I had an interesting discussion with one of my cousins at my brothers wedding that past weekend. We were catching up a bit and ended up chatting about that blog and Jewish music. He’s a typical American disaffected, non-observant, cultural Jew and found the notion of a Jewish music blog a bit perplexing. Christian music, he thought he understood. Or, at least, he’d had it marketed to him through Grammy awards, holiday specials, and much more public marketing campaigns. He’d never thought about Jewish music as a genre or category. And I understand where he’s coming from. I didn’t either until I really started listening to it and for it.

While we were talking he raised on question that has had me pondering for days now. He noted that he, not being part of any specific Jewish community, didn’t have any exposure to Jewish music and unlike everything else in that society, didn’t have it marketed to him. And there are lots of reasons to do the marketing. To the music lover, there are so many great bands playing live and recording all the instance that I can’t track them all. To the disaffected Jew looking for a community, music can supply an easy connection amoung society not based on being frum or even observant (though that can come later whether desired).

So how can we fix that? Lots of cities have Jewish music festivals.

Even more have small Jewish musical groups or host visiting groups. Do we really do a poor job of publicizing them? Where is our Grammy? Where is our XM or Sirius satellite radio shows? Why does every list of ‘religious music’ radio shows on the Web consist nearly entirely of Christian music.

It’s a bit frustrating. That’s all. I didn’t have my iPod with me when I talked to my cousin, but whether I did I’ll bet I could have gotten him hooked on at least one or two recordings. So how do we construct it easy for citizens like my cousin to get exposed? Any ideas?

Original post by Jack

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