Re: Ari Davidow as an authority

[the Cheshire Cat <alanacat...>]

Perhaps since (as you say) you are not a Jew, you might not be aware that
there is in Judaism a principle not to embarrass people publicly.
Criticism should be aimed at improving a person,and done privately. A post
in which one refers to a peson as "stupid," "foolhardy,""incompetent" and
so forth could hardly be considered helpful. From a more secular point of
view, calling people names isn't likely to get you your goal which (I
think) to change a policy or a situation.
        Indeed, although I had nothing to do with your uh-criticism, I
felt offended myself by reading it.
        Pehaps you should consider apologising to Ari for your tone, and
try to restate the post in such a way that somthing useful could be made
from it - perhaps a concrete suggestion would be useful.
        Even if Ari were all those things you say, it would hardly be
helpful to announce it publicly, and I think there is quite a bit of room
for disagreement with your characterizations. Indeed, I think that they're
wrong.

Alana Suskin 

On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, Ingemar Johansson wrote:

> Dear friends of  Jewish music:
> 
> I would like to draw your attention to the issue of  Ari Davidow's 
> position as an authority on Jewish music, and the responsibility that
> follows herewith.
> 
> First, I'm grateful to Ari that he has drawn my attention to a lot of Klez
> that is unknown in that nook of mine in western Sweden. He apparently knows
> a lot about traditional Klezmer, and in this respect he has made it
> possible for me to find some fascinating music.
> 
> Nevertheless, there is a flaw which I've grown more and more aware of. When
> it comes to musical genres and/or experiments that Ari is not really
> familiar with; he tries to uphold his position of authority rather than
> realize that he is actually skating on a very thin ice. This I find as
> outright foolhardy as that very act itself. I will give you a few examples.
> 
> In Ari's reviews of Anthony Coleman and John Zorn, for example, it's
> painfully clear that he doesn't know what he is talking about. In this
> <reviews> there is almost nothing substantial on  _the music_ - just a lot
> of wordshitting about the possible connections between a Jewish descent and
> experimental music. Nothing wrong about this if these pieces of composition
> were intended as essays on things cross-cultural, but they are not. They
> are presented as _critical_ reviews of the _music_! Unintentionally, I
> reckon,  Ari Davidow states that he is unqualified to review this records.
> It would have been better if he had left those discs to someone else or
> frankly admitted that he was incompetent.
> 
> I'm also surprised by the fact that an <authority> like Ari is unaware of
> the Austrian group Gojim, especially as this group is quite well-known in
> Europe, mainly - I think - due to the fact that their first CD >Ess firt
> kejn weg zurik> (Jewish songs from the ghetto of Vilna - Extraplatte EX 139
> CD) was made in collaboration with the Simon Wiesenthal Institute. Here,
> too, mr Davidow is very evasive when in comes to musical criticism, but
> what really surprises me is the very fact that he declares that he himself,
> _the_ authority of  Klezmer - Yiddish music per se - does NOT understand
> Yiddish! Well, I don't myself, but I'm a goy and I try to learn all the
> time, mainly because Yiddish is, in the words of Leo Rosten (<The Joys of
> Yiddish>,  W.H. Allen, London 1970)  <a language of exceptional charm> -
> tender, free, very poetic in its sounds and syntax. I have heard bourgeois
> Swedish Jews say that they are ashamed of Yiddish and the former Jewish
> culture of eastern Europe - but I hadn't expected to have to meet this
> stupid attitude on this mailing-list (this said apropos the discussion on
> "Yiddish on this list").
> 
> This leads me further, to my third example.  Ari's review of Wolf
> Krakowski's CD "Transmigrations" (Kame'a Media, KAM 7001) is scandalous, it
> almost sounds as some sort of Jewish revisionism. Ari, are you ashamed by
> the <six million>?  Or why do you keep accusing Wolf K as presenting the
> view of the victims? Did those Jews who were exterminated like vermin had
> themselves to blame? You should know, as well as I do, that the
> nazi-program was very elaborated. For an ordinary _mentsh_ living in his
> (or "her" as we say in Swedish) ordinary everyday life it should have been
> almost impossible to hold out this  scientific attack (it was no mere
> chance that Eichmann was a specialist in things Jewish). And what is left
> except for the very human worthiness of these people (who had themselves to
> blame as little as any raped woman ever has had), the poetics, the
> wonderful testimonies that Wolf Krakowski brings to our minds? Referring to
> the above-mentioned first CD by Gojim, by the way, I find the "fighting
> songs" of this CD (<Partisanenmarsch> for example) much less interesting
> than those poetic songs that _as much_ are testimonies of, yes, human
> strength (although Ari mindlessly blames Krakowski for not presenting songs
> of strong people),   <Ess is gewen a sumer-tog>, <Friling>, <Ess schlogt di
> scho> to mention a few.
> 
> Just <Friling> is one of the wonderful numbers of Krakowski's CD.
> Surprisingly or not, Ari doesn't mention the music of this CD with one
> single word, although there are some excellent musicians present, above all
>  Jim Armenti, playing guitars, mandolin, violin, bouzouki and saxophone. I
> guess that our dear <authority> on Jewish music is annoyed by the fact that
> this music is presented in an Afro-American setting. These are original
> Yiddish songs of great poetical value presented as blues, reggae, rock.
> This merging of  underdog-cultures could of course be a little irritating
> to any good middle-class American. But, nonetheless, the result deserves to
> be scrutinized by someone who knows what he is talking about.
> 
> I think Ari should take his responsibility and open his site to other
> reviewers. His position is not a sane one.
> 
> All the best,
> - Ingemar Johansson
> 

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Alana Suskin,
Mitnaggedet Mama