RE: Re[2]: Der yidisher tam

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

Itskik-Leyb,


Just came upon this after writing my response and find that you 
essentially said the same thing I did.   

I would just like to say that resorting to crediting the Jewish 
essence in Jewish music as "Yidishe neshume" is too abstract and 
vague for me.   One has always heard it from both the musicians 
and the audience, but I think that we should be doing better than 
that now, especially since there so much fusion klezmer/Jewish 
going on now.  It goes on I think from lack of deep understanding 
of what makes music Jewish and that is very unfortunate.  I have 
found that certain Jewish music experts can come close to defining 
some of the basic building blocks of the music.   In listening to 
my husband Josh Waletzky describe what makes Jewish music Jewish 
or what makes klezmer music klezmer (=Jewish), he has been coming 
close to describing in measurable structural terms some of those 
elements.   It would be great if I could get him involved in any 
kind of public dialogue on this topic that he knows so well, but 
he prefers to compose and perform the music, rather than talk about 
it....  I understand that he is planning on discussing this issue 
in a workshop at Klezkanada this summer.

Anyway, when he once worked on a documentary on the music of Leonard 
Bernstein, he had me listen to one of the Norton Lectures given at
Harvard in which Lenny defined what makes American music American 
music, German music German, Russian music Russian, etc.  Among other 
things, Lenny demonstated how the intonation pattern of a language 
influences and defines its music.  Since we all know the uniqueness 
of Yiddish intonation (at this time, the great study on that is 
still waiting to be done), I think that understanding this 
correspondence is critical to understanding how to recognize/play 
Eastern European Jewish music.   

I am taking this story out context but I can't resist telling the
essence of it.  Josh once told me of how he learned the three part 
structure of a nign.   (Does anyone know this??)  Anyway, the first
part of a nign presents a question, a shayle [=query].   The second
part of a nign tries to answer the question/shayle by giving the 
"terets" in a talmudic argument style.   The third part explains how 
there is no real answer to the question and asking it is irrelevant 
anyway.   I am sure that Josh could explain this much better than I 
and can demonstrate it well, but he is too busy working on a deadline 
for a TV piece on Israel's 50th anniversary.   We'll have to wait for 
Klezkanada.


Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky




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From:  Solidarity Foundation[SMTP:svzandt (at) igc(dot)apc(dot)org]
Sent:  Tuesday, March 10, 1998 11:42 AM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant.
Subject:  Re:  Re[2]: Der yidisher tam

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