The Miami Boys Choir
Just in time for Rosh Hashanah
I come to TikTok, first and foremost to learn. I have a lifelong love of learning and come to most situations with an open mind ready to discover more about the world I live in. As I’ve said before I am obsessed with religion, particularly how very religious people interact with with popular culture. TikTok is a perfect place for this. Every day someone new tries to prove or show that they are still having fun despite being unable to participate in the things modern American culture deems fun. Some are more convincing than others. The most recent contribution to this never ending religious studies course I have enrolled myself in, is the recent viral video from the Miami Boys Choir.
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The Miami Boys Choir is a choir made up of young boys from the Orthodox community all around the tri-state area. It was founded in the 70s by Yerachmiel Begun while he was in Yeshiva in Miami. The choir released a few albums and then moved to New York, but kept the name Miami Boys Choir. They’re the Ruth’s Chris of Orthodox boys choirs. They went viral this week after their TikTok account posted a video of four soloists from a 2008 performance of the choir. Immediately, we understood and attached ourselves to them.
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The original video of the Miami Boys Choir eases us in with a kind of general boyband premise. It’s 4 boys, each boy gets a different part of the song and in the song they show off a bit of their personality. We can immediately categorize them. From BTS to The Beatles, we’ve seen this before. We know the archetypes. Yoshi is the serious one, C Abromowitz is the mysterious one, David is the star, and Binyomin is the baby. It all makes sense to us. The language of boy bands is universal. Before now, no one had to write that out because anyone who’s been or known a teenage girl between 1961 and now, understood what was being sold to us.
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While I understand the Boy Band appeal, I also see it from the Glee perspective. Obviously Glee is an intense dramatization of the competitive world of children’s musical performance but it’s not too far off. When I see a group of children singing in a highly produced showcase, I immediately begin to sniff out the social dynamics operating to get a feel for the drama occurring. Because there is always drama occurring when you’re handing out solos to children. These kids auditioned and beat out other kids to be there. They’re coming into the room understanding they are better and more talented than other children. It only gets more complex once you introduce solos and star power into the equation.
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Every choir director is trying to put on the best show possible. They want to showcase talent and stat power and make something interesting, entertaining and dynamic. When dealing with children your options are limited. It is not as simple as the most talented kid gets the best solo, especially when you consider the different kinds of talent. The best singer might not have the best stage presence. It’s hard to quantify what makes certain solos different from other solos. With these videos we are left to infer how this plays out, what kind of Black Swan type power struggles are happening backstage among these 13 year old boys while they try to embody the difference between the first verse of “Yerushalayim” and the second.
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Some of the Miami videos spell out the hints of drama. Kids age out, new stars begin to rise. There’s a strict time limit on all of this and these boys want to enjoy the ride for as long as possible. You’re the hot shot and star as long the new class doesn’t have anyone better or you don’t suddenly hit puberty. These kids probably do their own mini versions of All About Eve every year. From what I gather, Yoshi is on his way out. He had his rise and is just happy to be there in his last year. David is the current star but he shouldn’t get too comfortable because Binyomin is starting to take over. By the time he realizes what’s happening, it’ll be too late. The drama is all there, we just have to look for it.
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I cannot explain how much the Miami Boys Choir checks every box for me. It is a perfect viral TikTok. It introduces a new facet of the cultural life of a religion, it is a great fun song to listen to, and there’s a bit of a where-are-they-now mystery element to it. There’s so much to explore in just one video and that video is the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole account dedicated to the choir and more entire concerts that are available for purchase on their website! We have so much content to sort through to build the narrative we want. The best part is that it’s from 2008, so all these kids are old now. If they get famous from this we don’t have to deal with any of the pesky ethical questions about making children famous. There will be no Corn Kid cameo discourse.
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These videos both ease us into the world of the Miami Boys Choir and shocks us with the general premise. That’s the central appeal of all of this. The perceived oxymoron of the genre Orthodox Pop. Of a religious children’s choir that’s as actually fun to listen to as it probably was to be in. We all know that choir is a chance to participate in religious activity (boring) while singing (fun). The kids in choir in every religion are having fun but that often doesn’t shine through in any performance. Until now.
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The Miami Boys choir brings us a banger, in Hebrew, with all the bells and whistles of a boy band while still maintaining the aesthetics of an after school activity. They mix the dreaded performance uniform of silk dress shirt and vest with the panache of a fog machine with ease. They are taking everything we know about the Orthodox community and turning it on its head. They’re actually having fun and are giving an incredible performance.
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Part of the reason this is so fun and surprising, especially to us gentiles is because we’ve never seen a children’s choir this good before. Sure our church choirs have the technical skill but where is the pizzaz? The choreo? Christian music has its own kind of charm but it could never achieve this. There is an incredible balance struck with the Miami Boys Choir. They’ve somehow found a way to make religious music actually good and fun. Something Protestants tried and failed to do and something Catholics could achieve if the Vatican would release a disco remix of Table of Plenty.
The goal of most religious people on TikTok is promoting a kind of normalcy. They are trying to say to the audience “I may have devoted my life to my religion but I can still be fun and cool.” Some are more successful than others at convincing the world they can restrict and remove part of overarching american culture from their lives and still be happy, and most importantly, have fun. The Miami Boys Choir achieves that to an extent. It’s nice to know that at some points, communities that are devoted to the serious business of religious devotion they were actually having fun in a way that seems real to outsiders. Religious people don’t have to prove themselves to us but it’s nice when our interests align, especially coming from their side first. If nothing else, we can all have a little fun with it.
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Unfortunately, every time something interesting happens on TikTok, a large group of people takes it upon themselves to declare how weird they are for liking it. “This sound isn’t even viral” “No one In my life knows what I’m talking about” “I don’t know about any of the drama, only this weird thing"” These people are always the worst part of any trend. The true normies. The rest of us can tell that they’re new to this whole internet thing. A yeshiva boys choir going viral is like the most normal thing on the internet right now. It’s a fun human interest story. There’s a lot to explore and learn and find entertainment in. It makes sense that it’s viral. We’re on TikTok because we want to see things the dominant culture will never serve us. While the dominant culture would never serve us this, it’s not enough notches away to be truly weird. It's designed to be popular and interesting among the Orthodox community, it’s no wonder that it can go beyond and be popular and interesting among the rest of us. They put on a good show and no matter your background, we like when things have high production value.
I want to revel in this as long as it lasts but I know that will not be long. No internet trend is built to last and no one knows how to be normal. The understanding that one would think is a prerequisite for enjoying this often comes late and next week people will learn more about the basic tenets of Orthodox Judaism or one of the boys will post something problematic or people will start being anti semitic. It’ll be over before it even started. For now, We can treat them like they’re the newest iteration of BTS. We can have our factions and our favorites (I started Team David like everyone, but now I’m more of a C. Abromowitz girl). But just like one’s time in the Miami Boys Choir itself, we’re on a time limit. While we were once like young Binyomin, in a week's time we will be just like Yoshi. Jaded, over it, ready to move on.
Let those boys sing!