Sunday, June 20, 2004

Ban on Haredi music lifted?

According to the Jewish Chronicle -- which did not post this story on their website -- rabbis have removed a ban on Mordechai Ben-David's concert on Sunday night, after determining that the separate seating arrangements for the event were adequate. Which re-raises the question of why they issued the ban in the first place: was it genuinely a question of 'modesty,' or, as some readers of Bloghead have argued in the comments section, an attempt to clean up an industry which has become tainted with at least one major sex scandal?
On the face of things, of course, it would now seem the question is settled in favor of the former reason, which certainly made more sense to me even last week. However, you will recall that the seating situation was clear a long time ago, before the rabbis made their initial ruling. What, I wonder, could have made the rabbis change their minds so abruptly?

UPDATE: The Daily Telegraph, a little behind the times, it seems, reports on the ban. I was particularly amused to read that "This is not the first time that the Jewish community has spoken out against a popular singer. In 1998, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel were outraged by Dana International, a transsexual singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest for Israel." So everything between Dana International and Mordechai Ben David is ok?

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