Voices of a People: Rethinking Jewish Folk Music in Postwar America

Theodore Bikel begins the liner notes of the 1958 LP _Theodore Bikel Sings Jewish Folk Songs_ self-reflexively, acknowledging, "for some time now it has been a debatable point as to whether or not I have the right to call myself a folksinger." Here, Bikel points to a number of important issues, namely, what it means to call oneself a "folksinger," particularly in mid-twentieth century America, and the complex task of defining "Jewish folk songs."


In this paper, I analyze the song selection, performance style, and album visuals of Bikel's 1958 LP and its 1959 follow-up _Theodore Bikel Sings More Jewish Folksongs_, to highlight the process by which a definition of "Jewish folk song" became represented within the landscape of the American folk recording industry. Particularly, I work to unpack the connection between Bikel's claims to folkloric authenticity-demonstrated through appeals to his family heritage-and the folk music apparatus that balanced an imagined folkloric purity through the medium of modern technology. 


Drawing on Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's discussion of _Theodore Bikel Sings Jewish Folk Songs_ in the context of the klezmer revival, I diverge to emphasize the album as an important case study in the ideology and aesthetics of "folk music" in America. Informed by the work of scholars such as Joshua Walden and Gabriella Safran, I explore how Bikel evokes the Eastern European roots of Jewish folk music collection in his mid-twentieth century recordings. Further, I draw on the work of American folk music scholars Benjamin Filene and Karl Hagstrom Miller to situate Bikel's LPs in the environment of American folk recordings.

During the early postwar period (1945-1960), global Jewish musical culture underwent a seismic shift: Israeli culture rose to become a dominant form of Jewish expressivity, sweeping away other Jewish practices in its path. Israeli folk songs and dances shaped the musical culture of the newly established State of Israel, but they also had a tremendous impact, largely overlooked, on Jewish music abroad. In this paper, I analyze the conflict between Yiddish and Israeli music in New York City during this period. Using a combined methodology of archival research, oral history, and musical analysis, I examine the shift from Yiddish music and klezmer towards Hebrew and Israeli folk music, as well as the reactions and oppositions to this shift. Through this inquiry, I argue that Yiddish music served as a platform for articulating alternatives to mainstream narratives about Jewish politics, and demonstrate the key role that Israel played in the transformation of American Jewish identities.


In their efforts to forge new national symbols, the architects of the Zionist project framed Israeli culture as the antithesis of diasporic Jewish traditions. Yiddish culture, which represented the Eastern European diaspora, was especially afflicted: Yiddish had long been in conflict with Zionism, but the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, combined with the devastating losses of World War II and the cultural assimilation of American Jews, dealt a heavy blow. Jewish communities around the world, in which Yiddish had been a primary marker of Jewish identity, had to negotiate the rising tensions between Israeli culture and their own traditions. Yiddish came to be seen as a tragic symbol of the Old World and the Holocaust, best to be forgotten, while Israeli culture represented a positive, forward-looking renewal for the Jewish people. Nevertheless, Yiddish actors, singers, and instrumentalists adapted to the new cultural landscape, resisting the erasure of their traditions and even incorporating Israeli symbols into their art. By interrogating this hitherto neglected period of radical transformation, my project illuminates the transnational cultural conflicts that lay the foundation for Jewish music for the rest of the twentieth century.

What do we talk about when we talk about Hasidic folk music? This paper juxtaposes an unlikely duo of Hasidic folk music greats, one of whom achieved great fame and popular acclaim outside of the Hasidic world, and another whose prominence was taken for granted with the Hasidic community, but is practically unknown outside of it. Hasidism, a religious Jewish movement rooted in 18th century Eastern Europe, characterized by its kabalistic underpinnings and recognized for the isolationist lifestyle it espouses, has always placed music at the center of its spiritual practice. The transplant of Hasidism to American shores after the Second World War engendered new iterations in the way Hasidic music was played and received. Shlomo Carlebach and Yom Tov Ehrlich represent opposite poles in the evolution of Hasidic music, and their varied approaches, stylistic choices, and audience shed light upon the changing mores in the conceptualization of Jewish "folk". For Ehrlich, music was primarily a pedagogical tool to preserve traditional Hasidic values; Carlebach used his music as a means to promote his goals of outreach, connection, and unity. 
 
Hasidic folk music is generally correlated to its ostensible founder, Shlomo Carlebach. In a style more redolent of the synagogue than the folk revival taking place around him, Carlebach composed tunes that he set to liturgical and scriptural texts which became the backbone of the religious musical repertoire across Jewish denominations. While Yom Tov Ehrlich's contemporaneous appearance on the music scene was met with less fanfare, it was nonetheless impactful within the grand scheme of Hasidic folk music. As a practicing Stoliner Hasid dwelling in Williamsburg from the 1950s, Ehrlich fused Russian folk songs and Yiddish lyrics in his long-form ballads, which became a staple in Hasidic households of the day. In contrast to Carlebach, who took to the stage to spread his musical and cultural vision, Ehrlich maintained the taut lines of a pious Hasid, and thus merited the imprimatur of Hasidic Rabbis of the era. Taken together, the two musicians and their contributions represent the panorama of the Hasidic folk genre.