Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

I heard about this guy Matisyahu a couple of weeks ago. He's a Hasidic Jew who sings Reggae. When you think about it, it really shouldn't be too much of a stretch. Rastafarians revere the Old Testament prophets, have strict dietary laws defined by Leviticus and even occasionally use a Star of David as a symbol. He started singing reggae at his yeshiva while doing Jamaican dance hall style toasts for his fellow students; apparently he doesn't see much of a jump between Jewish liturgical music and what he listened to in his pre-conversion days.

For the most part he has been well reviewed, although the first article I read about him was a rather dismissive review in Slate magazine. I found the author's accusation of "minstrelsy" unfair. It would only be minstrelsy if the guy only dressed that way to get attention. He dresses that way because it's his religion, not because he thinks it's a cool costume.

The reviewer also is a bit too dismissive of the quality of the music. I'm not exactly the best person to judge good or bad reggae, but buddies of mine who listen to a lot more of it seem to like this guy. She also takes him on for the naïve, feel good politics and theology in his lyrics. Well, duh, it's reggae.


When I heard about Matisyahu, I remembered a story I heard on This American Life a couple of years ago: the story of Curly Oxide.

Like Matisyahu, Oxide was a Hasidic Jew, but instead of reggae, he fell in with psychadelic/punk/alternative rocker Vic Thrill. Oxide was remarkably prolific, and would fill Thrill's answering machine with song ideas, and wound up playing with his band. Eventually, the pull of Oxide's religion took him away from the scene.

The full story of Curly Oxide can be heard here (program description here). It starts about ten minutes into the show, and lasts about 40 minutes. There is a movie scheduled for release next year with Oxide being played by Sacha Baron Cohen.


The reporter that did the This American Life piece was David Segal, a reporter with the Washington Post. Segal has a website called Jews Rock, which details the Jewish history of rock. The "Challah Fame" includes famous examples such as Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Brian Epstein, more obscure examples such as Elastica's Justine Frischmann and Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein, and stretches of logic such as Courtney Love. They also include Cass Elliot, who they note had a rather odd death for a Jewish girl.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.