Re: Fw: One klezmer's experience

[MaxwellSt <MaxwellSt...>]

Dear Mary,

Thank you for your refreshing, open-minded attitude.  Here are a few brief 
responses to your questions.

> But what if one were to take the view that klezmer allows Messianic Jews to 
> get in touch with their roots - that, even though they have become 
> Christians, they don't want to forget that they are also of Jewish heritage 
> and choose 
> to celebrate this?  Isn't it in one's own best interest to have friends of 
> various religious and non-religious persuasions? 

They have the right to play any music that they want--on CDs or on 
instruments.  I also have the right to play things that my forebears would have 
objected 
to--i.e., to be a woman singing Chassidic songs in public, or to lead a 
service as baal tsuva (cantorial soloist), or to play a musical instrument on 
Shabbat.  I am sure that, in the eyes of those who hold to the Halacha (Jewish 
law), it is also seen as a desecration when I do these things.  So I do not 
suggest that this is a cut and dried issue, and if they take up clarinets and 
play 
klezmer, although it might revolt me, they have every right to ignor my 
feelings.  

What I do object to personally is playing for this movement, and when I am 
tricked into doing so, I feel used and betrayed.  And I feel--and this is just 
my personal gut reaction--that it is more than abundantly ironic that those who 
used to slash and hack Jews apart in the shtetls in order to get us to 
convert are now sugar-coating the same effort when they use nigunim (Chassidic 
melodies) and mamaloshen (the Motherr-tongue).

> Besides, music has a life of its own, as does art, and once it's in the 
> public purview, there's no ownership.  Klezmer's roots, I've been reading, 
> are 
> not just Jewish, but Gypsy, Belarusian, Romanian, Greek and others.  I found 
> some klezmer tunes in a gypsy book, but the titles were different, and some 
> modern tunes sound distinctly klezmer.  How could such great music not 
> influence the music world and how can a person be sure when he's playing 
> other music 
> that it hasn't been influenced by klezmer?  
> 
I hope I have clarified that I am not suggesting anyone has ownership of the 
music--and as you rightly point out, it is a patchwork sewn from dozens of 
(non-Jewish) sources.  But we should also note that the effort to use Jewish 
symbols and elements of Jewish culture like music in order to lull potential 
converts into Christianity is an exceedingly crass thing, and may have little 
if 
anything to do with an appreciation of the art.

Back to work!  Have a good one.
Lori