If it’s got a beat, it just ain’t kosher

ANOTHER day and another bizarre revelation: Muslims and Orthodox Jews share a loathing of modern music.

According to this BBC report, Rabbi Efraim Luft, head of an ultra-orthodox organisation in Israel called the Committee for Jewish Music, is on a mission to eliminate music that is “indecent and unfit for public consumption”.

Rabbi Luft, on a mission to eliminate 'indecent' music

And that, according to two Muslims who commented on the report, emphasises a similarity between Islam and Judaism.

Said Zuber Iraqi, of Louisville, Kentucky:

As a Muslim, I support the Rabbi’s decision, finally they are thinking like conservative Muslims; after all Muslims and Jews are very much alike. [The] Majority of modern music is immoral and degrading the faith.

And Hassan of Manchester observed:

The Jewish Orthodox community have shown to me and others that the Jewish faith often has a lot to share with the Muslim faith. The psychological effect of music and the message is contained is contaminating a lot of minds and causing a great deal of moral destruction. Muslims, Jews, Christians and everybody else should work together to reduce its influence in a world of deteriorating morality. I applaud the strength of these Orthodox Jews to hold on to their faith and prevent the evils of music from corrupting yet more minds.

What Rabbi Luft objects to so vehemently is not just contemporary, western music – rock, rap or pop – but the use of modern instruments and beats in the tunes of ultra-Orthodox singers like Lipa Schmeltzer, who sings in Yiddish. He dresses in the clothes of a Haredi Jew and all of his song lyrics come from the scriptures.

Said Luft:

They [Schmeltzer and others like him] are leading the public astray and are causing a great negative influence on the young generation.

The main part of the music should be the melody. Percussion should be secondary. They should not bend notes electronically and should not use instruments like electric guitars, bass guitars or saxophones in Jewish music.

Supported by leading Haredi rabbis, Rabbi Luft has drawn up a black-list of musicians and bands – music that he says that is not kosher and cannot be played at ultra-orthodox weddings or public events because of its decadent nature.

The loopy rabbi is convinced that in the last 25 years music has gradually eroded moral standing in society, saying that such music, even Jewish rock music, “where the dangerous beat plays more of a part than the melody, has no place in a society where people are trying to keep their moral standards high.”

HAT TIP: Michael Cohen