What is Jewish dance?

[Helen Winkler <winklerh...>]

It is interesting to follow the discussion on defining Jewish music as the same 
questions come up when trying to define Jewish dance.

Here are some examples.


The Bulgar--This dance was once viewed as the major Jewish dance among Jewish 
immigrants to the US.  When you look at the history though, it's a pan-Balkan 
dance, done by both Jews and non Jews.  A Ukrainian dance researcher I know, 
calls such dances "shared experience dances."

Early Israeli folk dances--In the early years of the establishment of Israel,  
the old Eastern European dances which were considered to be Jewish dances in 
Europe,  were rejected.  They were viewed as representative of life in the 
diaspora and too much like the way the non-Jewish community danced.  The need 
to have our own dances was articulated--thus the New Israeli Folk Dance was 
created.  However, I have an article that indicates that the early Israeli 
dances were heavily influenced by a German dance form called the Jugendtanz.  
This was part of the Wandervogel movement.  From what I have found (and maybe 
some of you know more about this), the Wandervogel were youthful, German 
intelligentsia who rebelled against the establishment by spending their free 
time barefoot hiking in the mountains, returning to nature and rejecting urban 
life.  Jugendtanz aimed to "dance barefooted, open hair and free clothing, 
close to the land, under open skies to the accompanyment of recorders and 
voice."  According to the article, the Jewish counterpart to the Wandervogel 
was the Blau Weiss Bund which had a role in preparing the chalutzim, among them 
Gurit Kadman and Rivka Sturman, now known as Israeli folk dance pioneers.  The 
Blau Weiss Bund chose to adopt the Jugendtanz dance style which then migrated 
to Israel and influenced the early Israeli dances(Viltis Vol 49 No 5 January 
1991).  If this article is correct, it appears that we exchanged one European 
dance style for another and decided that one was more Jewish than the other.  
I'd be interested in learning more about this topic if anyone has further 
references or information.

Then we have the case of the Miserlou which we've reviewed before.  You can 
sometimes find it  on compilation albumns of Israeli music and people have 
sworn up and down to me that it is an Israeli dance!

I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.
Helen