RE: What Is Jewish Music?

[music <music...>]

> ... So if Sammy Davis, Jr. said he was Jewish, he was Jewish.
> Whether you agree with that or not, you should probably agree that it
> simplifies answering the question.  But, then, when applied to music:
> what is Jewish music?  As the neo-klezmer movement pushes Jewish music
> further into world music - as it pushes world music into Jewish music - and as
> pop and (non-Jewish) "folk" music push themselves into Jewish prayer, a
> definition becomes more difficult.  I anticipate someone saying "I know
> Jewish music when I hear it."

Something like that ... though not exactly that.  And at the very least, "that"
with considerable modification.  (As it happens, I've actually sometimes alluded
to that faux-Supreme-Court reference in classes--but as much to elicit how 
*not* 
to define Jewish music as to assist in defining it.)

These are only sketchy, 1:00 in the morning thoughts, but:

The Jewish music of a given community and/or generation could perhaps be
defined as the music that that community, in that generation, accepts as
Jewish.

Or, more elegantly put (and removed somewhat from a single-generation focus):

"The touchstone for deciding whether a work is 'Jewish' is not the composer's
own intent, but the spontaneous reaction of his [contemporaries] and the 
general judgment of posterity."  (Alfred Sendrey)

This--or my version, anyway (which I may owe to Velvel Pasternak; I'm not 
sure)--
may seem tautological; but if so, if so (he says, tautologically).  There's a 
parallel
to one definition offered of "folk music" (an equally knotty conundrum) as the 
music
that folk music audiences (e.g., at coffeehouses and festivals) accept as folk 
music.
I think there's more sense to that definition than there may at first appear to 
be--and
likewise in the case of Jewish music.

But I have an inch-thick file of "What Is Jewish Music" definitions and 
reflections--and
probably an equal-sized one in re folk music--so I will offer these sketchy 
thoughts for
now and leave it (for now, anyway) at that.  Much more, obviously, could be 
said.

--Robert Cohen

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