“Dancing in a Dangerous World”–the new album from the band Moshav–is a wild hybrid of two radically different types of music, American and Israeli. Middle Eastern dance-rock rhythms run up against country-rock guitar solos–the kind that you can imagine playing on air guitar.
Nowhere is this mix more perfectly expressed than in the album’s second song, “Elvis in Jerusalem.” Elvis is a cultural icon all over the world, but there’s something about him that perfectly captures certain aspects of Israeli culture: the combination of macho behavior and flamboyance, the crazy clothes.
This Israel-Elvis connection has been profiled in both a book and a short film. But nothing says “Elvis” like a song, and nothing typifies the strange and wonderful clash of cultures like the song “Elvis in Jerusalem.” Give it a listen.
As the Year Turns, Support the Journalism You Trust. JTA covers the stories shaping Jewish life around the world — with the depth this moment calls for. As you reflect on the year ahead, consider a gift that keeps independent Jewish journalism strong.
