To the embarrassment of Jews worldwide and what I am sure is the great disappointment of Reggae star Matisyahu, the Ultra-Orthodox Haredi leaders in Israel have basically decreed that black music is not kosher.
"Michael Jackson-style music has no place in our community," says Mordechai Bloi, a senior member of the Guardians of Sanctity and Education, an organization based in Bnei Brak that enforces what it sees as normative haredi behavior.
"We might be able to adopt Bach or Beethoven, music with class, but not goyishe African music and beats. We haredim want to protect ourselves from what we see as negative foreign influences. We are trying to maintain our own authentic music styles. We admit that times are changing, but we are trying to stay loyal to our roots."
Look champ, you can't laud two of the most famous gentiles in musical history and then claim the problem with black music is that it's goyishe (not Jewish). But the real problem for Bloi is that the voodoo magic of savage African beats might force nice Jewish girls to rip off their clothes and, well ... you know where this is going:
The whole idea is that there are types of music that have no place with respectable people. Respectable people listen to decent music and immoral people list to indecent music, and it does not make sense that a community that has high moral standards should be listening to this type of music.
Syncopation and polyrhythms make you a bad person. All I can say is this isn't going to win too many fans among the Beta Israel, but hey, it sounds like they wouldn't be so welcome among the Haredi anyway.
Via Stereohyped.
--A. Serwer
