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