Music, Gender, and Jewish Orthodoxy in North America

Book Talk & Performance Co-sponsored by the American Society for Jewish Music’s Jewish Music Forum In Person: Admission: Free Zoom Livestream: Admission: Free Watch the video

Join YIVO for a conversation with Jeremiah Lockwood and Jessica Roda, led by Jonathan Boyarin in celebration of Lockwood and Roda’s new books Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era (Lockwood, UCPress) and For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age (Roda, NYU Press). Through ethnography and media analysis, Lockwood and Roda offer unique insights into the vibrant masculine and feminine art worlds of Hasidic and Litvish-Yeshivish Jews today. They lead us to rethink the power of the arts to understand agency, privacy and publicity in religious settings.

The book launch will conclude with two performances featuring Cantor Yoel Kohn and actress Malky Goldman, artists who participated with the authors in their research projects.

Buy Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era.

Buy For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. 

About the Participants

Jeremiah Lockwood is a scholar and musician, working in the fields of Jewish studies, performance studies, and ethnomusicology. He is the founder of the band, The Sway Machinery, and is currently a Fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at UPenn. His work engages with issues arising from peering into the archive and imagining the power of “lost” forms of expression to articulate keenly felt needs in the present.

Jessica Roda is an Assistant Professor of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. She is an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. She specializes in Jewish life in North America and France, and in international cultural policies. Her research interests include religion, performing arts, cultural heritage, gender, and media. Her articles on these topics have appeared in various scholarly journals, as well as edited volumes in French and English. The author of two books and the editor of a special issue of MUSICultures, her more recent book, Se réinventer au present (PUR 2018), was a finalist for J. I. Segal Award for the best Quebec book on a Jewish theme. It also received the Prize UQAM-Respatrimoni in heritage studies.

Jonathan Boyarin is the Diann G. and Thomas A. Mann Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Cornell University. His most recent book is Yeshiva Days: Learning on the Lower East Side (Princeton 2020). His translations from Yiddish include Menashe Unger’s A Fire Burns in Kotsk (Wayne State 2014).

Yoel Kohn is a virtuoso singer and an expert on “Golden Age” cantorial music of the early 20th century. He has performed extensively in the New York area and internationally. He is the son of a renowned Satmar Chassidic prayer leader and brings this cultural perspective to his pursuit of artistry while pursuing a path outside of his birth community.

Malky Goldman is an actor and artist currently located in New York City. Her most recent work includes several features and short films, a couple of stage productions and various projects taken on as Art Director and Consultant. Her most recent acting work includes a Chasidic Horror film called The Vigil (Blumhouse/BoulderLight) directed by Keith Thomas, which premiered at TIFF and is distributed by IFC. She has also appeared in the Netflix show Unorthodox and the HBO show High Maintenance. She has previously appeared in a couple of stage productions, including the Yiddish production of Rhinoceros by the New Yiddish Rep and in the critically acclaimed production God of Vengeance.