12 | MARCH 16 • 2023 

emotional way. 
I recently listened to an 
album by a band called 
Scarcity. It caught my 
attention because it was 
called Aveilut, the Hebrew 
word for morning. 
The lead musician is a 
Jewish person from West 
Virginia. I emailed him 
about how much it meant to 
me during my own periods 
of mourning. He responded 
in a very kind way, which I 
found to be the norm with 
most of the extreme metal 
musicians I reached out to.
One of the reasons I reach 
out to these musicians is not 
just to tell them how much 
I enjoy their work, but also 
to figure out whether they 
are racist or antisemitic or 
antisemitic adjacent, which 
brings me to the most 
complicated of extreme 
metal, which is black metal.
Black metal is raw, 
shrieking, lo-fi and often 
based in mythology and 
folklore, but which can 
often be about national 
pride or nationalism. It can 
be the deepest of all the 
kinds of metal, and most 
emotional, but also the most 
problematic. 
I have had some cringy 
conversations with 

musicians who came 
from the same region 
as my father, but whose 
grandfathers were on 
very different sides of the 
Holocaust. It was interesting 
and often horrifying to hear 
their viewpoints. Let’s just 
say I did not buy the albums. 
Some of this black metal is 
among the most beautifully 
cathartic music I have ever 
heard, and some of it is 
like the Richard Wagner 
of metal, brilliant and 
powerful, but best avoided.
One of the odd quirks 
about black metal is how 
many bands use Kabbalistic 
imagery in their music. 
There are bands called 
Gevurah and Azazel, 
neither of which is Jewish, 
but whose members are 
fascinated by Jewish arcana.
Israel has a thriving metal 
scene and has bands that 
deal with the Holocaust, the 
Middle East and the Torah. 
Some of the more prominent 
are Orphaned Land, Arallu, 
Melechesh and Betzefer. 
One of my favorite metal 
blogs is written by an Israeli 
academic and is called 
Machine Music. Other 
excellent ones are Angry 
Metal Guy and Heavy Blog 
is Heavy.

One of my favorite metal 
experiences was going with 
Hazzan Daniel Gross to see 
Rammstein in concert at 
the Palace in Auburn Hills. 
I am pretty sure we were 
the only Jewish clergy there. 
Rammstein is a band from 
Germany that wrestles with 
what it means to be German 
today and only sings in 
German. They are incredibly 
loud and even more skilled, 
and it was fantastic. It was 
also the only concert I went 
to that started exactly on 
time.
I have found so many 
people in the extreme metal 
world to be thoughtful, 
kind, broken, helpful and 
just lovely. Very few of them 
even cover their expenses 
and almost all of them work 
full-time jobs. They do it for 
connection and community. 
I am too old for the mosh 
pit, but there is something 
in this music that lifts me 
out my sadness by making 
me sit fully in my emotions 
until my soul lifts, and for 
that I am grateful. 

Rabbi Aaron Bergman is a spiritual 

leader at Adat Shalom Synagogue in 

Farmington Hills.

JONAS ROGOWSKI/WIKIPEDIA

Rammstein 
performing in 
August 2013

letters

Paul Gross Is a 
Mensch

I have known Paul Gross 
for many years. We first met 
when we worked together at 
WDIV-TV in the late ’80s. 
This was a time before the 
internet, phone weather apps 
and 24/7 access to weather 
radar. At that time, people 
depended on television and 
radio for their weather fore-
casts. Viewers had no idea 
how talented a meteorologist 
Paul Gross was. Channel 4 
had a great weather team, 
and Paul was the substance 
behind their weather fore-
casting on both sides of the 
camera. 
At that time, many of the 
on-camera weather presenters 
were not meteorologists. Paul 
ably backed them up each day 
and was at his best in severe 
weather situations. Paul was 
an invaluable member of the 
WDIV-TV and outlasted 
hundreds of other people over 
the past 40 years. 
He also organized our sta-
tion’s bowling and softball 
teams. He has a great sense 
of humor and would always 
answer an anxious parent’s 
question with aplomb about 
the weather forecast for their 
child’s bar mitzvah date five 
years in the future. 
As an attorney, I have 
worked with Paul as an 
expert, and he brings the 
same ebullience and compe-
tence he has brought to view-
ers for the past 40 years on 
air. I look forward to working 
with him for many years in 
the future.

— Joshua Lerner

Huntington Woods

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