Re: Music and Politics for Jews

[Alex Jacobowitz <alexbjacobowitz...>]

B"H Munich

Have people
> found a way to express such feelings in the music
> itself (whether through
> the repertoire chosen or actual inflections(?) in
> the performance)?

Sure. When you realize that traditional klezmer music
is basically pre-Israel, becoming "retro" in that
limited sense (that is, playing klezmer) is for many a
repudiation of much of what Israel has come to
represent. Today, you might find more klezmer music
in Poland than in Israel (Tsfat notwithstanding),
and the situation is similar vis-a-vis Yiddish in
the modern state of Israel.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that broadly speaking
there are two general pictures of the Jewish people:
that of the shtetl Jew, primarily Yiddish-speaking,
Ashkenazi, (haredi) religious, overwhelmingly  poor
folk; and the high-tech, international
Hebrew-speaking, Sephardi-leaning,
secular-to-modern-Orthodox Israeli.

If you want to protest Israel and/or her political
policies, then play klezmer exclusively, and ignore
the vast treasure of Jewish music and culture that
Israel generates. Learn Yiddish, trash Hebrew.

If you want to protest Orthodoxy and traditional
Jewish culture, then play Israeli pop music and
ignore klezmer. Learn Hebrew, diss Yiddish.

But if you believe that a musician´s "responsibility"
is to act as a linguistic/cultural bridge between
at least two cultures, bring it all in and blow
it all out. Brandwein and Noa. Shtetl and settlement.
Us then AND us now.

> Any thoughts?
Not nearly enough, in my opinion

Shalom,

Alex

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