Attention - The German Thing - again!

[Joel Rubin <101454.260...>]

Berlin, 20. July 1997

Dear Jewish-Music readers, 

I am interested to see that my research topic -- the sociological function of
Yiddish music in contemporary Germany -- is coming alive on the internet via
this discussion group. 

I am a German scholar in Jewish studies, a writer, record and concert producer,
radio and print journalist, educator and photographer. I have studied in Berlin
and Jerusalem and am based in Berlin. I am, together with ethnomusicologist and
clarinetist Joel Rubin, the producer and editor of the now five-part "Jewish
Music Series" of CDs for Schott Wergo. Our three-part CD anthology ("Yikhes";
"Doyres"; "Shteygers"; Trikont, Munich) ranks as a standard work about Jewish
instrumental music ("klezmer"). Our production "Kings of Freylekh Land" with the
music of the Epstein Brothers Orchestra reached the World Music Charts in March
1997, and the eighth and most recent CD production featuring the "Joel Rubin
Jewish Music Ensemble" is the very first album with music from the collections
of Ukrainian-Jewish musicologist Moyshe Beregovski ("Beregovski's Khasene.
Forgotten Instrumental Music from the Ukraine"). 

I also initiated and organised, together with Rubin, the concert series with
traditional and popular Jewish music for the international exhibition "Juedische
Lebenswelten/Patterns of Jewish Life" (Berlin 1992), which drew approximately
5,000 visitors, and we produced a double CD with the highlights of the concerts,
which spanned a wide range of contemporary popular, traditional and liturgical
Jewish music. 

My paper presented at the "Second International Conference on Jewish Music" in
April 1997 in London ("Akh vi voyl un akh vi git, s'iz tsu zayn a yid: Yiddish
Culture as a political-ideological construction in reunited Germany"; City
University), will be included in the forthcoming conference proceedings. During
the 12th World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem on August 3, 1997 (Hebrew
University, Faculty of Humanities, room 2729, 9.00-11.00 am), I will be
presenting a paper on "The Function of Yiddish Music in the Forging of German
Identity after Reunification". This is within the framework of my dissertation
research about the sociological function of Yiddish music in present day
Germany. 

The interaction of Yiddish music and culture with German society -- both Jewish
and non-Jewish -- has a history reaching back at least to the 19th century. It
is important for the readers to realize that there are many layers involved in
this complex phenomenon, which simplified models like 'Jews coming to Germany to
perform for guilty Germans' do not serve to satisfactorily explain. 

To me as both a professional editor and producer of Yiddish music and an
academic researcher on the history and the reception of Yiddish music in Germany
it is interesting to witness how for instance marketing aspects and motivational
conflicts are turned into quasi-religious missions and ideological battles by a
lot of German groups in Germany as well as Jewish groups within and those coming
to this country. My research has shown -- to put it polemically -- that no
German has become a 'better' human being because of an abundance of klezmer and
Yiddish music, on the contrary, there are quite possibly more misunderstandings
about Jews, Jewish -- and above all Yiddish -- music and culture than before the
mid-1980s when the first groups started to come to this country. Before this,
there had been Yiddish music -- singers and groups, both Jewish and non-Jewish
-- in post-war Germany beginning already in the 1960s. 

Nobody in Germany after the Shoah would dare to criticize a poor performance of
Jewish music (and, as in all styles of music, the performances do range from
excellent to poor).This has led, then, to the syndrome which Isabelle Ganz so
eloquently described:

"Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 11:15:29 -0400 ... I had not performed in Germany for
many years, so the experience took me by surprise:  there was about two minutes
of applause for each song.  After about five  songs I began to feel that I
really didn't have to sing - I could just stand there and say "oy" and they
would applaud just as enthusiastically. They seemed to be applauding me just for
existing - or maybe just for being there, my presence implying that 'it's O.K. -
all is forgiven'.  ... Kol Tuv from Jerusalem,  Isabelle Ganz"

Notably there is growing criticism and even resentment of the klezmer movement
and shtetl nostalgia in the present-day Jewish press in Germany, whereas the
non-Jewish media virtually uniformly celebrates without any critique the
'blossoming of Jewish culture', referring largely to homegrown non-Jewish
'Yiddish' groups, some of whom even fancy themselves as bearers of the Jewish
tradition. The visiting bands and performers who are imported once or twice a
year mainly from the US to the various 'Jewish Cultural Festivals' of the major
German cities to participate in the post reunification dream of making the Shoah
forgotten and recreating (historically never existent) German-Jewish symbiosis,
very often do not know or do not want to know what is going on here. In his
recent book "Gedaechtnistheater. Die juedische Gemeinschaft und ihre deutsche
Erfindung" (Berlin 1996), the sociologist Y. Michal Bodemann has written of the
"unique German enthusiasm for klezmer music", which he sees as an example of
German identification with Jews. He continues: "As the Jews long for redemption
from exile through their collective memory, so do the Germans long for their
Zion: a land purified of blood and ashes, a land without guilt. Yet in order to
attain this, they must become Jews in their own consciousness".  

 I find it also interesting that a lot of Jewish performers who come to Germany
seem to be apologetic towards certain questionable facts within the Yiddish
music scene here, which I see as a German from a much more critical standpoint.
Isn't it exactly these people that Germany needs now, the institutionalized
Jewish forgivers and apologists and the German bearers of Jewish traditions who
act as living proof that Yiddish culture is 'alive and well' in Germany? 

On the other hand Joel Rubin and I are doing work here that would probably not
have been possible in any other country. We work with the renowned publishing
house Schott Music International, where we produce and edit our Jewish Music
Series, and where Joel is bringing out his first book with klezmer music. We
have done over 40 feature radio programs (45 min. - 3 hours in length including
several national broadcasts) on various aspects of Jewish music for German
radio. We were able to make a feature-length documentary film about the Epstein
Brothers ("A Tickle in the Heart", 1996). It was also a German cultural
institution which enabled us to invite the Epstein Brothers to Europe in
February 1992 (their first concert ever outside of the United States!) to take
part in the musical program of the international exhibition "Juedische
Lebenswelten" (Berlin Festival Organization). We have worked with the Epsteins
since 1991 and produced and recorded two CDs with them (Zeydes and Eyniklekh and
Kings of FreylekhLand). All of this took place at a time when none of the
American institutions, not even Jewish institutions, showed any interest in the
life and work of the Epstein Brothers (not even in Florida, where they have
resided for the past 25 years). No American label was willing to pick up our two
productions of music with the Epstein Brothers, not even the Smithsonian. Now
the Epsteins have been nominated for a National Heritage Award from the NEA. 

To speak in more general terms, the current second wave of the American klezmer
revival which has been going on since the late 1980s would quite likely not have
been possible without the support of the German audience, and of German money.
Groups like the Klezmatics and Joel's former group Brave Old World would likely
not have accomplished what they have in America without having first established
themselves in Germany, having been supported there by German record companies,
booking agencies, media, and cultural institutions - Jewish and non-Jewish
alike. The German -- and European --  audiences, whatever their underlying
motivations are (and they ARE complex), have proved to be open to just about any
kind of Yiddish music, ranging from the Joel Rubin Jewish Music Ensemble and its
Beregovski project to the New Klezmer Trio and everything in between: Don Byron
and his Mickey Katz project, Giora Feidman, Klezmatics, New Klezmer Trio, John
Zorn, Brave Old World, etc.

I recommend everybody to come here and play the best Jewish music that they can,
but to keep their eyes open and remain critical. 

Sincerely,

Rita Ottens

101454(dot)260 (at) compuserve(dot)com (only until 29 July)
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