’Like the biblical psalmodist, Abigail Wood calls forth a shir hadash, a "new song", which emerges from the seemingly silenced world of Eastern European Jewish folk song. Everything is new and vital in the worlds of Yiddish song that we enter in this book: youthful voices breathe new life into the Yiddish language; engaged believers use the mamaloshen of their ancestors to chart paths into the post-Holocaust world that will become their future; a new generation turns to the intersections of Jewish music and technology in search of a new sense of self and community; passionate voices turn to Yiddish song to transcend the past and build the future. Wood has provided us with an exemplary work of interdisciplinary scholarship - at once historical and ethnographic, and unfailingly committed to the human experience of song and singing.’ Philip V. Bohlman, University of Chicago, USA ’Abigail Wood’s kaleidoscopic and theoretically imaginative tour of Yiddishland’s twenty-first-century musical spaces deftly guides us through complex, vital communities as they forge a sonic, pluralistic and interconnected Yiddish future. Her passionate analysis challenges us to go beyond our comfort zones in rethinking, reframing, and renewing our assumptions about Jewish (is it even Jewish?) musical expression.’ Judah M. Cohen, Indiana University, USA 'I found the book captivating and persuasive, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in contemporary Yiddish culture. It will be also be stimulating for readers interested in Jewish history and Jewish studies, as well as those with a more general interest in the complex cultural work of music in communities, and of songs and singing in particular.' Notes ’... a modern ethnomusicology study that shows a new phase in Yiddish music’. FolkWorld
