When Religion meets Music: Muslim Pop & Hassidic Reggae

This coming week we will be looking at Religion and Music, specifically how contemporary Jewish and Muslim artists are using music to communicate ideas about religious community and identity. This week's reading, "A New Research Agenda: Exploring Transglobal Hip Hop Umma" by H. Samy Alim, focuses on how popular music is being used to bring cohesion cohesion across cultures to Muslims around the world. We will be looking at artist such as Sami Yusuf and the Danish Band Outlandish and how they try to communicate issue of faith cross culturally through their music. We will also be looking at the music of Matisyahu and how he communicates Orthodox Judaism through Reggae. Check out the following videos:

Sami Yusuf, is a rising star of contemporary Arabic Nasheed (traditional) music. His song Hasbi Rabbi is sung in English, Hindi, Turkish & Arabic and the video takes him to different parts of the world to engage with the Muslim Ummah (community) in those places.


Outlandish, a Muslim Danish Trio mixes hip hop, folk, soul and pop to create music focusing on themes of racism, social justice and religion. as seen in their video " I Only Ask of God"



Matisyahu infusion of Reggae & Hip Hop seeks to communicate his Jewish faith to a global audience as well, check out his hit song "Jerusalem".



For more information on Contemporary Muslim & Jewish music check out Muslim Hip-Hop and Jews Rock.

Judaism and the Internet

This next week we will be looking at Judaism and the internet by specifically looking at a study by Barzilai-Nahon & Barzilai. Cultured Technology: Internet and Religious Fundamentalism explores UltraOrthodox use and response to the internet. Within Judaism their has been much discussion about the use and effect of the internet, such as Is the internet kosher? and How does it effect religious culture? What does this article have to say about how the UO have responded to this new technology? What is the basis or support for their response?

Some Jewish groups have responded to the concerns about the secular nature of the internet by forbidding its use, while other have cultured the technology to create safe online spaces such as Jgog search engine which uses a filtering mechanism so some "unorthodox" words or searches to be blocked or re-defined or Kosher net which "provides the ideal, rabbinically endorsed, internet experience for ... anyone who wants or needs control over exposure to undesirable content during the internet experience". What does this teach us about religious culturing of new media?

Religion and New Media

In week six we will be looking at how religious groups approach new media. Think back to the example we talked about the first week, the Amish response to the telephone. This case study demonstrated that rather than reject new media all together, many religious groups instead resist those aspect of the technology that run counter to their religious values. This often leads them to reconstruct their use or language related to that form of media. So in the assigned reading think critically and reflect how Jews and Muslims resist, reconstruct and talk about new media.

We will be exploring a study I conducted related to religious responses to the Internet, and what they have to tell us about how new media impacts religious communities view of traditional religious authority. In Who's got the power Religious authority and the Internet, I draw on interviews conducted with Jewish students from the University of Haifa and Muslim students at Al Qasami Academy in Israel on their views about the internet. Based on the data shared in the article what issues of religion and belief influence their views about new media technology? How do these differ between the Jewish and Muslim student?

(Ultra)Orthodox Judaism & Media

In the next class we will be looking at one particular segment of the Jewish community and their response to one specific technology. UltraOrthodox Jews represent about 13% of Israel's total population of about 4.5 million and have significant communities in many other parts of the world including London & NYC. With the rise of many new media technologies it is a community that is constantly in conflict with the "tools of modernity" and having to make tough choices about what media forms they will and won't accept. You have been asked to read an article on the UltraOrthodox and TV. For a wider perspective on the tension between the UltraOrthodox , modernity and the media look at this article from the Guardian Online: The ultra-Orthodox Jews on a mission to save Jerusalem from secularism or this article from the Jewish News Week: Secular media continue to scapegoat the Orthodox.

What do these article argue about Ultra-Orthodox engagement with the media?

Before you say the UltraOrthodox only condemn/reject the media...take a look at this exception "Israel's Tele-Rabbi" where one Sephardi rabbi is using TV & the web as a tool for evangelising wayward Jews. What does this tell us?

Judaism 101

In week 2 we will be discussing the basics of Jewish faith and culture, an how this influences how religious Jews may view and use mass media. A couple of helpful websites providing an introduction to Judaism include Judaism 101 and the Orthodox Union's basis guide to Judaism.

Our guest speaker will be Professor Jim Aune who specializes in rhetoric and politics and has written our weekly reading: Jim Aune, 2004. Justice and argument in Judaism: A d’var torah on shofetim, in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 7(4), pp. 449-460. Consider: What does this article tell us about Jewish approaches to different forms of media (especially texts)?

BTW--Professor Aune also recommends Jewcy a web site focused on contemporay Jewish culture.