Quick Thoughts on the Concert Ban

Reading about the recent Jewish music concert ban and the resulting cancellation of a widely promoted upcoming Jewish music concert in Madison Square Garden made my head spin. How did this happen? I mean, I know that a similar ban had gained foothold in the Israel Charedi world - but for some reason I thought things were different here. There are also apparently members of the Israeli Charedi community who seem to find it appropriate to spray women dressed in clothing deemed inappropriate with bleach, or get violent with a woman sitting at the front of a public bus. I guess I should have paid closer attention to the warning bells going off in the back of my brain. After all, recent events have brought us a boycott over headshots of women displayed in a storefront on a main public thoroughfare, and calls for elementary school Rebbes to stop playing ball with their Talmidim - we've even graduated to rioting over in the ostensibly more mixed Charedi neighborhood of Boro Park (before you disagree, remember that in BP, as compared to the Israeli Charedi neighborhood of Bnei Brak, men and women still shop in the same stores and walk on the same side of the street, and restaraunts in BP still seat groups of men and women eating together).

But I can still admit to being shocked that views that I consider to be so extreme have started to affect my world. Do I expect a Jewish music concert ban to come to the more moderate Yeshivish/Charedi Lite segment of the Five Towns any time soon? Well, no... but I am starting to worry that the possibility might not be as implausible as it seemed just a few years ago. I know locals who had planned to take their kids to the now-canceled concert in question - their kids were (almost) as excited for the concert as the multitudes of shrieking tween girls I saw lined up in a news story about a Hannah Montana concert. I'm not suggesting that Orthodox Jews need our own version of Hannah Montana, but I am suggesting that kids need an outlet that allows them the opportunity to have some fun and let off some steam.

The Jewish Star actually reports that the text of the ban would seem to imply that all Jewish music concerts are affected - though a Rosh Yeshiva who signed the ban seems to dispute that, leaving the whole situation a bit confused:

...the text of the ban was identical to that of a ban enacted in Israel last year, which succeeded in shutting down a joint performance of Mordechai Ben David and Avrohom Fried. It included references to Israel and called for a complete end to Jewish music concerts. That made it unclear if the document was intended to apply only to the Madison Square Garden event, or if American Charedi rabbonim intended to follow the lead of Israeli colleagues and enact a sweeping prohibition against Jewish music.
In an interview with The Jewish Star, Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky, a rosh yeshiva in Philadelphia who signed the ban, said, “It is very general, you’re right, but I don’t think it will refer to all concerts. You have to have an outlet for kids.”

I can certainly get behind the sentiment that our kids need an outlet. It's one thing to live a lifestyle that encourages our barely pubescent kids to spend long hours in the Beit Midrash, 6 days a week. I can fully appreciate that sort of commitment to Torah study - but how can we realistically expect our kids to sign on for said lifestyle when the opportunities for getting some release via "kosher" fun get taken away, one by one? Are we entering an era where just about everything we teach our children includes the word "don't" or "can't"? Say it ain't so...