What is Jewish Music redux?

[George Robinson <GRComm...>]

Khaverim -- 

I have to admit that I have, in no small part deliberately, given this
thread short shrift. To be frank, it raises too many prickly issues both
personal and political for me to confront it head-on without a lot of
preparation and careful, introspective thought. To be blunt, in order to
answer the question, "What is Jewish music?" we have to be willing to
answer a more fundamental and dangerous question, "What is a Jew?" 

I'm not revealing any secrets when I say that question is a minefield.
I'm reminded of a story told by a former member of my synagogue (and an
active member of this list, although I haven't seen him post in a
while), who was applying for a job in a shul in Europe. Asked to prove
his Jewishness, he fumblingly produced papers from one of his
grandparents, stamped by an official of the Third Reich with the
telltale "J." The rabbi sneered, "Just because some Nazi said your
grandfather was a Jew, why should I believe you're one?" And I won't
rehearse any of the "Who is a Jew?" argument from recdent and current
Israeli history.

So you can see why my first instinct is to divert attention from the
painful controversies underlying this question with a wink and a joke.
But as my father (of blessed memory) would have said, "You can do better
than that."

In fact, anyone who reads just a few days of postings to this list,
regardless of thread or subject matter, will see the glimmerings of a
truth; the nature of Jewish identity is so many-faceted, so fissiparous,
that there is no one answer to either question. 

Consider the subjects that have come up on the list in the past few
weeks -- I'm drawing on memory because I tend to delete immediately
anything I don't need to refer back to. We have had a thread about the
cimbalon, an instrument used largely in Eastern European music; a
lengthy discussion of Israeli pop, the vast majority of which is
non-religious in nature (the music discussed, that is); a long thread
about kol isha with every possible viewpoint represented; a long thread
about the rabbi who allegedly declared that mixed dancing caused the
collapse of the auditorium floor in Jerusalem, an attitude that was
universally derided; our usual fascinating and variegated threads on
Sephardic and Ladino music; a debate on whether one can/should play
klezmer at a funeral; and the usual simkhas for listmembers releasing
albums and playing gigs, with a range of musics on display every bit as
wide as the subjects under discussion. Maybe I'm not making my point
entirely clearly here, but it's obvious to me that regardless of how
each of us defines "Jewish music" as a group our definition is highly
elastic. 

That is as it should be. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Jewish
history should have expected no less. Even in the 1500 or so years in
which rabbinic Judaism was the ascendant paradigm for Jewish identity,
there were still diverse strands within the Jewish world, the product of
the experience of Diaspora. When the Haskalah and the Emancipation took
place, they added another set of divisions to the mix; for the first
time since the tribal days, the nature of Jewish identity became
uncoupled from religious belief. For the past 150-200 years it has been
possible to be a self-identified Jew without having any sense of oneself
as a member of a religion. This was a cognitive break that created a new
phenomenon: the secular Jew. Any theoretical position on the questions
of what constitutes Jewish music or Jewish identity that doesn't take
into account this historical fact is fatally flawed.

(I know this is a gross oversimplification; I've done workshops on this
issue and, with a Q&A period they last as much as three hours. I'm not
going to take up that much bandwidth. If you really want to hear my take
on this at great length contact me off-list and I'll send you reams of
the stuff. Or buy my book and read Chapter 9.)

Which brings us to the excellent point raised a few postings ago in this
thread. (My apologies to the poster, I don't have my e-mail files in
front of me and don't recall who sent the message.) Fred Hersh brings a
set of experiences to his performances of Monk's music that includes his
Jewish upbringing, whatever it may consist of (and I don't actually
know); so I suppose that on some fundamental level, that DOES make his
playing of Monk "Jewish music." 

Of course, one could argue as a corollary that music written on
explicitly Jewish themes and topics by non-Jews can never be Jewish
music (pace Handel, Bruch, Ravel). (What would you call it?
Philo-Semitic music? Do we need another list?) I don't know if I'm
entirely comfortable with that position; like I said, this is a
minefield.

The Israeli writer Ari Elon (not Amos) has written, "A Jew is anyone who
looks at himself or herself in the mirror of history and sees a Jew." If
that's what you see, that's what you are, but you have to buy the whole
historical package.

Muriel Rukeyser wrote:
To be a Jew in the twentieth century
Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse,
Wishing to be invisible, you choose
Death of the spirit, the stone insanity.
Accepting, take full life. Full agonies:

I don't think that has changed any since the new century began. To take
a Jewish identity upon oneself is to sign a blood oath, for better or
worse.

I think we have to recognize and accept the multiplicity, polyvocality
of Jewishness and rejoice in the ways that it is reflected in our
music(s). Kant said "Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is
made nothing entirely straight can be built." No doubt true, but if you
take a piece of driftwood, gnarled and twisted, and polish it and accept
its unpredictable twists and turns, it can be something quite beautiful.

Shalom,
George Robinson

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