What is Jewish Music?

By Max Keisler
Harvard Extension School

"I didn't realize this was a Jewish publication," the singer told me. "I don't want to talk about Israel."

After I assured her that I was writing for a music site she agreed to an interview. Her husband explained that as an electro-pop group, the band was trying to avoid being thought of as "Israeli." They had offers to play Jewish music festivals, which they turned down. Onstage, they introduced themselves as from Brooklyn. And they scrupulously avoided coverage in Jewish magazines. This was non-political, they told me. They weren't anti-Zionist or anti-anything. They just didn't want to be associated with Jewish music.

I encountered a more moderate variation of this practice when I talked to Soul Khan, a Jewish rapper, for New Voices magazine. Khan was eager to discuss his Jewish upbringing and religious practices, but when I asked him what he thought was "Jewish music", the first thing he said was "klezmer". He thought that Jewishness could be a part of who a musician was without being part of their music. "You run the risk of being a mascot if you wear it on your sleeve" were his exact words. Both Khan and the electro-pop group were willing to identify as Jews, but not to identify their music as Jewish. To me this seemed paradoxical. Isn't music by Jews by definition Jewish?

True, the music at concerts sponsored by the Federation or a synagogue might tend to be more influenced by religious music, or more traditional, but to define Jewish music as that which can be linked to traditional music of our people would be to define most of the music made by Jews as something else. There are recognizably Jewish themes and motifs in the music of the Ramones (who write about fear of latent anti-Semitism in "Bonzo goes to Bitburg"), George Gershwin ("Rhapsody in Blue"), and Bob Dylan (who quotes Pirkei Avot in "Not Dark Yet"). Jewishness as a component of an artist's identity will obviously be reflected in their music. It may not be as explicit in some cases as others (I can't argue that Joey Ramone's music is as Jewish as the Klezmatics', for example), but art reflects life. If most Jews in America grow up apart from traditional Jewish music, whether liturgical or secular, the music they produce will reflect that.

In essence, to use a narrow definition of Jewish music is to negate the Jewishness of many artists' identities. An inclusive definition of Jewish music, that of "music made by Jews" produces a canon of music that, while not rooted in tradition, spans the whole spectrum of Jewish life, from Polish cantors to American MCs. Just as there are religious Jews, secular Jews and assimilated Jews, there are different kinds of music that reflect the diversity of the people. I heard Jewishness in the sarcastic lyrics of the electro-pop group, and in the very tension between their identity as Israelis and their identity as indie musicians. They were making Diaspora music.

Max Elstein Keisler is a third-year journalism major at Harvard Extension School and a writer for New Voices Magazine. He's involved in the local music scene in Boston and the coverage of Jewish music worldwide. His writing can be found at www.maxelsteinkeisler.com.

[Posted 8/1/11]