DECEMBER 26 • 2019 | 5

letters

‘
Jewish Radio Hour’
This fan of radio loved your
articles about Dovid Nissan
Roetter’
s King David Network
and Mike Smiths “Jewish
Radio in Detroit History.
” The
evolution of broadcast media is
fascinating.

I was a bit mystified that
Smith did not mention Rabbi
Herschel Finman’
s “Jewish
Radio Hour,
” running here for
24 years, now also available in
podcast format. I think your
readers should know about it
if they don’
t already. It’
s worth

a listen. It’
s on Sundays from
11 a.m.-noon on WLQV 1500
AM, 92.7 FM, and streaming
at faithtalkdetroit.com.

Yehudis Brea

Oak Park

Views

T

here are many songs
and ditties about a
number of animals out
there: five little
ducks, five little
monkeys, three
blind mice.
In some
tunes, the ani-
mals have all
kinds of unusual
experiences: The
cow jumped over the moon,
a white-fleeced lamb went to
school with Mary, this little
piggie went shopping while this
one sat down to what sounded
like a delicious dinner and
even the charming old weasel
goes … pop!
There are even songs
about insects: The “
Ants Go
Marching One by One.
” “The
“Itsy-Bitsy Spider.
” “There was
an Old Lady who Swallowed
a Fly.
”
Move over tame animals,
we’
re celebrating the world
of prey now; the latest ditty
that’
s won the hearts of folks
everywhere is the “Baby Shark
Song.
”
Although it seems to have
popped out of nowhere and is
suddenly everywhere you turn,
its actually been around for a
while. It began as a camp song
back in the 1900s, which grad-
uated to a rather dark German
song called “Kleiner Hai” by

Alemuel. It was later
translated to English but
remained rather depress-
ing. In most early ver-
sions, people’
s limbs were eaten
one by one. Not too surprising,
it didn’
t catch on with kids.
After years of obscurity,
in 2015, Pinkfong, a South
Korean media company that
produces videos for kids,
refurbished this old ditty. They
added some bright colors,
threw in a couple of cute kids
and gave it a nice happily ever
after, not to mention a beat so
catchy parents find themselves
still singing it long after their
kids have fallen asleep.
Its YouTube clip has been
viewed more than 4 billion
times. (Anyone with young
kids will probably say, “
A few
thousand of those views were
from my house alone.
”) For
comparison sake, Kidscreen
says the most watched
YouTube kids’
video of 2019
was Cocomelon’
s “This is the
Way” — and that was only
viewed 128 million times.
Story has it that Pinkfong
really wanted to use the theme
music from Jaws as the open-
ing bars for the song, but
because it didn’
t have the rights
to it, it instead used the similar
sounding Dvorak’
s New World
Symphony. So not only is this
mindless 17-word ditty about
a family of hungry sharks the

most popular tune of 2019, but
kids everywhere are even hear-
ing a few unintentional sec-
onds of classical music, which
is supposed to be beneficial for
growing brains.
But you know how it goes:
One good craze deserves
another. Soon after the Family
of Sharks made its worldwide
splash, Baby Shark challenges
started popping up all over the
place. First it was the rather
tame “challenge” of copying
the simple dance moves that
somehow morphed into the act
of dancing dressed like a shark
alongside a moving car. (Is it
just me or does hearing about
“challenges” like that make
you want to invite these people
over to tackle something really
challenging — and, needless to
say, infinitely safer — like your
mountain of dirty laundry?)
Here we are enjoying the
last few days of 2019. To put it
another way: “It’
s the end doo
doo doo doo…!”
Who can predict what’
s in
store for us in the coming year,
what’
s going to go viral and
what’
s not?
Bring on 2020 and all its
new crazes.
Happy New Year!

Rochel
Burstyn

for starters
Sound Bite:
Baby Shark Song

Baby Shark

Media Matters for America,
a nonprofit media watchdog,
examined press coverage of
anti-Semitism in the 11 months
following the Tree of Life syn-
agogue massacre, the deadliest
attack on American Jews in this
country.
Despite the reality of anti-Se-
mitic acts perpetuated by far-
right white supremacists as well
as Donald Trump and other
Republicans “weaponizing”
charges of anti-Semitism by
expressing outrage over com-
ments perceived as anti-Semitic
from Democratic lawmakers,
Media Matters’
data has found
that the media has focused
more on perceived anti-Semitic
rhetoric — particularly from
the left — than on discussing
anti-Semitic actions, such as
shootings and acts of violence,
from the right.
Key findings include:
• Across all media studied,
more references to anti-Sem-
itism were attributed to the
left — 56 percent — than to the
right — 44 percent.
• Regardless of political attri-
bution to the reference, media
have focused on anti-Semitic
rhetoric far more than anti-Se-
mitic actions: 1,406 of all ref-
erences to anti-Semitism were
about rhetoric, and 525 instanc-
es were about actions.
• Fox News accounted for 57
percent of all anti-Semitic rhet-
oric attributed to the left, but
even without Fox, media still
referred to rhetoric from the left
slightly more than anti-Semitic
actions from the right: 37 per-
cent to 35 percent, respectively.
The full survey is available at
mediamatters.org.

Study: Media Covers
anti-Semitic Rhetoric
More than Actions