Pop, Piety and Modernity

For those familiar with the public soundscape of diaspora Jewish music – klezmer, cantorial, modern Reform – it might come as a surprise to discover that today the most successful kind of contemporary American Jewish music is none of these, but rather, another, more hidden genre: Orthodox pop. ¹ Jewish listeners from outside the Orthodox community might call to mind a couple of hits that have traversed community boundaries: Mordechai Ben David’s dance hit Moshiach, or Yidden, his unlikely Yiddish reworking of Germany’s 1979 Eurovision entry. Yet for a transnational public of strictly observant Jews, MBD, Lipa, Schmeltzer, Shwekey, the Chevra, and Avraham Fried – among many others – are household names, commanding full-page magazine advertisements, performing to sold-out audiences at major venues, and filling the shelves of specialist music suppliers.