Veteran haredi composer Rabbi Hillel Paley on Thursday morning criticized what he calls the deterioration of music at Haredi weddings.
"The events have turned into a disco for the disturbed," Paley told Kol Hai Radio in an interview. "Weddings have become nightmares. People wait for the music to end so they can run home."
"It would be better if they sang about oranges rather than turning [holy] verses into a joke," he added, noting that "even in the general public, people prefer the original Jewish melodies over cheap imitations."
Paley’s criticism follows increasing infiltration of secular music styles into haredi events, which often include electronic music, pop, and even rap.
While the songs undergo a "conversion" and have words from the Jewish sources, the melodies and rhythms remain foreign.
In recent years, more and more social media videos have been circulating showing haredi singers performing secular and Israeli songs with "clean" lyrics at haredi weddings.