He's the Jewish Michael Jackson - so why does a group of rabbis want to ban his concert tonight? For Orthodox Jews the best-selling songs of Mordechai Ben David are too unorthodox for comfort, writes Elizabeth Day

FORGET MADONNA and her conical bras, or Eminem and his chainsaw: the latest American singer to arrive in Britain and create outrage is a 53-year-old Hassidic Jew who puts Biblical passages to music and is known as "the Michael Jackson of Jewish rock".

Britain's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has attacked the concert tonight in Manchester featuring Mordechai Ben David, from Brooklyn, New York. Orthodox rabbis have claimed that the event, dubbed "The Jerusalem Experience" and featuring popular songs with lyrics from the Torah such as Someday We Will All Be Together, is "immoral" and "a negative influence on young people".

Although the concert organisers have tried to appease the ultra- Orthodox by introducing separate entrances, seating arrangements and interval refreshments for men and women, eight rabbis from the Manchester area have signed a letter urging their congregations not to attend.

The rabbis claim that the concert would bring "a terrible negative influence" to bear on the minds of "young fans".

Mordechai Ben David is one of the world's most recognised Hassidic singers, with a career spanning 30 years...