Tradition is Dead, Long Live Tradition: Critical Approaches to Postvernacular Yiddish Culture

This study takes up the position that postvernacularity is the vernacular of the contemporary Yiddish cultural scene, creating the space for a subjective, relative, and contingent relationship with Yiddish cultural practices, and that this context necessitates that critical thinking be integrated into the pedagogy and transmission of cultural practice. The study also hypothesizes that code-switching and the juxtaposition of fragments is a central strategy in contemporary creative practice and Jewish identity formation. Previous literature on the Yiddish cultural revival has focused on ethnomusicological and linguistic transmission. Through interviews, observation, and autoethnography, this study takes an entangled and interdisciplinary approach, focusing on the experience and creative practices of artists who were first immersed in Yiddish culture through festivals and events. Chapter One frames the study, contextualizing the contemporary Yiddish cultural scene against the backdrop of the klezmer revival. Chapter Two focuses on the cohort of artists interviewed for this study, showing how they transform tradition through cultural practice, put tradition to work in their activism, and build community and social infrastructure around a shared affinity with Yiddishkayt. Chapter Three offers insights into the ways that participatory performances at KlezKanada’s Summer Retreat experiment with and model methods of engaging with tradition and strengthening diasporic collectivity. Chapter Four examines the Yiddish cultural imaginaries that are employed by artists in the process of world-building. Chapter Five discusses the creative interplay between individual and community in Yiddish culture as illustrated through Yiddish dance, and examines pedagogical and curatorial strategies that create space for many voices within the structure of the community. This study illustrates the impact of curated cultural spaces, pedagogical strategies, participatory performance, and artistic projects on the evolution of traditional cultural practices. Festivals of Yiddish arts and culture emerge as primary spaces in which Yiddish cultural practices are transmitted, new work and networks are instigated, and community values are fostered through shared practice. A key finding of this study is that contemporary Yiddish cultural practice, pedagogy, and curation lifts up the heterophonic qualities of the scene by intentionally making space for a diversity of individual expressions within community settings.

Author dc:creator

• Moore, Avia Robin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Levin, Laura

• Performing arts
• Cultural anthropology
• Judaic studies

Statement dc:rights

• Author owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10315/42513

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:yorkspace.library.yorku.ca:10315/42513