Klezmer: Music and Community in Twentieth-Century Jewish

Klezmer Hankus Netsky Klezmer Music and Community in Twentieth-Century Jewish Philadelphia TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia • Rome • Tokyo TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 www . temple . edu / tempress Copyright © 2015 by Temple University— Of Th e Commonwealth System of Higher Education All rights reserved Published 2015 All reasonable attempts were made to locate the copyright holder for the cover illustration. If you believe you are the copyright holder, please contact Temple University Press, and the publisher will include appropriate ac know ledg ment in subsequent editions of the book. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Netsky, Hankus, author. Klezmer : music and community in twentieth- century Jewish Philadelphia / Hankus Netsky. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4399-0903-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4399-0905-8 (e- book) 1. Klezmer music— Pennsylvania— Philadelphia—20th century— History and criticism. 2. Jewish musicians— Pennsylvania— Philadelphia—20th century— History and criticism. 3. Jews— Pennsylvania— Philadelphia— Music— History and criticism. 4. Klezmer music— Social aspects— Pennsylvania— Philadelphia— History—20th century. I. Title. ML3528.8.N48 2015 781.62'924074811— dc23 2014048496 Th e paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 Printed in the United States of Ame rica 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Table of Contents A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s vii Introduction 1 Part I The Klezmer Musician 1 Th e Klezmer Mystique 19 2 Klezmer Musicians in Jewish Philadelphia, 1900–1945 34 3 Philadelphia’s Klezmer Tradition: Th e Later Years 52 Part II Musical Traditions 4 Klezmer at Philadelphia’s Jewish Weddings 71 5 Th e Evolution of Philadelphia’s Rus sian Sher Medley 89 Epilogue 137 Notes 143 References 157 Index 167 Acknowledgments would like to thank my academic mentor and dissertation advisor Mark Slobin for his generosity, patience, camaraderie, and extraordinary guidance, I and especially for being the visionary spirit who turned klezmer into an acceptable topic of academic discourse. I am also extremely grateful to Barbara Kirshenblatt- Gimblett and Su Zheng who gave me a tremendous amount of support, encouragement, and help with this pro ject. Th is book would not have been possi ble without my in for mants, who provided me with music, historical information, anecdotes, encouragement, and lots to think about. I would particularly like to thank Bobby Block, Marvin Katz, Elaine Hoff man Watts, Morris Hoff man, Joe Borock, and Bernie Uhr, all of whom made themselves available whenever I needed information about any- thing and, when they didn’t know the answers, knew exactly where to send me. I would also like to acknowledge the behind- the- scenes help of Minnie Fryer, Josh Waletzky, Lilly Schwartz, Donald Davis, and Michael Elkin, who provided me with contact information for in formants whom otherwise would have been inaccessible. Sholom Altman, Marsha Bryan Edelman, Henry Sapoznik, Jenny Romaine, and Lorin Sklamberg gave me unlimited access to the extraordinary sound archives at Gratz College (Philadelphia) and YIVO (New York). Th is pro ject also benefi ted greatly from recordings made available to me by Dr. Samuel Katz, Jack Saul, Alan Shapiro, Alan Bern, Elaine Hoff man Watts, Lev Liberman, Mark Slobin, Herman and Rhoda Hershman, Michael Schlesinger, Jeff Warschauer, Ben Laden, Jack Kessler, Susan Watts, and Bobby Block. Jackie Borock, Elaine Hoff man Watts, Mark Slobin, and Michael Alpert generously supplied me with unique video footage. viii Acknowledgments I would like to thank Jerry Adler, Kol Katz, Stanley Shupak, Dr. Samuel Katz, Marvin Katz, Jerry Weinstein, Henry Sapoznik, Joe Borock, Elaine Hoff - man Watts, Bobby Block, Walter Zev Feldman, Steve Greenman, and the family of Nathan Freedman for allowing me access to the music folios that informed the core substance of chapters 4 and 5. I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable editing help I received from Franya Berkman, Linda Chase, Beth Brooks, Catherine Johnson, Angela Phillips, Gail Chalew, and especially Angela Piliouras, as well as the indispensible assis- tance of music copyists Nicolas Urie and Arthur Felluca. Additionally, I would like to thank Micah Kleit of Temple University Press for seeing this pro ject to its conclusion. I am particularly grateful for the extraordinary support I received from Jackie Borock, without whose collaboration this pro ject would have been much more diffi cult and not nearly as rich. I would like to thank Hy Goldman and Klezkanada for allowing me to use their extraordinary klezmer workshops as laboratories for my research and Henry Sapoznik and Sherry Mayrent who, back in 2000 through their “Living Traditions” Klezkamp, gave me free rein to create a week- long Philadelphia klezmer fantasy world. I would also like to thank my wife, Beth Brooks, for her patience and encouragement, especially as the time of completion grew near. And, fi nally, I would like to dedicate this work to the memory of Jerry Adler, Kol and Samuel Katz, Samuel Feldsher, Freddie Kornfeld, Doris Kandel Rothman, Harry Gorodetzer, Harold Karrabel, Morris Zeft , Jules Helzner, Joe Familant, Bobby Roberts, Jay Jerome, Howie Leess, Max Epstein, Harold Singer, Bobby Roberts, Bernie Uhr, Joe Borock, Morris Hoff man, and especially Jim Becker and my parents, Rhoda and Lester Netsky. Klezmer Introduction here are many ways to uncover the story of a Jewish community. Immi- gration fi gures, demographic patterns, minutes of board meetings, fund- Traising goals, and synagogue enrollments are the usual sources that provide data. Th ese documents tell us, among other things, how many people are in the group being studied, where they came from, how the community has evolved, and what they have accomplished. Experts carefully chronicle the progress of religious, po liti cal, philanthropic, cultural, and educational institutions, looking for signs of success, stability, cohesion, and deterioration. As traditional historians take stock of the data they gather, they ponder why some institutions remain vital while others outlive their usefulness and either undergo serious renova- tions or are replaced by new ones that better suit the needs of new generations. Contemporary historians have broadened the scope of such endeavors. In Th e Search for a Usable Jewish Past, David Roskies (1998) considers the story told by shtetl (Eastern Eu ro pean Jewish small town) lit erature, Holocaust studies, religious tomes, Yiddish folksongs, Zionist tractates, and the notes of burial socie- ties. Other authors look for clues about Jewish communal history by exploring such subjects as food (Kirshenblatt- Gimblett 1987, Joselit 1994), marriage (Joselit 1994), and sex (Biale 1992). Th is book draws its historical narrative from a more obscure, but perhaps equally revealing source: the documentary and ethnographic history of professional Jewish musical entertainers (klezmorim) and of the music they performed at Philadelphia’s Jewish life- cycle and communal celebrations. My focus is on the klezmer tradition in Philadelphia over the course of the entire twentieth century, a period stretching from the later part of the Eastern Eu ro pean Jewish immigrant era through the contemporary resurgence of 2 Introduction klezmer music.1 I selected Philadelphia because it is a large and resilient regional American Jewish community with a rich, hitherto mostly uncollected klezmer music legacy2 and because of my own Philadelphia roots, which, more than any other factor, made this study possi ble. Looking at a local klezmer tradition can illuminate connections that are oft en overlooked in ethnomusicological studies. Th e issues I address here include the nature of musician cultures (and of the klezmer tradition in par tic u lar), the ongoing tension between sacred and secular in music, the complexity of hybrid ethnic musical expression, the insider- outsider dynamic in klezmer, the story told by a single piece of music over time, and the ethnography of a nearly extinct regional musical community. It is really at the intersection of all of these topics that my study takes place, since all are embodied by klezmer, a sacred/secular genre with a long tradition as the music of Jewish communal celebrations and with a recent history as a revitalized concert music played by younger musicians including me. Located only ninety miles southwest of New York City, Philadelphia boasted a klezmer music culture whose history contrasted starkly with that of its much larger, more diverse, and more trend-setting neighbor. Aft er the upheaval of the post–World War II era, by which time virtually every other community had laid its klezmer tradition to rest, many of Philadelphia’s musicians held on to their old- world repertoire, even with the knowledge that they were entirely out of pace with the rest of Jewish society. Indeed, Philadelphia’s surprisingly enduring klezmer scene is one of the few that, at the time of my study, still boasted a large enough number of veteran musicians to make a klezmer ethnography worth- while. Much of my source material has been gleaned from interviews that I con- ducted with approximately sixty Jewish wedding musicians, caterers, and descen- dants of musical families. My research began in 1974, when I embarked on my own quest to explore an ave nue of musical expression that had been part of my family’s history for at least three generations before I was born.3 Charting the history of a klezmer community is not a straightforward task, and at the time I began my research I found very few guideposts. When I pro- posed writing on klezmer as a pro ject in a multicultural music class during my undergraduate years at the New England Conservatory, I was strongly discour- aged.

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