Follow-up on That (Anti-) Chassidic Rebbe Clip

This clip.


And here's the Forward's follow-up story:

Shauly Grossman didn’t plan on being an Internet rock star.

But that is exactly what happened to the 21-year-old self-identified Sanzer Hasid when a satirical song he recorded poking fun at the allegedly rock-star-like lifestyles of some Hasidic rebbes resurfaced as a hotly debated video on YouTube.

Grossman’s song, set to the tune of “Rockstar” by the popular band Nickelback, focuses on the alleged proclivities of some leaders of Hasidic sects — from lavish houses to expensive clothes...Despite the biting lyrics, Grossman says the song was not meant as an attack on rabbinic authority in general.

“It was just a phenomenon that we sometimes see, meaning that there is a certain percent of rebbes who aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do and are just doing it for… the fame and the money and stuff,” Grossman, who lives in the heavily Orthodox town of Monsey, N.Y., told the Forward. “I didn’t make it specifically against anybody.”

But the video — which has circulated on the Internet for several weeks under the title, “I Want To Be a Rebbe” — juxtaposes Grossman’s song with images of widely known rebbes. Grossman said he does not know who created the video, explaining that he recorded the song a year ago and that it was not intended for public consumption.

...Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for the ultra-Orthodox organization Agudath Israel of America, however, was not amused.

“He’s immensely talented, the singer and the writer,” Shafran said, but “impressive in a technical sense, not in a moral one.”

...The brouhaha over Grossman’s song comes amid wider controversy over the infiltration of contemporary music into the ultra-Orthodox world. Earlier this year, a planned charity concert in New York featuring popular Hasidic singer Lipa Schmeltzer was canceled following a decree from a number of leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis. The concert, the rabbis warned, was likely to cause “ribaldry and light-headedness.” Grossman, incidentally, wrote the title track on Schmeltzer’s latest album... (and more)