Monday Music: Balkan Beat Goes On

Image by Courtesy of Balkan Beat Box
Crossposted from Haaretz
The penultimate song on “Give,” Balkan Beat Box’s new album, is poignantly titled “Enemy in Economy.” This light and humorous song mocks the varying suspicions that Americans harbor toward non-Americans, and in effect takes a stand against xenophobia.

Image by Courtesy of Balkan Beat Box
“Enemy in Economy” ends with a sort of musical pan of the length of a passenger plane. The band’s soloist, Tomer Yosef, repeats the lyrics, “First class, business class, enemy sitting in economy class.” At one point, the word “sitting” is replaced with “dancing.” A rollicking racket ensues and the listener can’t help but visualize America’s “enemies” — that is, anyone whose skin isn’t white, and whose accent isn’t perfect — dancing in the aisles, celebrating their terribly foreign and suspicious nature, and singing along with Yosef, who of course is himself one of the enemies, what with his dark skin and Israeli accent.
This song not only expresses Balkan Beat Box’s humanist spirit, but also reflects to some extent the Israeli trio’s impressive trajectory durig the past decade, as well as the status it has won in the international arena. Yosef, Tamir Muskat and Ori Kaplan formulated the sound and approach of Balkan Beat Box early in the last decade and have succeeded in gaining a surprising foothold in the American and European markets — and all that in the period of great suspicion after September 11.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.