“With an Open Mind and with Respect”

Abstract

Research on the the recent klezmer movement generally obscures the fact that the contemporary klezmer scene in Germany is dynamic and has evolved over a more than twenty-year period. It comprises participants from numerous backgrounds and generations, including Jews from the former Soviet Union, Israel, and the United States as well as both non-Jewish and Jewish Germans, from the former German Democratic Republic as well as West Germany. The chapter shows that the German market also had a strong influence on the development of klezmer internationally—particularly in the United States—as well as interesting inter-European and cross-continental collaborations that have developed in recent years. This chapter situates contemporary German klezmer within a broader framework by interviewing prominent klezmer musicians in the German scene. In so doing, this ethnography shows that, while issues related to the Holocaust and the building of a post-Cold War German identity are central themes, klezmer is inherently transnational—involving multiple nationalities and concerns beyond a simple coming to terms with the German past.

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