We all flip our latkes in the air sometimes, but if you can no longer do it without singing a Taio Cruz parody, then we can agree on something important — the world does not need any more Jewish a cappella groups.
For thousands of years, our Jewish heritage has been kept alive by the traditions and culture that bonded us. It was this strong sense of culture that allowed us to retain our faith through centuries of oppression. So how can it be that when this culture came into contact with YouTube, it was strangled, mangled, and beaten within an inch of its life (not unlike a potato being made into a latke) and what emerged was a few billion renditions of One Day and even more Shehecheyanu remixes?
Listen, I enjoy Broadway-themed Adon Olams and Abba covers of the Shabbat blessings as much as the next guy. All I’m saying is if I have to hear one more acoustic version of Al HaNisim or Disney version of Birkat Kohanim, I will delete my Spotify faster than these pseudo-creative Yeshiva League song-vultures jumped on Hamilton for a Hanukkah medley.
Some of you may be wondering to yourselves, Doesn’t every college a cappella group deserve to perform? To that I say, do you really want to hear Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah as sung by gangly bowtie-clad 19 year olds who didn’t get into their first choice group? I’ll give them a chance, but I swear on Ben Platt’s Tik Tok that if they mix their Naomi Shemer with so much as one bar of Lady Gaga, I will leave with the determined conviction of an a capella group member suggesting a Kelly Clarkson parody called Since U Been God.
I mean no personal disrespect to the several trillion members of Jewish a cappella groups around the world. I merely believe it’s time to face the world we’ve created — a world in which the guys who made the Jewish Billie Eilish/Old Town Road remix are hot celebrities selling out JCC concerts — and admit to ourselves that we just don’t need any more Jewish a cappella groups.
The following headline was the winner of our first annual V’Nahafochothon headline submission contest.Thank you to all of our talented readers who sent in hysterical submissions, and congratulations Michael Krone on your win!
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