The Jewish Beat: Klezmer, Culture, and Community in Postwar America

Abstract

This dissertation recovers the history of American Jewish wedding music during the early postwar period (1945–1965), shedding new light on the interplay between musical genres, social practices, and Jewish identity. In the wake of World War II and the founding of the State of Israel (1948), most American Jews drifted away from Yiddish language and culture. According to most scholarly accounts, klezmer, the traditional folk music of Yiddish-speaking Jews, virtually disappeared and was rarely performed before the so-called “klezmer revival” of the 1970s. I argue, however, that klezmer not only endured but formed the foundation for postwar American Jewish dance music. Although the traditional klezmer repertoire receded, its style blended with Israeli and American popular genres, leading to the creation of a new, hybrid form: the “klezmerized” Israeli folk song. My analysis thus reframes the relationship between Yiddish and Hebrew popular music, reading against the grain of their supposed opposition to reveal a complex, dialectical exchange between these two musical cultures that persists to this day. This study demonstrates the central role of music in sustaining diaspora identities and communities. Even as many other Jewish rituals faded, Jewish dance music remained a staple at nearly all postwar Jewish weddings. Across social, cultural, and demographic lines, American Jews continued to view it as a vital expression of Jewish identity and a defining element of their celebrations. As I show, Jewish dance music was uniquely suited to this role thanks to its broad accessibility, aesthetic adaptability, and deeply embodied nature. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the discourse surrounding Jewish music, shaped by musicians, audiences, critics, and the recording industry, reinforced essentialist notions that rendered this music instantly recognizable to its listeners as distinctly “Jewish.” Thus, although the melodies changed, the style, performance practices, and social functions remained closely tied to klezmer traditions, reflecting a partial yet meaningful continuity with Ashkenazi heritage. This study further highlights the affordances of a combined historical and ethnographic approach in music research, particularly the use of oral history to explore the connections between music, identity, and memory. Drawing on scholarship from music studies, cultural history, sociology, literary studies, and Jewish studies, I employ a hybrid approach that integrates archival research, ethnography, and musical analysis. My findings are grounded in archival work in New York and Israel, sound recordings, and more than one hundred oral history interviews with postwar wedding musicians and individuals married during that period. Taken together, these sources challenge prevailing narratives about postwar Jewish music, revealing how political ideologies shape perceptions about music and how music, in turn, constructs collective memory.