This WaPo article was good all around: An ultra-orthodox Jew is crooning to Israel's Amish-like clad Jews, and the parents are getting nervous. Almost sounds like a Weird Al Yankovich video. Excerpts:
Elbaz appreciates the fans who made his recent album a top seller, attend his shows by the thousands and request his music with such frequency that his popularity has crossed into Israel's secular world, where religious devotion is generally considered uncool.
But the e-mails calling him a "world-class hunk," the frequent phone calls pledging love and the adoration visible at his shows have put Elbaz in hot water with some of Israel's most powerful rabbis. They fear the Elvis-like effect he is having on the young female portion of the highly traditional community, known as Haredi, where song is considered nearly as powerful as prayer.
The ultra-Orthodox establishment does not quite know what to make of Israel's first Haredi heartthrob. Is this happily married man who studies the Torah four hours a day a threat to their insular world? Or are his balladeer's voice, hip two-day beard, and pious lyrics a way to preserve Old World traditions in the age of Britney Spears? . . .
While attending religious schools as a teenager, Elbaz began developing a style that draws on Arab rhythms, hip-hop beats, the harmonies of the Backstreet Boys and the ballads of Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. Jewish law generally prohibits men from listening to women sing; Elbaz said he received dispensation from his rabbi to do so.
