Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume IX: Modern Jews and Their Musical Agendas (Vol 9)

396 Pages·1994·22.89 MB·English

by  Ezra Mendelsohn

STUDIES IN
CONTEMPORARY
JEWRY
The publication
of Studies in Contemporary Jewry
has been made possible through the generous assistance
of the Samuel and Althea Stroum Philanthropic Fund,
Seattle, Washington
THE AVRAHAM HARMAN INSTITUTE
OF CONTEMPORARY JEWRY
THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY
OF JERUSALEM
MODERN JEWS
AND THEIR
MUSICAL AGENDAS
STUDIES IN
CONTEMPORARY
JEWRY
AN ANNUAL
IX
1993
Edited by Ezra Mendelsohn
Published for the Institute by
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York • Oxford
Oxford University Press
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Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
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and associated companies in
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Copyright © 1993 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-508617-1
ISSN 0740-8625
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number; 84-649196
2 4 6 8 9 7 53 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY
Editors
Jonathan Frankel
Peter Y. Medding
Ezra Mendelsohn
Institute Editorial Board
Michel Abitbol, Mordechai Altshuler, Haim Avni, David Bankier, Yehuda Bauer,
Moshe Davis, Sergio DellaPergola, Sidra Ezrahi, Allon Gal, Moshe Goodman,
Yisrael Gutman, Menahem Kaufman, Israel Kolatt, Hagit Lavsky, Eli
Lederhendler, Pnina Morag-Talmon, Dalia Ofer, U. O. Schmelz, Gideon Shimoni,
Geoffrey Wigoder
Managing Editors
Laurie E. Fialkoff
Hannah Levinsky-Koevary
Book Review Editor
David Rechter
International Advisory and Review Board
Chimen Abramsky (University College, London); Abraham Ascher (City University of New
York); Arnold Band (University of California, Los Angeles); Doris Bensimon (Universite de
la Sorbonne Nouvelle); Bernard Blumenkrantz (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi-
que); Lucjan Dobroszycki (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research); Solomon Encel (University
of New South Wales); Henry Feingold (City University of New York); Martin Gilbert (Oxford
University); Zvi Gitelman (University of Michigan); S. Julius Gould (University of Not-
tingham); Paula Hyman (Yale University); Lionel Kochan (University of Warwick); David
Landes (Harvard University); Seymour Martin Lipset (George Mason University); Heinz-
Dietrich Lowe (Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat, Freiburg); Michael Meyer (Hebrew Union
College—Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati); Alan Mintz (Brandeis University); George
Mosse (University of Wisconsin); Gerard Nahon (Centre Universitaire d'Etudes Juives, Paris);
F. Raphael (Universite des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg); Jehuda Reinharz (Brandeis
University); Monika Richarz (Germania Judaica, Kolner Bibliothek zur Geschichte des deut-
schen Judentums); Joseph Rothschild (Columbia University); Ismar Schorsch (Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary of America); Michael Walzer (Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton);
Bernard Wasserstein (Brandeis University); Ruth Wisse (Harvard University).
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Preface
Vol. VI of Studies in Contemporary Jewry, which appeared in 1990, attempted to
demonstrate that the study of modern Jewish history and society can be enriched by
a consideration of a variety of visual images, serving in a way as "new texts." The
present volume makes a similar point with regard to music. Most of the essays
published here deal with what the book's title calls Jewish "musical agendas"—
music's place in the process of Jewish integration and assimilation into the modern
European society of the cultured bourgeoisie, and the role assigned to music in
forging a new Jewish Israeli national identity, in promoting the Zionist cause, in
maintaining a separate Sephardic identity, and in preserving traditional Jewish life.
Several essays also have as their subject the remarkable degree of Jewish penetration
of "high" European musical life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
As is always the case in symposia of this kind, much has been left out. I can only
hope that there is enough here to whet the appetite and to convince our readers,
unused as they may be to such esoteric fare, that musicologists, no less than art
historians, have something unique to contribute to the field of modern Jewish
studies.
I wish to thank Professor Jehoash Hirshberg of the Department of Musicology at
The Hebrew University for his invaluable help in planning this book. As always,
and this time more than ever, given the unusual character of the volume and the
difficulties we encountered in putting it together, my greatest debt is to the dedicated
and talented staff of our journal—to the managing editor, Laurie Fialkoff, and to
Hannah Levinsky-Koevary, who has served as managing editor (while Laurie was
on maternity leave) and as book review editor. David Rechter, our book review
editor for the last several years, has left us. I want to record here the editors'
gratitude to him for his splendid work.
The editors of this journal are also grateful to Oxford University Press for its
continued support and to Samuel Stroum of Seattle, Washington, whose generous
financial help makes possible the publication of Studies in Contemporary Jewry.
EM.
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Contents
Symposium
Modern Jews and Their Musical Agendas
Ezra Mendelsohn, On the Jewish Presence in Nineteenth-Century
European Musical Life 3
Philip V. Bohlman, Musical Life in the Central European Jewish
Village 17

Judit Frigyesi, Jews and Hungarians in Modern Hungarian
Musical Culture 40
Edwin Seroussi, New Directions in the Music of the Sephardic
Jews 61

Natan Shahar, The Eretz Israeli Song and the Jewish National
Fund 78
Jehoash Hirshberg, Alexander U. Boskovitch and the Quest for
an Israeli National Musical Style 92
Lionel Wolberger, Music of Holy Argument: The
Ethnomusicology of a Talmud Study Session 110
Essays
Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Memory and Political Culture: Israeli Society and
the Holocaust 139
Esther Benbassa, Education for Jewish Girls in the East: A Portrait of
the Galata School in Istanbul, 1879-1912 163
Doron Niederland, Back into the Lion's Jaws: A Note on Jewish Return
Migration to Nazi Germany (1933-1938) 174
Review Essays
John D. Klier, The Former Soviet Union and Its Jews 183