A Jewish record label (JDub Records) is putting on a multi-city music festival featuring acts performing “klezmer-punk, hip-hop in Arabic and folk-rock tunes” this weekend for Hanukkah, which starts today at sundown. The event is expected to draw some 7,000 people in nine cities, according to a Washington Post article about the event:
The Jewish music industry has flourished over the past decade and uses Hanukkah, a minor religious holiday that begins tonight at sundown, as a time to party.
While still tiny in the grand scheme of the overall music business, the movement that some call “new Jewish music” is seen by musicians and fans as thriving. It uses sounds and lyrics and language from the Jewish world present and past. Three labels have started since 1995, including JDub, which opened in 2002 and produced Hasidic reggae star Matisyahu as well as the rock band LeeVees, which is made up of Jewish members of better-known bands and has sold over 10,000 copies of its 2006 album, “Hannukah Rocks.”
While the industry and shows go on all year for such bands, the Hanukkah is a key time in the United States because of the Christmas-driven party season. Last year, XM Radio launched a Hannukah station (which runs for the holiday’s eight days), and with the increase in contemporary Jewish bands, more concert halls and bars are hosting Hannukah music parties each year.
The proliferation of music has raised a broader question: What is Jewish music? Unlike the Christian music world, most of what’s coming out is not God-worshiping. Some bands have Jewish members. In other cases, musicians may be non-Jews, but the words, sounds or performance styles are inspired by Jewish history. Much of it is a blend.
Read the whole thing here.