Klezmer's Afterlife

About this book

Klezmer has been a controversial phenomenon in post-Holocaust Europe, ever since this traditional Jewish wedding music made it to concert halls and discos. Played mostly by non-Jews and for non-Jewish audiences, it quickly gained the epithet of 'fakelore' and was branded commercially-motivated heritage appropriation. The present book documents this remarkable music revival in its two European epicentres: Berlin and Kraków, investigating not only its roots and motivations, but also the consequences that performing Jewish music has had for non-Jewish klezmer revivalists.