Hipster Judaism - Hipster Metal

I've blogged before about so-called 'Hipster Metal' - the recent recognition of Metal as cool by various trend-setters. On the one hand it's exciting to have your tastes validated, on the other hand it's dangerous to seek critical approval. Plus of course, cool turns easily into 'last year's thing'.

Anyway, there's interesting parallels to be made between Hipster Metal and Hipster Judaism. Jewish cool is a recent phenomenon and it's welcome to the extent that the nerdy, geeky image of Judaism was really tiresome. Yet cool can be dangerous. You can't mortgage a centuries old civilization to brief moments of hipsterdom.

There's a couple of good pieces critical of cool Judaism here.