Re: What is Jewish Music?

[Alex J. Lubet <lubet001...>]

Responding to the message of 
<4(dot)2(dot)0(dot)58(dot)20010606095033(dot)00aeeef0 (at) jtsa(dot)edu>
from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
> 
> 
> 
> >Far be it for me to equate my empathy for Holocaust survivors to being
> >a survivor, but I do believe that as Jews we see ourselves as a people
> >with a shared history and experience.  I would encourage those who are
> >not survivors themselves (or children of survivors) to attempt to
> >understand and feel the Shoah as they do.  And if music facilitates
> >that process, I would encourage them to make and listen to such music.
> >To say, you can never understand, so don't even try, is, I think,
> >counter-productive.
> >
> >Bob
> >
> >BTW, this thread resonates with my study of the relationship of Blacks
> >and Jews in music.  Some feel that Jews have no right to sing the
> >blues.
> 
> 
> Well put and all very pertinent, Bob. As a younger person--and more of a 
> musical nationalist--I used to believe that George Gershwin should not have 
> composed PORGY AND BESS, but rather IRVING AND SHEILA.  Years later, after 
> more familiarity with the work, composer, and the times and place he lived, I 
> regret having ever thought that. I wouldn't change a hair of PORGY AND BESS.
> 
> And yet, Lazare Saminsky, in his 1934 MUSIC OF THE GHETTO AND THE BIBLE,  
> derogatorily refers to Gershwin's works as "jazzberies." I certainly 
> understand how a founder of the St. Petersburg Folk Society and emigre from 
> Russia's anti-semitism and communist revolution would write this.
> 
> We can all go round and round about who is "serious" about what, who is a 
> dilletante and a dabbler, whose parents are survivors, Christians, rabbis, 
> etc. For me, it always comes down to two things: talent and the ability to 
> execute that talent. I could listen to Ravel's KADDISH and be far more moved 
> than hundreds of similar "Jewish music" works by composers with less talent 
> and facility--yet the correct lineage. 
> 
> A fine musician may not always create great works, but the sensitivity and 
> experience that makes one a "great composer" or "great performer" will always 
> shine through.
> 
> I find this a far better gage for quality than checking someone's political 
> or religious beliefs.
> 
I don't think the definition should be a statement of quality--good or bad--only
of Jewishness.  Per Pete's definition, I would be very reticent to allow a 
definition that denies Jewish agency in making the call.  At the risk of a 
hyperbolic analogy, I would never allow anti-Semites to define who is a Jew.

I am reminded of a student I once had who was a fervent member of the 
(Pentecostal) Assembly of God, one of a number of Christian students I've had 
who asked me numerous questions of all manner of things Jewish, many or most of 
which I could have done without.  She told me that at their rallies they engage 
in 'Jewish dancing.'  I neither know nor want to know what their dances actually
looked like, but their use to propagate Christianity certainly removes them from
the realm of 'Jewish' when employed in that context.  Yet one more example of 
misappropriation and misinterpretation of Jewish 'text' by those of another 
(faith) community.

That same student, who was always punctual and always stayed for at least the 
full hour at her lessons had me sign her registration, but, unbeknownst to me, 
never actually registered, having in effect stolen a semester's worth of my 
teaching.  Yet another example of theft of something Jewish (my time)

 

Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
Adjunct Professor of American and Jewish Studies
University of Minnesota
2106 4th St. S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)

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