Passing the Torch: Jewish Music Archives and the Future of Yiddish Song

The event was dedicated to the memory of Chana Mlotek, YIVO’s Music Archivist from 1978 until her recent passing at age 91 in 2013.

Made possible with the generous support of the Mlotek family. Co-sponsored by the American Society for Jewish Music.

Watch the video:

Part 1 Part 2

Chair: Mark Slobin, Wesleyan University

Around 1900, East European Jews became acutely aware of the impact of modernization and urbanization on their culture: on their songs, their tales, and customs. They set in motion a wide range of projects and institutions to gather, archive, and study fading folklore. YIVO was a pioneer in this push, along with a galaxy of Polish and Russian (later Soviet) activists. Today, with the loss of the original population and the huge demographic and cultural shifts of world Jewry, the surviving archives both preserve and channel a rising tide of interest, even a hunger, for what’s called “Yiddish” music and folklore.

This symposium brought together archivists, scholars and performers to discuss the history and creation of Yiddish folk music archives, and the future of the study and performance of Yiddish song today. What is the role of Jewish music archives in fostering new scholarship and Yiddish music?

Schedule

In the Beginning Were Ginzburg and Marek: A Brief History of Yiddish Folksong Collecting
Robert Rothstein, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

“Hobn Mir A Nigndl”: The Songs Our Israeli Grandchildren Don't Sing
Yiddish Song Collections at the National Library of Israel as a Source for Research
Gila Flam, National Library of Israel

Rediscovering Yiddish Folk Songs in Ukraine: History, Archival Access and Future
Lyudmila Sholokhova, YIVO Institute

Songs of Generations: Contributions of Chana Mlotek
Mark Slobin, Wesleyan University

זאָג מיר, מײַן שוועסטער
Zog mir, mayn shvester/Tell Me, My Sister: Working with the Ruth Rubin Archive
Lorin Sklamberg, The Klezmatics, YIVO Institute

Roundtable discussion with: Mark Slobin, Wesleyan University (Moderator); Gila Flam, National Library of Israel; Mark Kligman, Hebrew Union College, Columbia University; Hankus Netsky, New England Conservatory; and Lorin Sklamberg, The Klezmatics, YIVO Institute

Mark Slobin is the Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music at Wesleyan University and the author or editor of many books, on Afghanistan and Central Asia, eastern European Jewish music, and ethnomusicology theory, two of which have received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award: Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World (Oxford University Press) and Tenement Songs: Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants (University of Illinois Press). He has been President of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Asian Music.