RE: Julio Inglesias Jewish?

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

Eleizer,

Yes, of course, it's education, but before education comes exposure.   I am 
sure that you didn't just go searching for Jewish music without first being 
exposed to some things other than Hava Nagila, Maoz Tzur and Hatikvah. 
  Most American Jews are not scholars looking for the unknown and the 
theoretical.  A lot of Jews in America have by now heard of klezmer music, 
but it's still not enough and their association with non-concert klezmer 
music are still limited to one or two hora dances at an affair.  I can't 
remember how many Bar/Bat Mitsvas I have now gone to where there are young 
black kids leading the entertainment and the dancing, including those of 
religious and traditional parents and Orthodox grandparents.   Very few of 
them have researched or brought Jewish entertainers and DJs who will play a 
mixture of Jewish material and international music.   In the last 
bat-mitsva I went to (grandchildren of a very wealthy Orthodox family), the 
DJs taught line-dancing, but no one brought a Jewish line dancing DJ.  Now 
many of the steps are the same and the dancefloor energy is the same, but I 
guess they worried that it wouldn't be "cool" enough.   It was not that 
these very Jewish non-Orthodox Brooklyn parents don't know such things 
exist or that the bands wouldn't play a mixture of music, but maybe they 
worried that it would be too "parochial".   I understand that worry very 
well, but then again, I don't always understand what is being celebrated at 
these affairs.  I know these kinds of bands exist and I have been to plenty 
of Jewish weddings that have them.   As for DJ's who specialize in Jewish 
dancing - maybe the problem is that too few of them advertise.  I don't 
know.   Maybe we should get Jill Gellerman, a specialist in Jewish wedding 
dancing, on this list to explain it all to us.


Reyzl


----------
From:  Eliezer Kaplan[SMTP:zelwel (at) earthlink(dot)net]
Sent:  Wednesday, July 07, 1999 9:04 AM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant
Subject:  RE: Julio Inglesias Jewish?

Reyzl said:

>   I am annoyed at the fact that
>most Jews have lost connection to their own music, except for things like
>Fiddler on the Roof, and what they choose to sing when they want to sing 
is
>Black music.   I think they make these choices because that is what is
>considered the "cool"est and that's what's on the radio.    This is also
>what Jews from Reform to Conservative to modern Orthodox choose to play at 
>their rites of passage celebration.   I find all this a cultural Jewish
>poverty, but I am sorry that I don't have time to write this idea up now 
on
>the list.  It will have to wait for another time.
>

A lot is simple lack of education, and asking one's self 'how could Jewish
music ever be cool'? Before I got into it, I used to think of Jewish music
as being Hava Nagilah, Maoz Tzur, and Hatikvah. Without some personal
research, I never would have heard of Naftule Brandwein or Salim Halali
(orginally, not an explicitly Jewish artist, though as of now I don't think
he can not be seen as one)- proof that Jewish music is actually extremely
cool. Of course, the education thing is true for most streams of music that
are not the mainstream. Usually it doesn't come over and hit you on the
head- you have to find it first.
                EK



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