Rav Amnon Yitzchak on the music warpath

Rav Amnon Yitzchak is moving full steam ahead in his quest to stop the current popular style of Jewish music from continuing. He is going everywhere he can and speaking out against all the popular singers, from Mordechai Ben David to Yaakov Shwekey to popular Yemenite singer Tzion Golan, and everybody else in between.

Rav AY was asked who is an acceptable singer, and his response was that there is a singer in mea Shearim, associated with Shomrei Emunim, who is a great singer. His music, Rav Yitzchak said, is holy and pure and modest, and there is nothing to worry about when listening to his music.

the funny part is this - at one of these events, in Beit She'an, a young woman of 18 years old asked him what is wrong with the disks of [Mizrachi singer] Chaim Yisrael, and this is the only music she likes and listens to.

Rav Amnon Yitzchak responded that if she doesn't smash his disk, she is going to burn in Hell (did I mention that his style is very much fire and brimstone?). He then offered her 100 NIS to break the disk.

First of all, is her salvation from hell only worth 100 shekels to him?

Second of all, if I were in that situation, I think what I would have done is I would have taken the money, smashed the disk, gone out and bought a new one for 60 NIS (or whatever it costs precisely), and pocketed the difference.

By the way, supposedly after arguing for a few minutes, she decided to agree and break the disk.

Another interesting point he made was he played the video clip of Lipa singing alongside an African American fellow who sang the Jewish songs beautifully. He then added that if you take away the words, and only listen to the music, do you hear hassidic music or foreign music?

This is all assuming their is something intrinsically Jewish about one style of music over another. Generally, all our Jewish music has always been influenced by general music throughout the generations. I don't know what would be considered inherently Jewish music.

Rav Yitzchak said, at another such conference, that the real problem with all this is that the music stars have become the "rabbonim" of the youth. This is what has to be stopped.

He probably means that the kids, and even adults, idolize some of these stars, rather than just enjoying their music. I don't think anyone considers them to be their Rabbi.

In my opinion, it is probably better to idolize guys like Avraham Fried, Mordechai Ben David, and Yaakov Shwekey than to idolize guys like Randy Macho Man Savage, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka and others of their ilk that we idolized as kids.

At the end of the day most people don't "idolize" these guys or treat them like Gods or Rabbis. They just simply like the entertainment value these performers provide.