Articles

Essays and peer-reviewed scholarship in Yiddish Studies, an interdisciplinary field that engages all aspects of Yiddish cultural production, especially in its relationship to other cultures and languages.

Click here for a separate listing of open-access, peer-reviewed articles.

Article

Prayer and Crime: Cantor Elias Zaludkovsky’s Concert Performance Season in 1924 Poland

In his con­cert career Zalud­kovsky walked a fine line between per­form­ing the sacred iden­ti­ty of can­tor and falling into the forms of cul­tur­al crime that he him­self had iden­ti­fied as cor­rupt­ing tra­di­tion through exces­sive com­mer­cial­iza­tion and medi­a­ti­za­tion of sacred music.


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Review

Review of New York Klezmer in the Early Twentieth Century by Joel E. Rubin

Despite the shift­ing sta­tus and pop­u­lar­i­ty of this Ashke­nazi instru­men­tal music and its musi­cians, Joel Rubin is, sur­pris­ing­ly, the first researcher to devote seri­ous and sus­tained atten­tion to one of its most impor­tant and pro­duc­tive peri­ods: New York in the 1920s, and in par­tic­u­lar the remark­able — and nowa­days canon­i­cal — record­ings of its two best-known and most influ­en­tial fig­ures, Dave Tar­ras (1895÷71989) and Naf­tule Brandwein (18841963).

Article

On Yiddish Nuances: Yiddishkayt as Listening Key in the Music of Osvaldo Golijov

This paper approach­es Osval­do Golijov’s music from the inter­sec­tion of musi­col­o­gy and Yid­dish studies.

Review

Labor, Love, and Life in Immigrant London

In this ground­break­ing study, Lachs draws upon often ignored doc­u­ments of pop­u­lar cul­ture (con­ven­tion­al­ly writ­ten off as shund by her pre­de­ces­sors) in order to paint a vivid pic­ture of work­ing class immi­grant Lon­don at the turn of the 20th century.

Review

Charlie, [gesturing to Fascist General Franco on screen] fucking swine isn’t he?

William Pim­lott reviews Gill Tofel­l’s Jews, Cin­e­ma and Pub­lic Life in Inter­war Britain and Alan Dein’s Music is the most beau­ti­ful lan­guage in the World: Yid­dish­er Jazz in London’s East End 1920s-1950s.

Review

Review of Convergence, an Album of Multi-Diasporic Musical Longing by Anthony Russell and Veretski Pass

Antho­ny Rus­sell, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Verets­ki Pass (Joshua Horowitz on piano, Cook­ie Segel­stein on fid­dle, and Stu­art Brot­man on cel­lo), inter­twines Jew­ish East­ern Europe folk music and African Amer­i­can spir­i­tu­al traditions. 

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