by Izzy Grinspan
It should be apparent by now that some of us (OK, one of us) is slightly obsessed with Jewish metal. It just makes so much sense that Jews would take to heavy metal, given the hair and the ritual and the intensity. Listen, if you will, to the Makkabees, described as “if Rammstein and the Darkness had a baby” by some uncredited genius on their website. Or check out Metal Jew, a blog by a “semi-ambivalent Jew, ambivalent Metaller.” (He can call himself ambivalent all he wants, but he's still taken our obsession to a new level). Metal Jew links to a CD by the Swedish band Meshuggah, reminding us of their existence and raising the question: How come it took a group of Scandinavian non-Jews to realize the enormous metal potential of everyone’s favorite Yiddish word?
If this isn’t enough Jewish metal for you, check out Steve Almond’s essay in our Shul of Rock. And then we promise we’ll find some other genre to obsess about.