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RE: Re[4]: Der yidisher tam
- From: Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>
- Subject: RE: Re[4]: Der yidisher tam
- Date: Tue 31 Mar 1998 23.36 (GMT)
Still on March 10th....
>And I can listen to Kol nidre from literally dozens of communities and they're
>all similar. so we can find a common consensus underlying them. If one set
>of
>Jews basis nusach on eg the doina, and virtually NO other community does,
>doesn't that say something about the melody? IE that it's likely it was a
>local
>adaptation...
Adaptation from what?
It could be a local innovation or it could be a local Jewish innovation
or a local Jewish hybrid. You also have to know that Romanian and
Hungarian Jews lived under Moslem Ottoman rule for at least 150 years
and then parts of this territory became part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. Jews played a critically important role and enjoyed great
political, cultural, and economic freedom under the Ottomans. Travel
and movement was very easy for them throughout this enormous and powerful
empire and we really don't know of everything they brought and where.
As for why some things didn't travel northward, e.g., Poland and
Lithuania, I can say that you can't expect the kind of dissemination
across these culturally and politically warring borders as you would
expect within a homogenous Christian society, as e.g., Central
Poland. (BTW, the Ukraine was under Polish rule for a very, very
long time too. The Ottoman Empire at one point extended to the very
borders of Poland.) For Polish, Lithuanian, and Bielo-Russian Jews,
whose territories were not influenced by this very different,
non-Christian Turkish culture, doinas may have sounded too "Greek",
too "Turkish" or too "oriental" or too "different" to adopt, even if
this would have been a totally Jewish creation. There is little that
I have seen that was adopted outright as a whole from the southern
territories. There was tremendous resistance to many things that
Rumanian Jews had already adapted/developed as folkways. Yiddish
theater, which developed in Romania and from there traveled everywhere
else, is a prominent, even stellar exception, but remember the trouble
Goldfaden had with the music of his first plays - something worth
analyzing here. On the other hand, if you look at the history of
tomatoes and eggplant, mamelige, etc. (which came up from the same
Southern region), including the awful controversy about tomatoes
became unkosher, you would see what I mean.
The reason for a cultural pattern being the same across all borders -
(1) It may have emanated from one single source.
(2) It may have emanated from one single source and was not allowed
to be changed in any way. The rabbis may have wanted the same
supplications from all Jewish communities at the same time during Yom
Kippur and Rosh Hashana.
(3) It usually means that the dissemination is too recent for variations
to have arisen, but since we know that Kol nidre is very old, this
can't be the reason here.
(Are you sure that the same nign is also extant in Italiani service?
Yemini and Indian too? I tend to doubt it, but I really don't know.)
But the converse of this is not necessarily true. The rabbis may
have insisted in this case that form be as immutable as the content,
but that does not necessarily mean that if you find local variations,
the original did not emanate from a single source and a Jewish one at
that. Furthermore, there are millions of examples of certain ancient
forms disappearing from its original location and then reappearing in
displaced communities elsewhere, including the whole Sefardic and Yiddish
language and culture. That's why Germanists love to study Yiddish.
They want to know what used to exist in Medieval or old German or old
Germanic dialects and was then transplanted into Eastern European
territory, but for one reason or another not retained by the developing
Modern German. Quite often, Jews picked up some cultural pattern or
skill in local territory A, took it with them to territory B, while some
other form either arose or was adapted in territory A once the Jews left.
We can even see many examples of this in Eastern Europe today now that
the Jews have left.
As Itsik-Leyb already mentioned, there was also a whole Slavic Jewry
that entered Eastern Europe from the East way before Yiddish-speaking
Western Jews migrated there. They spoke what is referred to today as
"Slavonic". We know little of their cultural ways. There was a
prominent migration from Asia and the Caucasus during 800-1200 AD but
we also know that there were very active mercantile Jewish communities
in Southern Europe before 100 AD. We know little about the cultural
ways of either of these communities, neither do we recognize remnants
today. Sefardic and even contemporary Middle-Eastern culture are
limited in informing us about the distinctive features in folkways of
these Jewish communities.
I am not insisting that Jews created or introduced doinas to the
region. I am saying that from the facts that you are presenting,
nothing can be known. The fact is that Armenians and Greeks also
played an important role in Ottoman mercantile life and they could
have made important contributions to the music in this region,
however, we also know that they don't remain in this area as a
distinctive ethnic element and the Jews do. There must be some
important reasons for that. Since this more southern region has
never been my territory of study, I don't know enough about its
history to be more specific. (I am hoping to go with prominent
folklorist Dov Noy on a tour to Moldavia and Bukovina this summer
(June 30-July 6) and hope to learn a lot.
There is another argument here which is very important. Polish
and Russian territories were among the very last in Europe to end
feudalism. Few people today remember how dark and dismal the life
of a peasant/serf was and what cultural services Jews performed in
this economic system. The Church always wanted the credit for
the cultural contributions Jews made in the lives of the masses
and made sure the Jews got blamed for whatever went wrong. Don't
expect the true history of the contributions Jews made to be told soon
from within these territories, even after 50 years of Communism ended.
Another important factor when it comes to music in the Romanian-
Hungarian territory is the role played by the Gypsies and the
stimulation such a cultural exchange afforded Jews in the realm of
music. I say this because it's my impression that there was a
greater proportion of gypsies in these territories than in Poland
and Lithuania. I really have never seen comparative figures for the
Gypsy population across these territories, and so this only my
impression. I hope someone who knows the facts corrects me on this
if I am wrong.
Anyone can do folk etymology, but only hard-nosed multi-disciplinary,
cross-linguistic, and cross-cultural research can reveal the answers
to the issues raised here. A tremendous amount of hope was placed
on one young expert on Jewish languages, including the Eurasian ones,
Dr. Paul Wexler, who could have theoretically told us lots of
interesting things, but he, unfortunately, went off his rocker and
has claimed in the last 6 years that both Hebrew and Yiddish are
Slavic languages. Not too much credibility is left in his scientific
methodologies after his last two books. There are now several
research projects going on around the Crimea which we hope will reveal
lots of interesting material about early Jewish life in this region.
Understanding cultural borrowing, adaptation, hybridization, and
creativity is very complicated. We all know that etymology is the
oldest Jewish sport, but the fact is that it is really unproductive
to try to guess at things from the limited perspective American Jews
have. To do this properly you need to intensely study diachronic
histories of each territory within a continent if not a whole region
or the world. There are people who are doing that already. Then
will come other experts who will analyze their evidence and then we
will all know. I wish we could apply the bread and khale analogy
to Jewish music but we just can't. It doesn't work like that. I
also don't think that pumpernickel bread is distinctly Jewish, but
Jews were probably the ones to introduce it to America. They should
get some credit for that, but then I don't know what role they played
in either Western or Eastern Europe vis-a-vis pumpernickel. Since
baking is a craft, and Jews were the craftsmen, they had to play an
important role in European society, especially in feudal societies
and Poland and the Ukraine were feudal till very late. Now a more
controversial matter is who introduced round khales to whom in the
Ukraine? No time for this discussion and it won't help with the
doina question anyway.
Yes, you are safe in saying that kharoyses is Jewish, but what you
don't know is that Jews in different regions used different products
to make their Jewish kharoyses. I happen to have about 22+ different
kharoyses recipes from different communities around the world and we
can all say that they are Jewish and pasty.
I strongly suggest that we read the works of Mark Slobin, Albert
Weisser, Chana Mlotek, and many other ethnomusicologists. In fact, I
hope to be setting up THE definitive Yiddish web site for YiddishNet,
my Yiddish news and information news service and hope to collect as
many excellent academic papers on Yiddish music as possible. These
papers will, of course, also be available at Ari's klezmer site. So,
if you have any ascii versions of any such pertinent works, please
let me know about it. But please don't send me anything yet.
Remember, think eggplants. They are a good analogy to the doinas.
Please forgive my grammar. Don't have time to edit myself.
Writing to support my friend Itsik-Leyb who has had to nebekh carry
the whole scholarly perspective alone on this list. You know, Richard,
he is write in everything he has written.
Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
YiddishNet
----------
From: richard_wolpoe (at) ibi(dot)com[SMTP:richard_wolpoe (at) ibi(dot)com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 1998 5:02 PM
To: World music from a Jewish slant.
Subject: Re[4]: Der yidisher tam
Well I can say the following:
Pierogy is a Polish word. I don't knwo who got it from whom.
I DO know that gefilte fish has a halahci imperative, that is not separting
bones on Shabbos.
Same for cholent, having soemthing warm on the oven from before Shabbos.
I cannot separate what is purely jewish from what is purely Eastern European,
BUT, I can look at other customes an note that sepharadim do not have cholent
but they do have chamin!
And I can listen to Kol nidre from literally dozens of communities and they're
all similar. so we can find a common consensus underlying them. If one set of
Jews basis nusach on eg the doina, and virtuallly NO other community does,
doesn't that say something about the melody? IE that it's likely it was a local
adaptation...
There are no hard and fast rules. And I do not totally agree with my Polsih
gentile friends either. But pumpernickel bread is not originally Jewish nor lox
nor herring etc. Charoses is. Get it/
Freilichen Purim
Rich
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Der yidisher tam
Author: <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org > at Tcpgate
Date: 3/10/98 11:42 AM
On Mon, 9 Mar 1998 12:03:28 -0500, Rich Wolpoe wrote:
Mozart and all the rest borrowed extensivly from folk music. So does
our liturgy. A number of Polish Gentiles have told me that what we pas of
as jewish is merely Eastern European stuff. From pierogies, to blintses,
etc. etc. So that yiddisher taam that wells our eyes with nostalgia might
actually refelct more the Eastern European milieu more than anything
intrinsically Jewish.
Reply: I'm singling out this statement, Rich, because it's such a perfect
illustration of misunderstanding the importance of _minhog_. in the
definition of Judaism. Let me first repeat something I wrote in the
"Klezmer Trumpet" discussion , 26 Jan 1998. Reyzl had noted:
:Some non-Jews in Balkan countries to this day hear Jewish and call it
Balkan, unable or unwilling to see anything distinctively Jewish or
different about it."
The essence of my reply was, what's unique about it, ultimately, is the
yidishe neshume , or what I'm calling here der yidishe tam (Jewish taste,
or aesthetic). Aside from the fact that when you're talking about food,
halakha, kashrus, has greatly influenced the food. I can't recall any
traditional Jewish pork dishes, but there are lots of Polish ones.
We ought to get over this complex that Jews borrow culture from everyone
else, but no one else borrows culture from Jews, or that other cultures
don't borrow from other cultures.
It is a historic fact, that when Christianity first was adopted in Rudssia
at the end of the 10th century A.D., there were already extensive Jewish
settlements in southern Russia, including the city of Kiev. The oldest
known Polish coins have writing in Hebrew letters on them -- not because
they were Jews, but because that was the only writing the Poles had at
that time.
So when you write:
"A number of Polish Gentiles have told me that what we pas of
as jewish is merely Eastern European stuff. From pierogies, to blintses,
etc. etc. So that yiddisher taam that wells our eyes with nostalgia might
actually refelct more the Eastern European milieu more than anything
intrinsically Jewish." I wonder what "intrinsically Jewish" could possibly
mean to you. Even the halakhic tradition of the East European Jews is
specific to the historical development of Jewish life IN EASTERN EUROPE.
Who suddenly made these Polish Gentiles meyvinim on the yidishn tam,
that I should accept their judgment that it is "merely Eastern European
stuff"? over my own, which is from my family and culture. On the one
hand, yes it is part of the east European cultural milieu, as with any
other people from Eastern Europe. We're not from Mars, you know. On the
other hand, that "merely" sounds like the typically antisemitic or
Jewish self-hatred thing of, of "Oh, you people have no culture." There
may not be any ONE Jewish culture, any more than there is ONE Christian
culture, but there certainly are Jewish cultures, and on the Jewish
Music List I don't think it would be inappropriate to encourage people
to learn as much as thye can about the particular culture they happen to
come from.
Itzik-Leyb
- Re: Der yidisher tam, (continued)
- Re: Der yidisher tam,
Solidarity Foundation
- Re: Re[5]: Der yidisher tam,
Solidarity Foundation
- Re: Re[5]: Der yidisher tam,
Solidarity Foundation
- Re[7]: Der yidisher tam,
richard_wolpoe
- Re: Re[7]: Der yidisher tam,
Solidarity Foundation
- RE: Der yidisher tam,
Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
- RE: Re[2]: Der yidisher tam,
Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
- RE: Re[2]: Der yidisher tam,
Kevin Cohen
- Re[4]: Der yidisher tam,
richard_wolpoe
- RE: Re[4]: Der yidisher tam,
Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
- RE: Der yidisher tam,
Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
- RE: Re[2]: Der yidisher tam,
Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
- Re[2]: Der yidisher tam,
richard_wolpoe
- Re[6]: Der yidisher tam,
richard_wolpoe
- Re[2]: Der yidisher tam,
richard_wolpoe
- RE: Re[4]: Der yidisher tam,
Paul M. Gifford