postmodern jazz, complete with the samplings of one DJ Olive. Zohar, like many of their JAM labelmates, manage to be expressly modern while remaining unequivocally Jewish.

"When it comes to the JAM label, we're trying to bolster our company's vision to support the alternative side of the spectrum," Dorf explains in a recent telephone interview. "In that sense, we can look at the alternative side of Jewish culture and try to bring to the surface some of the stuff that people might be doing in their bedrooms by themselves."

Listening to JAM's recently released Knitting on the Roof may provide a good enough reason for many to stay in their bedrooms. A frenetic and often hilarious update of Fiddler on the Roof, the compilation demonstrates the eclecticism that has come to define the Knitting Factory. Arguably JAM's most accessible release to date, Knitting on the Roof features an all-star cast of indie rockers, experimental jazz artists, and klezmer revivalists. The opening track features the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars—whom I'm told are neither Jewish nor from New Orleans. Reinterpreting the famous paean to ritual Judaism, "Tradition," the Allstars groove funkily and freely, climaxing with the lyrics, "At three, I started Hebrew school, at 10, I smoked some weed. I hear they picked a bride for me, I hope she puts out."

It's hard to pick a single highlight from this remarkably cohesive, highly entertaining album. "To Life," performed by Naftule's Dream, is an energetic, free-form, wordless wallop of clarinet, accordion, brass, and drums. Jill Sobule's acoustic "Sunrise, Sunset" is appropriately touching, while The Resident's version of "Matchmaker"—performed in a nursery-rhyme style over a psychotic circus arrangement—reminds you why you were afraid of clowns when you were a kid. Perhaps most memorable performance is from Negativland—not exactly a group known for their Jewish music—whose deconstruction of "Tevye's Dream" into a stream-of-consciousness hodgepodge will leave an eerie rendering of "mazel tov" ringing in your ears for days.

When, in this rags-to-riches, college-rock to avant-garde tale, did Dorf's interest in Jewish music peak' Dorf says that he came to Jewish music because he had had a traditional Jewish upbringing and it was a natural part of his identity. He was first introduced to Jewish music at summer camp, where singing and dancing were an integral part of the experience, and where he met the friends who would later form Swamp Thing. Dorf admits to distancing himself from Judaism while in college and the early years of the Knitting Factory. But "it struck a chord," he says, acknowledging the bad pun, when many of the musicians on the downtown scene began exploring their Jewish identities. Recognizing the sense of community among Jewish artists, Dorf began masterminding Jewish-themed festivals and tours. The Jewish Alternative Movement was born.

JAM's impressively diversified line-up of artists, both Jewish and not, begs the question of how Dorf himself defines Jewish music. While Dorf is first to admit the elusiveness of easy answers, he believes that Jewish music runs the gamut from the obvious, klezmer, to improvised jazz, to traditional prayers. But he includes in his definition Jewish artists who don't play expressly Jewish music. Dorf, for example, considers the music of Marc Ribot's group, Los Cubanos Postizos, to be Jewish. Although Los Cubanos play avant-garde Cuban music, Dorf cites Ribot's trademark "Jewish signature." "His approach to the music is coming from someone who is Jewish culturally," Dorf says. Ribot, according to Dorf, "thinks about being Jewish culturally, and cannot actually divorce himself from his signature guitar sound when he plays Cuban music." Many musicians' roots, Dorf explains, are Jewish, and therefore the music they create may sometimes have a Jewish theme.

"But there must be a threshold," I shoot back, secretly fearing that we could rightly qualify the music of Paula Abdul—who's rumored to be a Jew—as Jewish. Would "Blowing in the Wind" one day evolve from a campfire medley to a Jewish classic? Dorf boils Jewish music down to inspiration and influence. Beck, for example, is an artist with Jewish roots but not a Jewish musician. When Dorf first met him, he had just come from Passover at a relative's house before performing his first New York gig at the Knitting Factory. "He was kibbitzing about the seder," says Dorf, "but you don't see him bringing that into his music. Maybe he hasn't identified it in himself, but there is an opportunity."

And while some Jews never play Jewish music, non-Jews sometimes do. "You do not have to be a Jew in order to play Jewish music," Dorf states unequivocally, adding, "I would love to be on record saying this." Dorf credits Don Byron—a dreadlocked, African-American clarinet virtuoso—as a key player in the klezmer revival of recent decades. "First people were shocked," Dorf says, "then curious, then eventually charmed by his making music that most had forgotten about."

But with such a smorgasbord of artists and distinct sounds, Jews and non-Jews, can the Jewish Alternative Movement really be classified as a movement at all? While Dorf admits that the "M" in JAM could readily stand for "Music," he opted for "Movement" because he hopes that the label will serve as a catalyst for people to identify themselves as Jews.

Not everyone is convinced. In The Forward, writer Michael Berk questions whether JAM "is broad enough to admit all varieties of musical experience ... or whether its failure to decide in favor of one approach simply marks it as an unfocused concept, lacking the philosophical direction that would give a movement a life of its own."

Dorf's response is seemingly that creative marketing strategies—and not necessarily philosophical direction—are the key to JAM's approach. "I don't think we're trying to start a movement," Dorf admits. "We're simply being a facilitator for the artist reaching the consumer."

As a facilitator, JAM frequently takes on the tricky task of transforming experimental music into Jewish music. Releases are slick, from clever titles (JAM's first string of releases featured a compilation appropriately called A Guide for the Perplexed), to the Jewish art on the covers, to the Star of David forming the "A" in JAM. Perhaps it makes Judaism feel a bit commercial, but Dorf is unapologetic in his insistence that it has always been the Knitting Factory's goal "to create a stage for the artist to perform and to create an environment for the customer, the consumer, to come and connect with the artist."

Still, the commercialization of Jewish identity leaves a bad taste in the some mouths. Douglas Wolk, writing in the Village Voice, suggests that "it's kind of sad and weird to see Judaism sold as if it were the equivalent of lounge culture, a little exotic, a little antique." But to Dorf, there's nothing wrong with getting folks to come check out the music. And his tactics work well. This year, the Knitting Factory has launched a live performance Web site (www.knitactive.com) and is set to open additional club locations in Los Angeles and Berlin.

"I'm surprised at how much Jewish music there is in L.A.," Dorf says. "It's not just a New York phenomenon." At the L.A. location, plans are in the works to host a weekly event called—what else'—"House of Jews," a play on the national club, House of Blues. "Wherever there are Jews, there are people who like the music," he says.

By and large, for Dorf, and the various artists involved with JAM, Judaism is a culture to loosely interpret, and not simply a religion with laws and rituals. Hasidic New Wave, for example, a JAM group that was recently busted for smoking a joint in front of the Knit, uses Hasidic melodies as the starting point for musical exploration. HNW's latest album, Kabalogy, is captivating and exuberant, from the relatively traditional free-jazz take on "Bucek Cocek," to the rambunctious, oops-I-put-the-record-on-the-wrong-speed "Frank Zappa Memorial Bris." But although they tackle traditional Jewish tunes with extraordinary ability and innovative panache, the most memorable track is "Giuliani Uber Alles," a take on the Dead Kennedy's anthem "California Uber Alles." It's undoubtedly fun, but smoke a joint along with Hasidic New Wave—or many of the other JAM artists, for that matter—and at times it's too easy to forget you're listening to Jewish music.

Then again, whether you define being Jewish as a culture or a religion, the two are closely bound together. At the Knitting Factory's "Cyber-Seder," where musicians feature their interpretations of traditional Passover songs, the religious holiday serves as fodder for a more cultural, improvisational expression. The last "Seder" was performed for a sold-out audience at Lincoln Center, while thousands more participated via their modems—perhaps indicating that Dorf has succeeded where so many others have failed—transforming an ancient tradition into something cutting-edge and hip.

"The record is a great connecting tool to have," Dorf says, "but creating a festival allows for people to get better marketing opportunities for the music ... and allows for audience growth. When we start looking at Jewish festivals and themes, it's easy, because there are a lot of Jewish holidays. Chag—it also means festival. Hanukkah's easy, let's do a festival of lights."

This year marks the Knitting Factory's bar mitzvah, so to speak, when traditionally a child commits officially to Judaism as an adult. And Dorf, too, is ready to subscribe. "We're in it for the long haul," says Dorf, of the JAM label and the Movement as a whole. But what if new Jewish music simply, for lack of a better description, passes over? "The Jewish thing, or phenomenon, has lasted over 5,000 years. We're just a little speck of that," he says. "But as far as fads go in pop America, 10 years is more than a fad; it becomes a real trend. I am optimistic that this will continue to grow."

Lisa Keys is the Associate Editor of New Voices.