Klezmer’s Afterlife: An Ethnography of the Jewish Music Revival in Poland and Germany

Magdalena Waligorska

Oxford University Press, 17-10-2013, 320 p.

Klezmer’s Afterlife is the first book to investigate this fascinating music scene in Central Europe, giving voice to the musicians, producers and consumers of the resuscitated klezmer. Contesting common hypotheses about the klezmer revival in Germany and Poland stemming merely from feelings of guilt which emerged in the years following the Holocaust, author Magdalena Waligorska investigates the consequences of the klezmer boom on the people who staged it and places where it occurred.

Offering not only a documentation of the klezmer revival in two of its European headquarters (Kraków and Berlin), but also an analysis of the Jewish / non-Jewish encounter it generates, Waligorska demonstrates how the klezmer revival replicates and reinvents the image of the Jew in Polish and German popular culture, how it becomes a soundtrack to Holocaust commemoration and how it is used as a shining example of successful cultural policy by local officials. Drawing on a variety of fields including musicology, ethnomusicology, history, sociology, and cultural studies, Klezmer’s Afterlife will appeal to a wide range scholars and students studying Jewish culture, and cultural relations in post-Holocaust central Europe, as well as general readers interested in klezmer music and music revivals more generally.

Learn more and order this book.

You may also like

ERLANGER, CAMILLE (1863-1919)

Of Jewish German and Alsatian origin, Camille Erlanger is one of the opera composers of the "belle époque"

CONCERT LES BUBBEY MAYSE – LE PETIT MATIN DU GRAND SOIR

Watch excerpts from the Bubbey Mayse concert, the opening concert of the 21st edition of the Jazz'N'Klezmer Festival, on November…

CONCERT Kalarash – Klezmer music, Yiddish and French songs

Watch excerpts from the Kalarash - Klezmer music, Yiddish and French songs album release concert, held on March 26, 2023…

The Wolf and the Lamb – Live at the Shakh

This album by klezmer legend Yale Strom and his band Hot Pstromi was recorded in the synagogue of Holesov, Czech…