Patrick Aleph Nails It

There's a nice little post on Jewcy from Patrick Aleph of Punk Torah (whose site appears to have been hijacked) and the Jew-Punk band Can!!Can
Aleph explains what makes his music Jewish and how he feels alienated from most conceptions of Jewish music:

They don't know what to say to me. Jewish music falls under four categories for them: Debbie Friedman, their parents Klezmer records, the Carlebach family, and the soundtracks to Yenta and Fiddler on the Roof. Maybe a fifth category too, the one that takes contemporary music, pours Mel Brooks love-shmaltz all over it, and becomes a Jewish self parody of the cool music.

The truth is, I've never liked that stuff. It's not authentic to me.

The things in the Jewish tradition that are dark and weird...that's my area. While everyone is celebrating the victory of Hanukah, I'm thinking about all the Hellenistic Jews that got murdered. My favorite midrashim (Jewish legends) are about Aaron's sons being burned to death and Abraham smashing his father's idols, then giving him a "fuck you" answer when asked about it.

Comments

[patrick a]

thanks KKH! But how has PunkTorah been hijacked?

[Keith Kahn-Harris]

When I go to the site I get a site called RapStatus! I tried it again just now and it happened again.
Wierd...