PORETZ GEDER: Frum Concert In Yerushalayim Devolves into Mixed Dancing Affairhttps://t.co/gL2zuEqCYx

— Yeshiva World News (@YWN) November 30, 2021

I'm actually pretty sure this outrage is manufactured. There is an attempt right now by askanim in the haredi community to put an end to open concerts and they are trying to put together a committee to run the events through them. They can jump on this type of thing to show how unkosher it is when not supervised and regulated.

Gun N Roses is coming back to Israel for another concert. The concert is scheduled for this Saturday night and was originally scheduled to begin shortly after the conclusion of Shabbos. Even though many religious fans would have had to come a little bit late to the concert, they got upset when GNR announced the concert was being lengthened to 3.5 hours and therefore advanced to begin at 8pm, while it is still Shabbos. Now, despite more concert time, the religious fans are missing a more significant part of the concert. After some complaining, GNR agreed to refund tickets for religious people who felt they could not participate.

But there is another problem.

Much, probably all, of the preparation for the concert is going to be done on Shabbos. Even though Axl Rose and Saul Hudson (Slash) are not Jewish, the people putting the event together are the Israelis in the production company hosting the performance. With all that chilul shabbos going on for the concert, is one allowed to attend, even after Shabbos?

Rav Benzion Algazi, head of the organization Tzurva mRabanan, responded to this query explaining that it is simple and clear that it is a problem to attend the concert. Because all the prep is being done for the people who bought tickets, the chilul shabbos is therefore being done for them specifically. Therefore it is prohibited to go to the concert, regardless of the fact that they will be beginning on Shabbos.

Can one sell his tickets to the concert? Rav Algazi says one could return the tickets to the box office for a refund, even though the tickets will be resold to other people, but one cannot sell the tickets directly to other people. That would be "lifnei eever" because by selling them the tickets they will be benefiting from the chilul shabbos of the concert.
source: Kipa

I find it interesting that not a word is mentioned of either the "Three Weeks" or the appropriateness of attending such a rock concert in the first place.

Regarding the Three Weeks, the rav is Sefardi, so Three Weeks is not an issue. Maybe an Ashkenazi rav would have related to this problem.

Regarding the appropriateness of the concert... I am no major prude but I am surprised the rav did not even relate to the issues of tzniyus, drugs, and everything else that goes along with the genre. Perhaps it is to his credit, knowing that people going are going anyway and talking about that would not change anything, but I am surprised because from my history and experience, the rabbonim I have always seen and heard would always have talked about this issue and raised it as a problem, whether or not people would listen.

In recent years before Pesach a number of singers would get together and have a nice evening of music for yeshiva bochurim.

Sounds like good, kosher, fun. No women allowed, all kosher music, kosher singers. Shouldn't be a problem.

This year it was set to take place on the 10th of Nissan, April 18, and to include Mordechai Ben David, among others.

Shortly after it was announced the event was already canceled.

Mottka Bloi, the head of the Guardians of holiness and education, or whatever they call themselves, announced shortly after the initial announcement that the event has been canceled, as the event is against the wishes of the gedolim, as they disapprove of all such types of events.

It is canceled for now, at least in its current format. Maybe it will be changed and get put back on the table, or maybe not.

It seems the problem with it is that this event is being advertised as an erev shira and not a kumzitz. It seems erev shira is problematic (though I dont know why), whereas a kumzitz would have been acceptable.

As well, Mordechai Ben David refused to sign a commitment that he would not appear in other events that did not receive the approval of the gedolim.
source: Kikar

Seemingly good kosher fun, but some people did not have authority over it and could not get the participants to grant them control, so they had it canceled. I don't know what is different about what was supposed to happen this year than what happened in previous years, or if it is just a matter of this time they were successful in thwarting the program.

The holiness and education people should just not be surprised when the bochurim who are bored during vacation and looking for interesting things to do find things that are slightly, or not so slightly, less kosher to do.

Rav Avraham Yosef has paskened, on his radio show discussing halacha on Radio Kol Chai, that one is allowed to listen to female singers, and non-Jewish music.

The caveat is that you can only listen to such music when it is a recording and not being performed live. Going to a concert would be assur. He bases his psak on his father's (Rav Ovadia Yosef) rulings and said that going to a mixed concert, even one where they sing shirei kodesh is assur, but listening to their recorded music is fine.

Not only that, but he added that when his father wrote his teshuva on the matter allowing listening to such recorded music he was writing it for frum people and not for secular people.

In America such a psak is common and many people do listen to non-Jewish music, and female singers, with many variosu hetterim - either the fact that the singing is recorded and only live is a problem, or multiple voices singing at the same time, or other hetterim. In Israel, this psak is basically radical as the community in Israel is much mroe extreme.

I see a whole new market opening up - Madonna, Lady Gaga, Rhianna, Beyonce - no concerts, but they can all start selling their music now in Gal Paz!!!

Considering the city of Elad and the sponsors of a holiday concert were not planning on backing down to threats of kannoim to stop a concert, the final result is a bit disheartening, though not unexpected.

It seems the initial statements in which they seemed to stand strong were only a bit of bravado.

The organizers eventually went with their dilemma to Rav Ovadia Yosef who told them to separate the concert, with the women in a completely different area viewing it on large screens, rather than being present even with a mechitza in the main hall.

The show must go on, and it did. At some point though, the screens had a technical glitch and stopped working. Eventually many women gave up in frustration and went home. Some others decided they weren't leaving, and instead went to the main hall.

After some "scuffling" with ushers, the women still refused to leave. A rav got up and said any woman who does not leave and go home will be cursed.

No concert is worth a curse by a big rabbi, so the rest of the women disbanded and went home. After they left, the show went on until the fat man sang. (source: Kikar)

A curse? Wow!

It's good the askonim still don't have control over RBS. We had an amazing concert, all performed by local talent, with an amazing band, a teenage boys choir, a boys choir, and a star singer who recently moved to RBS.

This video is a few years old, but it just made it to Google Video... so here it is.. enjoy..

This is a public service announcement...

The second yahrtzeit for the Gush Katif communities falls out on Thursday. They were destroyed two years ago on 11 Av, 5765.

To commemorate the yahrtzeit, they are planning an event for this Thursday in Nitzan with former Gush Katif and Northern Shomron residents at 5:30 pm.

There will be performances by great musicians, such Ariel Zilber, Aaron Razel, Yishai Lapidot, Mendy Gerufi and Sinai Tur.

Entrance is free of charge.

There will be transportation available from areas around the country. For information call Ezrat Menachem 054-7-770631.

This week is the 105th birthday of the Rebbe. The Lubavitcher Rebbe. I suspect he is getting close to be in the running for oldest person alive. Soon the men at Guiness will be knocking at the doors of 770 to start checking his credentials and verify his information...

Last night Habad sponsored a concert in Tel Aviv to celebrate the Rebbe's birthday. Friends of ours invited us to join them in attending the concert, and against our better judgement with Pesah quickly approaching, we decided to say yes and go.

Due to our friend's great navigational skills, we ended up getting their pretty late.. We caught most of Lipa's performance, and he was pretty good. For every 8 minutes of singing there was about 25 minutes of speeches and "Yehi"'s.

The crowd was pretty full, but not packed. There were a number of empty seats that I saw in my area.. I did not like the way they set up the grounds. The stage was so far away from the crowd that even with good seats we could not see the performances directly but had to watch on the screen. Also the lighting was pretty funky. They had some very bright lights flashing off the stage sporadically and the lights were blinding the crowd so at those times wee could not even see the screen...

But aside from that and the length of the speeches it was pretty good. MBD came up next. I thought he was a bit flat and unexciting. He sang a few songs and then sang one with Gideon Levine.

After some more speeches with some interesting gematriyas proving how great the Rebbe is, and a public kiddush levana, the star of the night came out.

Shweckey.

I was surprised that he got bigger billing than MBD. I remember MBD being the star and everybody else was his warm up act. Now MBD is a bit of a has-been whose time has passed, and he is warming up for the younger, more energetic stars of today. Shweckey was really the star of the night and he was great. He was exciting. He was vibrant. And the crowd loved him.

One more picture - at some point this guy started walking around the area I was sitting in and passing out drinks of vodka.. he got mobbed pretty quickly and his bottle was knocked off..