Award-winning songwriter, producer, and visionary Jules Bartholomew (professionally known as Jules Juda) celebrated his 50th birthday with an intimate black tie gala at Dramma Nightclub in New York City on Monday, November 10th. The gala also helped launch Judas’s Sunday Dinner: Rehearsal Dinner Initiative.
Juda, who is the Founder of GRIP Entertainment and wrote several notable gospel songs, such as Hezekiah Walker’s “Faithful is our God”, created the Sunday Dinner: Rehearsal Initiative to help mentor youth who are aspiring for a career in the music industry. Speaking with The Knockturnal, Juda said:
Basically, all of the students that have gifting, we’re going to teach you how to take the gifting and actually make a living from it, and actually be able to be translated to everyone in the workforce. A lot of times you find a violinist that just knows how to play the violin, but you got to learn how to put yourself in position to play on a movie score. You have to know the right people. You have to be able to function in a capacity by ear. So that’s what this is. It’s about applying those skills so that it could actually make sense.
The gala featured a dinner which included a menu of Apple Pomegranate salad, Peruvian Chicken, Seared Salmon, Vegan Rigatoni Primavera, Dark Chocolate Cake, NY Cheesecake, and Jules Juda Spritzer mocktail. During the dinner, a number of guests spoke a few words to honor Juda, in which he himself delivered a speech and brought a special guest up to receive her flowers.
The evening concluded with a musical performance that included renowned gospel singer Timiney Figueroa-Caton, and Juda mentioned that the Sunday Dinner: Rehearsal Dinner Initiative should be officially launching at the top of 2026.