Israeli broadcaster Menachem Toker weighed on in the breach in tznius at a Chanukah concert at Binyani Haumah earlier this week featuring Mordechai Shapiro. As first reported by Matzav.com, the mixed audience of attendees – mostly bochurim and girls – danced in the aisles, just feet from each other, in what many called a breach of the most basic boundaries of tznius.
Apart from the mixed seating in the concert hall and the subsequent dancing, the voices of girls singing from the audience could be heard across the hall.
Toker, who is a popular radio host in Israel and has emceed in dozens of concerts over the years, says that a body should be set up, headed by Israel’s rabbonim, to oversee such events.
Toker received scathing criticism after he came to the defense of Shapiro. Toker commented.
“For 20 years, askanim have been fighting these performances,” Tucker first tweeted. According to him, because of the battles, the result has been that “Shwekey, Fried, Ribo, Shapiro,” and others sing virtually only to mixed audiences. “Except for the few successful men-only shows, everything is mixed,” he said, suggesting that the efforts to ban and threaten these shows has backfired.
The Kol Chai broadcaster wrote on Twitter that “it is time to establish a body of gedolei Yisroel and to arrange performances with proper content and supervision, not a disgrace like happened last night.”
“Mordechai Shapiro is a refreshing innovation in music,” Tucker wrote earlier, in a tweet that was later deleted, referring to an earlier report that criticized the mixed event.
Tucker went on to praise the American singer. “He charges about $15,000 for an event, and is booked every night, proving his success in connecting with the young people of our challenging generation.” According to Toker, “Whoever has a problem with this will have to deal with it. The young people are voting with their feet. The era of boycotting performances and threats is over.”
{Matzav.com Israel}
“a refreshing innovation in music,” Really? Not exactly frum hartzig music style.Just because someone puts Hebrew words to music in now way does that make it ‘Jewish’
Would you say that sfardisha music is not hartzig since it sounds Arabic and makes me want to dance the Baladi? Or a chessidisha nigun because it is based on a polish peasant song?
Is the music Tchaikovsky considered traif or was Reb Chaim Sanzer wrong for playing classical music?
You may not like the style but every dor and country, has its music and it all depends ds on what you do with it.
I get it. The Gedolei Yisroel have already spoken, opposing such concerts. But since people aren’t listening to them, we need to Teach our Gedolim to ‘get with the program’ For shame
Tucker is correct. The kleineh kep askanim are more concerned about charidim eating only chalav yisroel while wearing a white shirt, using a flip-phone, and changing the shidduch system to have little immature 19 year olds get married. It’s amazing that everything else is perfect. No problems. No agmas nefesh.
Chumra, who said these are no other problems? But such a breach of tznius can lead to much bigger problems than we already have. Do we want to have concerts like the goyim have? Just look at the consequences of a society that has no barriers between the genders; it’s a society totally out of control. So whatever problems we have it pales in comparison to the secular world and we don’t want to go down that road, chas v’sholom.
He says good. Chazal used to always say that it’s “a gezeira she’ain hatzibur yuchul lamoid boi “
So they would say that about driving to shul on Shabbos, too, right?
there is no heter to hear music at all since the BHM was destroyed. I read a story of a father who cut his daughters piano into half with a saw due to this issur, there is no need for “entertainment” this is a Goyish concept, you need a break take a walk.
A sane voice
As we await Mashiach, it seems that for every toeiva and ra that the goyim do that some Jews decide to ape, some people decide that they know better than the Torah and tell the Rabbanim that they have to supervise and make Kosher their anti-Torah behavior.
Only in yemos haMashiach could such a thing be.
If they said that a mixed concert is assur then what makes some random Joe think that they know better?
Mixed audiences ARE a problem as the music encourages the untzniusdik behaviors. I know of bands that announce in advance, they will stop playing the instant there is mixed dancing. As for the women singing, this is a huge problem and should be addressed in schools. Kol kvuda bas malka pnima.
Aha. And what about Frum male keyboard players that play at Bas Mitzvahs where the girls are singing and dancing? Is everything muttar in the name of parnasa?