For all you people with ADD: The first half of this post is serious, second half is hilarious.
So the Charedim in Israel have done it again, for those of you who have been wondering when the next crazy ban or chumra was going to happen, it happened last week. The Rabbis have decided to come one step closer to banning music all together. There are several good posts on the topic Wolfish Musings has one such post and he breaks it down for us. Basically the Rabbis in Israel said that African music is assur and anything with more then 2-4 beats is bad. According to one of the Rabbis they don’t want Michael Jackson in their communities.
I must say that I still have no idea what Jewish music is. In fact is anything truly Jewish, I mean music is the essence of taking from many sources and creating something else out of it. Even Jazz and Hip Hop- the two American art forms are taken from other sources. It happens to be that I don’t really care what these Haredim in Israel do- after all- I do not associate with them, besides for taking their pictures while waling around Mea Shearim, and maybe watching a shabbos riot here and there, but does it really matter what they do?
To many it does, to many it signals a push of full dictatorial control over ultra orthodoxy. In fact it causes big rifts in Judaism- which according to me are there already- but for good reason. They have their derech, you have yours and I have mine. The beauty of Judaism is that everyone does their own thing. BUT, the problem lies within the business power of a hashgacha. First of all music hechsherim will be the newest addition to the Charedi Chumra Economy which includes bug washing paraphernalia, kosher clothing and kosher digital devices such as cell phones which cannot send or receive text messages- unless you pay exorbitant fees- which leads me to wonder. Can one have kosher internet but bypass filters if they pay fees. Hey you want to look at porn and keep it kosher? Well pay us a little fee- it sounds like the mob to me.
Will weddings resemble a Kumzitz instead of an upbeat affair?
It seems that they consider Jewish music to be old chassidic nigunim, and anything that you aren’t able to actually dance to. Now what the heck are weddings going to look like. What? They expect weddings to look like an NCSY kumziztz, and what about the Yidden dance? Otherwise known as the electric slide of the frummies- the Modrechai Ben David song was taken from a 70s German disco song. Hey what about the tune for meshenichnas adar- it comes from a slave driving song.
Maybe the Jewish music industry will become like video games became. This CD is rated triangle-K or this CD is not glatt or cholov yisroel and not recommended for anyone who is from a yeshivish or chassidish environment.
I tried to do some interviews but you know how people are. I did get to speak to YLove and all he had to say was that “we cannot recreate Poland” and I sure as hell hope not- because they didn’t have indoor plumbing and I just hate to use the outhouse when it’s snowing outside. He said he would write about it on his blog this is Babylon later.
I tried to get the guy from Sameach Music ( the largest online distributor of Jewish music) to talk to me- but he didn’t come through. All I really wanted to know was if the Marvelous Midos Machine (my favorite Jewish album of all time) would be considered kosher according to the new Jewish music hechsher laws. I think they were banned long ago – because the internet is assur anyway, kala vachomer any music sold over the internet would be assur as well.
Other posts around the blogsphere:
Check out Ricky Ricardos post on the topic, no its not Desi Arnez’s blog you idiot.
One of my daily reads DovBear has this thought provoking post.
Harry Myles who gets the most comments of any Jblogger I know besides Dov Bear has post as well.
Check out my old post entitled Chumra Research Institute which predicts all the future charedi chumras and bans that will be coming out sooner or later.
As mentioned above the song yidden by Mordechai Ben David which is one of the most popular frummy songs of all time was in fact a German Disco song- heres the video.