Introduction:
Though not something that is typically associated with Judaism or Jewish culture, tango intertwines with Jewish culture and history at several vital points in its own history and development.
Part 1: Jewish Influence in the Development of Tango
As a port city, Buenos Aires was the first destination for immigrants coming from numerous different countries1 and it was this influx of immigrants to the city facilitated a convergence of cultures that eventually produced tango music and dance. Tango initially emerged in the poorer neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, where the intermingling of cultures brought by the city’s varied inhabitants blended pieces of their music and dance styles, combining everything from Cuban habanera to Czech polka.2 In addition to the sheer number of influences it had, because tango developed in poorer areas before it began to reach upper classes via theater3, its development was not extensively documented early on, making it difficult to track its exact origins. However, there is significant evidence that Jewish music and culture were among the numerous contributors. In addition to the Crypto-Jews who were involved in the early colonization of the Americas, a significant portion of the immigrants to Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were Jewish. One of the earlier examples of this was in 1881, Jews came fleeing Russia.4 The 1890’s saw another wave of European Jews sponsored by the Jewish Colonization Association. By the 1930’s, Buenos Aires boasted the second-largest urban Jewish community in the world, rivaled only by New York.3 Jewish musicians in particular were able to integrate into the wider society, adding their stylistic influences to the emerging tango genre. Klezmer musicians and bands were hired to perform a variety of different kinds of music and both added tango songs to their repertoires and contribute some of the stylistic elements of Klezmer to the emerging genre.5 In addition to this more general influence, there were several specific figures in the later development of tango who were Jewish.
Jewish Tango Musicians of Note
Simón Bajour
Born outside of Warsaw, Poland in April of 1928, Bajour took an interest in the violin at a very young age and was playing at a professional level by the time he was nine. His family moved to Argentina, where his father had previously visited, in 1937. Though not born there, he was able to integrate into the culture and musical scene of Buenos Aires and contribute his musical talent to the rapidly growing tango genre. Despite initially showing somewhat of a dislike for tango music, he started to warm up to it after watching several live performances. He first started actually playing tango music at the age of 14, when he was hired as part of a club’s sextet. From there, he would go on to play in numerous orchestras, including that of the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires’s primary opera house, in addition to other bands and cabarets.6
Bookogs.”Simón Bajour.” Accessed March 9, 2020. https://books.discogs.com/credit/263846-simon-bajour?genre=Music
Isaac Rosofsky, aka Julio Jorge Nelson
Born in spring of 1913 in the neighborhood of Villa Crespo, Nelson was drawn to the worlds of music and radio early in his life. In addition to having composed a fair number of his own songs, he is also credited with being one of the reasons that the legacy of Carlos Gardel, one of if not the most influential figures in the development of tango, has endured as strongly as it has. As a radio host, he dedicated a program specifically to Gardel’s work titled “El Bronce que Sonríe” (translating to “The Smiling Bronze” in English). The program endured for a considerable amount of time after both Gardel’s death and the lull in interest for tango music on the radio.7
Nelson (right), pictured with fellow lyricist Gabino Coria Peñaloza (left)
Wikimedia Commons “Gabino Coria Peñaloza and Julio Jorge Nelson.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gabino_Coria_Pe%C3%B1aloza_and_Julio_Jorge_Nelson.jpg
Part 2: Duality of Tango During the Holocaust
Tango’s second major appearance in Jewish culture and history is unfortunately not as positive a story as that which preceded it. Tango’s travel to Europe was well underway by 1910,8 and so by the time World War II started, it had a significant foothold across the continent and would continue to be part of the culture as the war raged across the continent.
There is a sharp duality in the tango created or performed by Jewish people during this period. The first and quite frankly horrifying variant, which became known by the morbid nickname of “Death Tango,” was not one that was created willingly. Within concentration camps such as the Janowska concentration camp, orchestras called Lagerkapelle were formed from inmates who were made to play for their captors, in some cases during the mass murders carried out at the camps. The music they were made to play was not exclusively tango, but because a large proportion was, the music as a whole was referred to as “Death Tango.”9
This “Death Tango” was not the only music present in the camps and ghettos, however. At the same time, musicians who were imprisoned were writing their own music. As many of these songs existed primarily orally, not many survived, but among those that did there are a great deal of tango songs or tango-inspired songs. In contrast to the cruel perversion of music that was the Death Tango, these songs were a source of comfort, expression, and even resistance.
Shmerke Kaczerginski, Friling, and Songs of Mourning
Some of these were completely original, such as the song Friling (Spring), which combines lyrics by Shmerke Kaczerginski and music composed by Avrom Brudno, written as a memorial to Barbara Kaczerginski, Shmerke Kaczerginski’s wife who died in the Vilna ghetto.9
Gustavo Beytelmann (performer). “Friling” by Shmerke Kaczerginski and Avrom Brudno, April 15, 2008, Tzadik, track 2 on Tangele, 2008, MP3.
The lyrics contrast the usually hopeful mood associated with spring with the speaker’s profound sense of grief and isolation in the face of both personal tragedy and systemic violence.
From Wikimedia Commons. Photographer unknown. “Shmerke Kaczerginski” Accessed March 9, 2020
Yiddish Tango and Contrafacta
Others were contrafacta, a type of song created by reworking or replacing the words of another (usually well-known) song, such as Ruven Tsarfat’s Yiddish Tango, an adaptation of a popular pre-war song, “Sing For Me A Little Song In Yiddish” by Henech Kon. Taking this more upbeat tune, Tsarfat put a slightly more mournful tone in it without completely losing the current of hope running through the original song. Complimenting the musical choices, he tailored lyrics that retain the structure of the original, but connect specifically to his current situation, creating a piece that acts as a declaration of resistance.9
From the CD Hidden History: Songs of the Kovno Ghetto (1997), via holocaustmusic.ort.org and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
A rendition of Shpil Zhe Mir a Lidele in Yidish, the song on which Yiddish Tango was based, performed by Passage Klezmer
Shpil Zhe Mir a Lidele in Yidish (Play Me a Song in Yiddish)
Play me a little song in Yiddish
May it wake joy and no surprises,
So everyone, young and old, can understand it.
Let the song go from mouth to mouth!
Refrain:
Play, musicians, play –
You know what I have in mind and what I want.
Play a little song for me –
Play a little song with heart and feeling.
A song without sighs and without tears –
Play so everyone can hear it,
So everyone can see I’m alive and I can sing
Even better and more beautifully than before.
Play me a little song about peace!
Let there be peace already, let it not be dream!
So nations great and small can understand it,
And not engage in battles and wars.
Let’s sing the little song together like good friends,
Like children of one mother.
My only request is that it out freely and honestly,
In everyone’s song, my song too!
Lyrics to Yiddish Tango
Play a tango for me, please, in Yiddish,
It could be a classic or Hasidic,
So even old grandma
Will understand it all,
And come along and join us at the ball!
Play a tango for me about exiles,
About a people scattered, banished, cast out,
So children, large and small,
Will understand it all,
And come along and join us at the ball!
Refrain:
Play, play, play, klezmer, play,
Play the way a Jewish heart must feel;
Play, play,a dance for me, oh play,
I beg you, please, now play with heart and soul!
Play a tango for me, but not Aryan!
Let it not be Aryan – not barbarian!
So out enemies can see
There’s still a dance in me;
I join the dance with zest and energy
(Refrain)
Play a tango for me about peacetime,
Let it be real peacetime, not just dreamtime,
So Hitler and his state
Get the punishment they rate,
Oh, what a little dance for us we’d make!
Notes
- Baim, Jo. Tango: Creation of a Cultural Icon. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007) 17
- Collier, Simon, Artemis Cooper, María Susana Azzi, and Richard Martin. Tango!: The Dance, the Song, the Story. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997)
- Baim, Jo. Tango: Creation of a Cultural Icon. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007) 35
- Czackis, Lloica. “Yiddish Tango: A Musical Genre?” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe 42, No. 2 (2009): 109
- Pomeraniec, Gabriel. “Tango: Una Historia con Judíos,” Jai Tv, Feb 18, 2018. 20:30, https://youtu.be/ahomexMZjPw
- Nudler, Julio. “Biography of Simón Bajour.” Todo Tango. Accessed March 7 2020. http://www.todotango.com/english/artists/biography/948/Simon-Bajour/
- Nudler, Julio. “Biography of Julio Jorge Nelson.” Todo Tango. Accessed March 7 2020. https://www.todotango.com/creadores/biografia/909/Julio-Jorge-Nelson/
- Czackis, Lloica. “Yiddish Tango: A Musical Genre?” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe 42, No. 2 (2009): 110
- Czackis, Lloica. “Yiddish Tango During the Holocaust.” Music and the Holocaust, World ORT. Accessed March 8 2020. https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/music/yiddish-tango/
- Czackis, Lloica. “Yiddish Tango: A Musical Genre?” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe 42, No. 2 (2009): 116