Re: Germans and Klezmer (and Italy)

[Francesco Spagnolo <yuval...>]

Here in Italy, "klezmer" is very popular, too.

It started being popularized in the late eighties by Moni Ovadia, a 
Bulgarian born Sephardi, now in his fifties, who began his carreer 
within the "international folk music revival" of the 60's and 70's. 
By the mid 90's, his version of the "klezmer revival" became quite a 
"mass" phenomenon in the country, hitting the medias and gaining the 
attention of a young, politicized (= left wing) public.

Although the sterotype of "Italiani brava gente" (= Italians, the 
good people) has been put in perspective during the past few years, 
and the involvement of Italy in the Holocaust has become much 
clearer, it is somehow true that a radical form of antisemitism did 
not find a concrete hold within the country. This is probably due to 
the fact that Italian Jews were extremely "Italian": they spoke the 
same language (even the local dialects: read Primo Levi, in "The 
Periodic Table", to learn more about this), shared the same culture; 
and at the same time their Judaism had already been part of the local 
histories and folklore since a very early epoch.
Jews wanted to be Italian, but (unlike the Jews in Germany) did not 
experience any pressure to assimilate. They had no "Ostjuden" to 
remind them of the shtetl: there was no shtetl to look back at, and 
the Italian ghettos had been extremely active places in every 
cultural and economic field for centuries (until 1848,when they were 
abolished, and Jews allowed to emancipate).

Nowadays, the "image of the Jew" is being popularized via klezmer 
music. And klezmer music is associated with the shtetl, with  the 
myth of the "wandering Jew", with a certain "foreigness", a peculiar 
"unheimlichkeit". Several (mostly, non-Ashkenazi) Jews follow this 
form of popularization as well as most non-Jews.

Needless to say, no traditional klezmer musician has ever set foot in 
Italy to play his music.

People here are in love with the music -- and I do not see any reason 
why they should not be: it is very often (not always) good music, and 
it also incarnates many virtues that are usually attributed to "world 
music", and that are now seen as extremely positive, such as 
"traditionalism", "identity", "antiquity" and "transnationalism". 
Klezmer is definitely seen as a positive example of cross-culturalism 
(an issue which is relatively new to this country).
But people here are also in love with the fact that they can finally 
identify the Jews. In colloquial (and mediatic) Italian, the word 
"Yiddish" has almost already become a synonim for "Jewish", or 
"Hebrew". Through klezmer music, Jews finally "look" Jewish, "speak" 
Jewish, and produce distinctively "Jewish" art and culture. What a 
relief!

Within the Italian klezmer revival, it can be said that the music is 
certainly there. But something else (that does not let me feel 
totally at ease, I must admit -- and I have been sharing these views 
for a few years now with Ruth E. Gruber, who is devoting an entire 
forthcoming book to the subject) is there too. And I believe that we 
have to keep considering both issues.

Francesco
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
YUVAL  ITALIA     Centro Studi Musica Ebraica
the  Italian Center for the Study of Jewish Music

via della Guastalla,19            20122 Milano Italy
tel/fax +39 02 55014977    yuval (at) powerlink(dot)it
            http://www.powerlink.it/yuval
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+