Digital Zamlers: The Oral Torah & Realizing An-sky's Dream of Engaged Jewish Culture-Making

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Ashkenazic Jewish expressive culture has a long history of documentation, beginning with the German WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS movement, and continuing in the Russian Empire with the Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Society, the Jewish Folk Music Society, and later Moshe Beregovski’s Jewish musical ethnography (Loeffler 2010). S. An-sky (Shloyme Zanvl Rappaport) saw Jewish folklore as an Oral Torah of the common folk, and “hoped that Jews of all backgrounds would become amateur ethnographers, or ZAMLERS (literally, 'collectors')” (Deutsch 2011, p. 35). The projects presented in this panel are the 21st century embodiment of An-sky’s vision of Oyflebln (Yid. to revive)—not a passive recreation of the past, but rather closer to a "second life" as described in Barbara Kirsheblatt-Gimblett's theory of heritage (Deutsch 2011, p. 36). Through digital humanities projects and resources, Jewish ethnography today can be rooted in a holistic approach, reminding us what it's for: to be available to contemporary and future Jews (and everyone) to study, interpret, and transform. Incorporating advanced technology into data creation presents unique challenges, as is noted by folklorist and digital humanist Emese Ilyefalvi: “The data is never passive, and data production is an active process in the digital paradigm” (Ilyefalvi 2018). The projects presented here set out with different goals, but all honor the vision of An-sky by conducting rigorous studies, recognizing the contributions of heritage practitioners, and making this legacy available for generations to come.

The papers in this panel describe three different approaches to using digital humanities tools in the documentation and analysis of Ashkenazic heritage culture. Malin and Shannahan use computational musicology to analyze musical modes in Moshe Beregosvski’s seminal collection JEWISH INSTRUMENTAL FOLK MUSIC. The Kiselgof-Makonovetsky Digital Manuscript Project (KMDMP) expanded the definition of crowdsourcing in folk music research and is developing new models for scholarly editions: cross-disciplinary teams, diverse audiences, and robust digital resources alongside printed editions. The Klezmer Archive project is applying cutting edge technologies to create a powerful graph data model for documenting and describing heritage music and the people who create it.

Sub Unit

• Digital Humanities (Wildcard Division)

Chair

• Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

Individual Presentations

• The ‘Musical Tapestry’ of Klezmer: A Computational Approach to Beregovski’s JEWISH INSTRUMENTAL FOLK MUSIC - Yonatan Malin, University of Colorado Boulder

• The Crowdsourced Digital Archive: Advancing Scholarship in Community with the Kiselgof-Makonovetsky Digital Manuscript Project - Christina Crowder, christina crowder; Clara Byom, The Klezmer Institute

• Documenting Cultural Heritage with Cutting-Edge Technology: Investigations of the Klezmer Archive Project - Max Rothman, The Klezmer Institute

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 13