From the mailbag...

A. forwards a comment posted to Emes Ve-Emunah

Thought you'd like this- it's a comment on his blog, related to the newest Satmar takanos:

Yerachmiel -

This is what I call the "Lipa maneuver." When you want to distract attention from anything that matters, go after the Jewish musicians. They're an easy target, they're the source of all that's evil in the world, and bashing them may help you forget how the followers of the two claimants to the old Rebbe's throne are beating each other up in the street, or how your kids' yeshiva never got around to firing that pedophile rebbi, or how, thanks to having gazillions of kids with no parnassah prospects, your holy little shtetl is the dead-last poorest municipality in the U.S. of A. No, by all means let's trash the musicians, who lost their jobs playing your weddings because of all your takanas, and therefore have to rely on giving music lessons for a living, so let's take that away from them too so they can starve to death. And then all the other problems will just go away. Right?

Sorry if I sound bitter - it's only because I am.
open the gates | 12.08.09 - 1:14 pm | #

Psachya writes:

Check this out for the inside story on Orrin Hatch's Chanukah song. Three money quotes:

"...I for one have tired of the Adam Sandlerization of Judaism in America." (Hear, hear!)

"...[Having a] Mormon senator in a studio with an Arab singer and a bunch of New York Jewish background vocalists recording a Hanukkah song of his own making...counts as a minor American miracle."

"I have always felt that the song canon for Hanukkah...is sparse and uninspiring...because Jewish songwriters spend so much time writing Christmas music." (Ouch!)

Dovid Kerner writes:

Friends,

Wouldn't you know it - just in time for Chanukah - the second installation in the Jambalaya Trilogy is out - Chanb'layla. Our gift to you. Download it in its entirety here: Chanb'layla.

Have a lichtiger Chanukah!

Zal forwards a link: "Guy Demands to Be Arrested for Ripping His Own DVDs."

Avi Septimus writes:

I compiled the following list of Jewish music resources which I use on the web. I most frequently use the Dartmouth archive for learning old chassidic nigunim, and would like to advertise its existence amongst Jewish musicians. While I was at it, I added some other sites which I have used as well. I discovered many of these sites when I started to convert old Chassidic LP's to digital, and discovered that much (but not all) of the work had been done.

Please add this to your blog.

Thanks, Avi Septimus

Here is a list of Jewish music resources which I use on the internet.

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Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive:
Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive

Old recordings from LP and cassette have been converted to digital and can be listened to on this site. There are currently around 12,000 songs. You must request access to the archive and agree not to download anything for copyright reasons. There is really a lot of good stuff here. I use this site constantly.

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Modzitzer Nigunim
Modzitz.org

There are many Modzitzer nigunim here which can be downloaded in Real format. Most are from the original Modzitzer albums, but there is some other material as well. Highly recommended!

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Florida Atlantic University Judaica Sound Archives
FAU Judaica Sound Archives

Does not require membership. Many chassidic and cantorial albums available for listening. Most (all?) of David Werdyger's albums are here, as well as tons of other material.

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Piyut:
Piyut.org.il

A site with many different tunes from all over the world for piyutim, zemirot, etc.

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Chabad Nigunim:
Chabad.org -Jewish Music and Song

Includes the entire audio for the 16 volumes of the "Chabad Melodies" set, plus other albums as well.

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Jewish Music Resources
http://www.nationalfinder.com/jmr/index.htm

After starting to make this list, I found this site which obviously includes a much bigger list than mine. That said, I list some sites which he doesn't.