WEBVTT 1 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:20.920 Welcome to the special episode of Amusing Jews, where we celebrate Jewish contributors and 2 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:25.320 contributions to American popular culture. With Halloween upon us, we thought it would 3 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:31.760 be a good idea to discuss Yiddish horror, European Jewish stories steeped in lore 4 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:37.600 about demons, dibbicks, Golum's ghosts, spirits, suckuby and more. I'm 5 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:43.719 Jonathan Friedman and I'm Joey Angelfield producer engineer Mike Tomern is working somewhere behind the 6 00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:48.200 scenes. Amusing Jews is a project of a Dot Javariem Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, 7 00:00:48.399 --> 00:00:53.079 the Cools School, Jewish Cultural Community, and Atheist United Studios. Our 8 00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:57.159 special guest today is Elizabeth Schwartz, an author, filmmaker, and segur who 9 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:00.799 has been called the Edith Poff of Yiddish. She's the vocals of the Klesmer 10 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:06.159 group Bielstrom and Atmastrami, and the subject of Romanian documentary films searching for Schwartz. 11 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:10.519 Elizabeth co created the award winning audio dramas The Witches of Loveland, and 12 00:01:10.599 --> 00:01:15.040 Denson Canton contributed a chapter on pleasure of vocal technique to Spill the Art of 13 00:01:15.079 --> 00:01:19.280 playing Klesmer and as recipes in a Wandering Feast, A Journey through the Jewish 14 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:23.040 culture of Eastern Europe, and other publications. Her first book of fiction, 15 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:26.640 The Sweet Fragrance of Life and Other Horror Stories, was released a short while 16 00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:30.359 ago, just in time for Halloween. Elizabeth, Welcome to Amusing Jews. 17 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:34.760 Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. The Sweet Fragrance 18 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:38.599 of Life collects three original horror stories set in the Old Country and written in 19 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:42.840 both Yiddish and English. What inspired you to take this bilingual approach. My 20 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:49.400 work is very steeped in Yiddish and Yiddish pie as a first or foremost a 21 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:53.400 klozmer musician. But when I'm not working, I'm a really avid reader, 22 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:57.920 like I think all writers. But this is a medium of writing that I 23 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:04.519 had never tried before. And I'll be honest, I was looking for this, 24 00:02:04.719 --> 00:02:12.520 to read, this genre of feminist, dethal horror, and I couldn't 25 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:15.240 find it. I mean, there is, as you mentioned, there's a 26 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:23.039 wonderful tradition of Jewish horror, much of it written originally in Yiddish, but 27 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:31.120 not really told from a woman's point of view. Or in ways that I 28 00:02:31.159 --> 00:02:36.879 think are things that women are thinking about or concerned about or grappling with, 29 00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:45.120 and I couldn't find it, and that sort of got me interested in doing 30 00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:50.479 it. Very cool and just for our viewers, the book is truly bilingual, 31 00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:52.960 so if you look at it this way, it's going to be in 32 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.520 English. You flip it around, it's in Yiddish and they meet in the 33 00:02:55.560 --> 00:03:01.039 middle, which is quite a beautiful thing. So without giving too much away, 34 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:05.439 we absolutely want our audience to buy the book, of course. Could 35 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:08.520 you tell us a little bit about the title, the Sweet Fragrance of Life, 36 00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:14.520 which is also the title of the middle story. Is this sweetness of 37 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:20.719 the fragrance perhaps challenged or does it come into focus through the foregrounding of death 38 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:27.199 in your book and in the horror genre more broadly. It's actually not a 39 00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:35.120 phrase that I wrote. It is from a song cycle written by Mahler called 40 00:03:35.199 --> 00:03:43.039 Song of the Earth, and it's a lyric in the song cycle which struck 41 00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:46.439 me because it sweet fragrance of life. What could be better than that? 42 00:03:46.599 --> 00:03:54.199 It's so dark and it's really menacing, and I loved that juxtaposition. And 43 00:03:54.479 --> 00:04:01.520 I didn't write the story because of it, but it really fits so perfectly 44 00:04:01.560 --> 00:04:06.520 and neatly, particularly with the characters I don't want to say too much, 45 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:14.680 but with the characters who share it and sing it together and are both both 46 00:04:14.759 --> 00:04:19.560 love Maller and think that they have so much in common, and of course 47 00:04:20.839 --> 00:04:26.920 they don't. I was riffing on the idea of that lyric myself as I 48 00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:32.439 read the Maler translation. And you know, the fragrance of life can be 49 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:36.319 a menacing thing in the sense that you know, that's what attracts predators, 50 00:04:36.879 --> 00:04:43.720 right the blood perhaps that attracts the shark or the zombie or whatever. You 51 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:46.800 know, it's sort of like a dangerous thing to have. The fragrance of 52 00:04:46.839 --> 00:04:50.279 life. It attracts death in a way is so good. I wish I 53 00:04:50.279 --> 00:04:55.600 had thought about that when I was writing this story. That's a great that's 54 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:59.439 a great way to look at it. I want the title to make sense 55 00:04:59.560 --> 00:05:04.879 after you read the story and then you think about everything that has inspired with 56 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:15.160 this, with these two characters in particular, and their relationship. And I 57 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:20.800 think I even in this story reference smells quite a bit of the different people, 58 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:25.399 which is something that I tend to do anyway. But I realized I 59 00:05:25.399 --> 00:05:28.839 think all my stories have smells in them, and it's just to have a 60 00:05:28.959 --> 00:05:31.319 very sensitive nose. So I guess it's I'm not a dog, but it's 61 00:05:31.319 --> 00:05:35.399 one of my first things I think I encounter and that makes sense. You 62 00:05:35.399 --> 00:05:40.040 know, the two strongest senses that we have are hearing and smell, and 63 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:44.120 you're a musician who talks about smell, so that makes a lot of sense 64 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:47.519 to me. So the stories in your book are fabinist as you as you 65 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:53.240 said, Yet the female protagonists don't have a lot of agency and are more 66 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:58.319 often victims to get the last laugh. Perhaps revenge was the best women could 67 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:02.160 hope for in those restricted times in places. What's the feminist takeaway? There's 68 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:08.560 no escaping that world, and it is the stories really are, including the 69 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:13.240 last one, which is certainly based on a historic event. Stories are really 70 00:06:13.399 --> 00:06:19.519 very deeply rooted in actual Jewish history and culture, and little of that is 71 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:27.319 actually woman centric. Though in the first story, for example, I really 72 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:34.040 objectify the women to the point where they are just sort of tools for the 73 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:43.000 protagonist. What makes them feminist not that there is justice or egalitarianism, but 74 00:06:43.319 --> 00:06:51.480 that the historic treatment of women in many cases is not does not go unnoticed 75 00:06:51.560 --> 00:06:57.639 or treated casually, or god forbid, even rewarded in any way. Yeah. 76 00:06:57.680 --> 00:07:00.879 One of the things I appreciate about the story too, is that you 77 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:05.360 take this formula that I've heard from R. L. Stein, and you 78 00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:13.040 know, the great Jewish author himself and of course other Jewish contributors to science 79 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:15.480 fiction, horror, et cetera. This idea of like the beginning, the 80 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:20.079 middle, and the twist. I'm wondering if that's rooted in the Yiddish lore 81 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:25.480 from your experience, is that kind of an the essence as a way of 82 00:07:25.519 --> 00:07:31.160 saying, of that of those kinds of stories most adult views of folklore not 83 00:07:31.240 --> 00:07:36.920 things that are simplified or moralized for children. But you know, when you 84 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:46.360 think of ib Singer, for example, who wrote in Yiddish his this Ryhnus, 85 00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:53.000 you know these things are I think, what make interesting reading or things 86 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:55.519 that you think about afterwards. I mean, it's certainly on him. If 87 00:07:55.560 --> 00:08:00.639 you've read for example, Roald Dahl, I know anceled at the moment, 88 00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:07.279 but his adult short stories they all have these kind of twists. My actual 89 00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:13.319 inspiration was more like the author Angela Carter, who in the nineteen seventies it 90 00:08:13.399 --> 00:08:18.439 was kind of mind blowing for me, as a child who read and adored 91 00:08:18.600 --> 00:08:24.639 all of the Andrew Lang fairy books and devoured fairy tales, do as a 92 00:08:24.680 --> 00:08:31.519 young woman read her stories, where she basically turned all of these fairy tales 93 00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:37.159 on their head with I would go so far as to say, with a 94 00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:43.320 feminist, female centric point of view, that changed your perceptions of these classic 95 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:48.799 stories, because she made us realize how easy that was to do if we 96 00:08:48.919 --> 00:08:52.639 just changed our perspectives. So many I've observed that the horror genre in the 97 00:08:52.679 --> 00:09:01.519 West is mostly dominated by Christian imagery and Christian ideas about morality and ethics. 98 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:07.080 Some horror stories and especially in film, can actually function as a kind of 99 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:11.559 Christian propaganda. In extreme case. In point, back in the early two 100 00:09:11.559 --> 00:09:18.080 thousands, I played cello on the soundtrack of the terrible b movie called Exorcism, 101 00:09:18.639 --> 00:09:22.279 not to be confused with The Exorcist, which turned out to be a 102 00:09:22.279 --> 00:09:30.039 polemical evangelical Protestant attack on Catholicism. So I'm wondering if you see the Jewish 103 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:35.879 reclaiming of horror through your book and other recent books and comics and films, 104 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:41.279 including a movie by one of our past guests, Noah Sagan called Blood Relatives 105 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:48.240 as a corrective perhaps to the genre's Christian hegemony. Like the most iconic horror 106 00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:52.200 story of all times, Frankenstein Mary Shelley, based out on the Golum though 107 00:09:52.240 --> 00:10:00.639 they're really you know, there are some underpinnings of Jewish culture and his historical 108 00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:05.960 context for these stories. What is kind of changed, of course, are 109 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:13.840 the circumstances of, you know, why somebody gets possessed or why this creature 110 00:10:13.919 --> 00:10:20.440 starts wreaking havoc, you know, I mean, obviously Frankenstein doesn't deal with 111 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:24.720 the context of you know, anti Semitism in Prague and I think it was 112 00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:31.240 the sixteenth century. There are only so many stories to go around, and 113 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:37.720 we're always looking for new ways to tell them. So what I appreciate a 114 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:43.639 lot is really just in the past decade, there has been so much interest 115 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:50.799 in Yiddish and Yiddish culture, and there have been some horror films that are 116 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:58.600 you know, Yiddish or based like in the Hasidic enclaves in Brooklyn, and 117 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:03.399 that's really heartening that people are starting to plumb that and interested in exploring those 118 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:07.320 worlds. Yeah, that's a great way of contextualizing it too. I was 119 00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:13.519 in a Cousmer group in the early two thousands, affiliated with John Zorn's Sudik 120 00:11:13.639 --> 00:11:16.600 Records and all that stuff, and that was very hot in that moment. 121 00:11:18.559 --> 00:11:22.320 But I think you're right, that's sort of cooled in terms of like being 122 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:28.360 a cultural movement, and maybe this is the next phase of that energy, 123 00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:33.200 maybe filtered more through literature, visual arts, that kind of thing. You 124 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:37.960 know, what's interesting to me is the phenomenon of dissel, which you know, 125 00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:41.720 I mean, you don't need to promote Israeli culture. It's there. 126 00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:48.759 I mean, it's a vibrant nation, but this Yiddish enclay and kind of 127 00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:54.120 exploring that world, and you know, sort of our excitement at hearing characters 128 00:11:54.120 --> 00:12:00.879 speaking Yiddish, you know, and then following up with the Shira Pasts film 129 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:05.360 Unorthodox, you know, I mean, it's really these are also obviously about 130 00:12:05.399 --> 00:12:11.080 Hasidic culture, but that is really the community that is speaking Yiddish as a 131 00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:20.360 living daily language, and it's just I'm enjoying seeing people starting to discover this. 132 00:12:20.519 --> 00:12:24.919 So, yes, you're right. Unfortunately, those of us who continue 133 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:31.039 to play Klesmer and try and push the envelope and are committed to it are 134 00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:37.919 still committed to the art form. We're just not kind of anti disestablishmentarian about 135 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:41.399 it. Right. Well, everything that begins is radical, if it lasts 136 00:12:41.960 --> 00:12:46.240 becomes sort of part of the mainstream. So there's something positive about that too. 137 00:12:46.639 --> 00:12:50.720 So, as we know, Jews in Europe historically experienced all sorts of 138 00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:56.360 real life horrors, from violent attacks to extreme poverty to devastating disease and infant 139 00:12:56.360 --> 00:13:01.240 mortality. Was the invention of diviocs and demons, perhaps a way to make 140 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:07.720 sense of all this by giving a supernatural rationale to the siving randomness of actual 141 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:11.000 horrors. We you know, we are literary people. We have always been 142 00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:16.120 literally the people and figuratively the people of the book. Though literacy has been 143 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:26.600 an aspect of Judaism in the modern age. But I do think that fictionalizing 144 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:31.559 the monsters that were other human beings and externalizing them and making them, you 145 00:13:31.559 --> 00:13:37.679 know, something other, could be a way to explore it, explain it, 146 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:43.960 think about it without feeling personally threatened, or you know, give it 147 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.360 some perspective, move it away from your daily life. You know, don't 148 00:13:46.399 --> 00:13:52.919 forget that the Goal was written as a character created to protect the Jews. 149 00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:58.200 Yeah, and we saw how that worked out. So a Halloween specific question. 150 00:13:58.360 --> 00:14:03.320 There are a lot of religious Jews who object to observing Halloween because of 151 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:11.440 its presumed pagan origins, Christian overlays, and so forth. Halloween has always 152 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:16.240 been a favorite holiday of mind, so I never really took those critiques very 153 00:14:16.279 --> 00:14:20.240 seriously. But I'm wondering if maybe we can make the holiday a little more 154 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:28.159 Jewish by using it as an opportunity to celebrate and to remember our own horror 155 00:14:28.519 --> 00:14:31.799 folklore, which, as you're saying, is rooted in stories from the Talmud 156 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:35.639 and the Hebrew Bible anyway, So I'm wondering what you think about that. 157 00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:39.600 Oh, I have lots of thoughts about that. First of all, Halloween 158 00:14:39.720 --> 00:14:48.120 is my favorite hug. I've always said I am a full sized candy bar 159 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:52.000 person, none of these fun size I have one of the good houses. 160 00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:56.120 Separate from that, I understand that there may be some religious objections to it. 161 00:14:56.600 --> 00:15:01.000 I'm not an Orthodox and I don't live in an Orthodox community. And 162 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:05.519 when I was growing up, the biggest objection about Halloween was we were back 163 00:15:05.559 --> 00:15:07.360 East and you'd get this great costume, you'd have to put a parka over 164 00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:13.679 it. So I you know, I know that the objection has not always 165 00:15:13.759 --> 00:15:18.960 been you know, Jewish. I mean I think that it's considered a pagan 166 00:15:18.519 --> 00:15:24.720 holiday, and that there were there were Christians who objected to it too. 167 00:15:24.879 --> 00:15:30.879 I also happened to love paganism, and I consider myself a Yiddish pagan and 168 00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:37.120 I see the antecedents of all of our faiths in this kind of early religious 169 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:41.960 world. So yeah, I have several sweet teeth. I don't have a 170 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:46.080 sweet tooth, So I'm with you on that. And also you're you're absolutely 171 00:15:46.120 --> 00:15:52.039 right if we take the slippery slope into critiquing and discarding anything that has a 172 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:56.919 smell of paganism, we don't have any Judaism anymore because of the roots of 173 00:15:56.960 --> 00:16:03.440 everything that we think of as Jewish or Christian culture. If you dig deep 174 00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:08.279 enough, you find exactly what the objectors are objecting to. So I think 175 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:14.759 Halloween is beautiful. I wish I would see more kids dressing up like golams 176 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:18.960 and diviocks, but maybe that'll happen. The other thing I wanted to mention 177 00:16:18.399 --> 00:16:22.960 is that you know, in the final story in the book, it's a 178 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:29.639 story about a girl who doesn't use her voice and that that is in really 179 00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:36.200 in many cultures throughout the millennia, in many religions, a woman's voice has 180 00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:41.320 been has had a lot of weight and associations attached to it, you know, 181 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:48.799 the whole ban on Kohli Shah in Jewish culture, and which I have 182 00:16:48.919 --> 00:16:52.919 also had to deal with quite a lot as a vocalist. You know, 183 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:56.679 kind of like okay, here we go again. You know, there is 184 00:16:56.720 --> 00:17:02.120 something about being robbed of your agency and not you your voice, which is 185 00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:07.680 also I guess my response to my experience is kind of swimming in those waters 186 00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:18.160 of an orthodox traditional world. As a non Orthodox woman singer, you're always 187 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:22.559 busy with different projects, what's new and upcoming and how can we find out 188 00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:26.920 more? Well. I do try to keep up with my website, which 189 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:33.960 is www. Elizabeth dashboards dot com, and there's a lot of stuff on 190 00:17:34.039 --> 00:17:37.759 there. It does seem like we're doing a lot of things all at once, 191 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:44.119 and that's really because you know, so much stuff was percolating and in 192 00:17:44.160 --> 00:17:47.480 the works during the pandemic or immediately after the pandemic, so it seems like 193 00:17:47.519 --> 00:17:52.880 it's like a crazy amount of activity, But really this was all this happening 194 00:17:53.240 --> 00:17:59.079 slowly getting ready to come out. We just had our new album released on 195 00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:04.599 the Naxos Arc Music label. This was a recording we made last year in 196 00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:08.880 a former synagogue, well still a synagogue, it just doesn't have a Jewish 197 00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:17.799 community or or or anything in Polish Tech Republic, and it's it's a beautifully 198 00:18:17.799 --> 00:18:22.759 preserved synagogue that's noted because the rabbi who had been there, who is known 199 00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:25.720 as the Shah and that's what they call that, which is an acronym of 200 00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:34.759 his name, was a very important Torah commentator. So there are still pilgrimages 201 00:18:34.759 --> 00:18:40.839 made every year do Holoshock to go to his grave and to see the synagogue, 202 00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:44.680 which is now a museum. But we just recorded this album from live 203 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:52.880 in the synagogue as a way to kind of have oxygen and Jewish music and 204 00:18:52.440 --> 00:19:00.519 flowing through it again and playing music that is the kind of music from communities 205 00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:06.240 that would have come to Holoshov that the Jews of Holoshov might have gone to 206 00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:11.920 and heard, including one song based on a poem that is written in a 207 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:19.359 dialect of Yiddish from Eastern Austria, from the Bergenland called Bergolondish Yiddish that's extinct. 208 00:19:19.480 --> 00:19:22.680 There's no one who speaks that any longer. You know, I think 209 00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:26.519 that there are artists who worked in a medium who say, Okay, I 210 00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:30.359 finished this project, what's the next thing I'm going to write? But my 211 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:37.160 focus is really on this world and then I kind of explore it in as 212 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:40.400 many different media as I can. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining 213 00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:41.720 us. It's been great to talk to you. I really appreciate it. 214 00:19:41.720 --> 00:19:47.119 Guys, I wish you Halloween and to our audience, Now back to your 215 00:19:47.160 --> 00:19:52.000 regularly scheduled lives. Amusing Jews is here to amuse you. If you like 216 00:19:52.079 --> 00:19:57.640 being amused, go ahead and click like and subscribe.