In ‘King of Shlock’ documentary, an Orthodox rocker tries to parody like it’s 1999

Lenny Solomon was a rebellious youth. But the start of his four-decade career in the music business was the opposite of the typical rockstar story.

“I wanted to be an accountant, but my father wanted me to go to The Juilliard School and become a musician,” Solomon laughed during a recent interview with The Times of Israel. “But I didn’t listen, and I studied accounting against his wishes. Only later on, when it became clear that I wasn’t going to be a great accountant, did I jump into music full time.”

Since he made that decision in the late 1980s, Solomon has put together a career that spans 42 albums of Jewish music and nearly 2,000 live shows for audiences around the world with his band, Shlock Rock. A new documentary about his career, “The King of Shlock,” will be shown on May 22 at the prestigious DocAviv documentary film festival.

If you’ve never heard of Solomon or Shlock Rock, you are not alone. Far from producing chart-toppers, the band gained a niche following decades ago by taking radio hits and changing the lyrics to match Jewish themes (think Weird Al with a kippah and tzitzit). Despite struggling to make it as an Israeli star, he has soldiered on, with the documentary capturing his indefatigable quest to bring joy through music.

Shmuel Elmaleh, the son of a neighbor and a student at the Maale Film School in Jerusalem, approached Solomon with the idea for the film in 2019, and “he basically followed me around for two years,” Solomon said.

“He remembered me from concerts I used to do at his camp when he was a kid, and wanted to film me for a school project,” he added.

The 26-minute film that came out of the collaboration was introduced at a festival at Maale in 2024, where it was awarded best short by the school’s judges.

“Originally, the movie was going to be an homage to Lenny’s career,” Elmaleh told The Times of Israel. “But as I spent more time with him, it became more and more personal. The way he opened up about his struggles as a creator really resonated with the audience. One secular actress came up to me in tears after the screening, saying that she has the same exact challenges.”

Unexpected success

Shlock Rock isn’t well known around the world, even in many Jewish circles, but the band’s music was iconic for Orthodox Jews living in North America during the 1980s and 90s. The band is best known for its Jewish parodies of popular music, with hits like “We’ve Got a Strong Desire” (based on Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire“), “Achashverosh” (based on Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus“), “Abarbanel” (based on the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann“), and “Rashi” (based on The Association’s Windy).

Its most enduring hit, though, is an original single, “Minyan Man.”

A New York native, Solomon formed Shlock Rock in 1987, and his first album, “Learning is Good,” was an instant sensation, he said.

“All of a sudden, the phone started ringing off the hook, and this became a full-time job without me even trying,” Solomon recalled. “I did my first shows in Canada in September 1987, and all of a sudden, over the next decade, I found myself doing 100 concerts a year in Jewish communities everywhere, including all 50 states. I didn’t do any market research beforehand, like producers do today. I just put out an album and started touring.”

Meanwhile, Solomon found time to get married in 1992. Four years later, he and his wife moved to Israel, making good on a promise he’d made in a parody of a Bruce Springsteen classic: “I was born in the USA/ but I’m making aliyah today.”

“It took 10 years from when I made that song until I moved to Israel,” Solomon said. “The important thing was that I had a plan, and I did it.”

Career changes

Solomon kept putting out new albums after he arrived at his new home in Beit Shemesh, and continued to tour throughout the US, though attendance and sales numbers were starting to decline. He experimented with different styles, including Hasidic albums in Hebrew for Israeli audiences.

“I tried becoming an Israeli music star, but it didn’t really work,” Solomon recalled. “My American accent was a big part of it.”

But after he played his original song “Ani Yehudi” (I am a Jew) at a concert in 2004, a woman approached him with an offer. “She said she wanted to pay for me to produce it in a bigger way.”

Solomon approached Yehuda Katz, a prominent figure in the religious music scene, and he brought in Kobi Oz, the secular lead singer of the popular Israeli rock band Teapacks. Oz recruited other Israeli music stars, reworked the lyrics and a video was shot over three days.

“We had artists that were religious, secular, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Israeli, and American,” Solomon recalled. “It may have been the first ‘We Are the World’ type song in Israel, although we got a lot of flak for not including any female soloists for religious reasons. You can’t please everyone.”

Another Shlock Rock album, “Shabbat in Liverpool,” sets traditional Shabbat prayers to the tune of 27 Beatles songs. “That one was very well received, but it took a long time to get the rights to make it,” Solomon noted. “There are legal differences between parodies, adaptations and covers of songs, and it took five years to get a copyright ruling to produce it in Israel.”

Staying relevant

At 64, the father of four and grandfather to two continues to create music today. A recent health problem hospitalized him for nearly four months, but he is recovering nicely at home, he said.

He still writes new music, and he puts out a podcast. His dream is to produce a musical he has written based on the biblical book of Daniel, and is currently looking for investors.

Backed by a social team, the failed CPA is working to stay relevant in a market that has changed a lot since he started playing in the 1980s.

“People look at me as a grandfather in this field, but the truth is, I’m just standing on the shoulders of amazing artists that came before me,” he said. “I look at the young people making great Jewish music today, and they tell me they grew up listening to my music. They are taking my work forward in different directions. It’s a very special feeling.”