Nobody Wanted To Collaborate: Litvakus and reclaiming Jewish music from Belarus

One strand of the story of Jews is of worn down wandering boot heels. A story of the road. They have heard ‘you should probably get going’ (or worse) often enough that you almost have to wonder how people such as these learned such hospitality. Jews have been in the nation we call Belarus for about 1200 years. And Jews were certainly shuttled around there despite their long residence. Before World War 2 there Jews were about 15% of the entire population but in cities Jews were almost 50% of the population. During the war two-thirds of all Jews were killed and Nazis certainly weren’t the only perpetrators. Belarus still has a deep legacy of anti-Semitism in the nation. There are less than 15,000 Jews left in the country today. So much was lost.

Zisl Slepovitch was working on his ethnomusicology degree in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. It was there that he came across a small cache of recordings of Belarusian Jewish music that had somehow had survived in paper and recorded form. What he found thrilled him. And he started to listen and play this old music. During the hundreds of years of Jews being sent ‘away’ in Belarus they were often sent to the less settled western corner where Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus intersect. There is a thicketed, swampy and wild place. And Slepovitch hears that swampy wildness in the music that was probably formed there over countless generations.

 

While Slepovitch was on fire with this music that was simultaneously new to him and deeply known to him he found a few old timers who knew the songs and the styles. He started to recapitulate a bit of what was lost. The trail had almost been buried. He tried to find musical collaborators but he reports that because of anti-semitism ‘nobody wanted to collaborate.” So his attempts that started there had to hit the road again to find a place. Jews and the road; heartbreakingly a pair.

 

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Slepovitch came to America and started a band – Litvakus. The group plays these old standards. They have found other troves of Belarusian Jewish music and also compose in the same style. If you have heard klezmer music before this will sound familiar. The swinging, mournful clarinet and the minored melodies somehow still joyful. But when you listen, and I pray you do. I hope you listen for the droning that might be sound of insects calling out in swampy Belarus summers long ago echoed by musicians. This is music from a place. Slepovitch came to America and started a band – Litvakus. The group plays these old standards. They have found other troves of Belarusian Jewish music and also compose in the same style. If you have heard klezmer music before this will sound familiar. The swinging, mournful clarinet and the minored melodies somehow still joyful. But when you listen, and I pray you do. I hope you listen for the droning that might be sound of insects calling out in swampy Belarus summers long ago echoed by musicians. This is music from a place. To know that this music is in the world when it was so close to not being in the world is pretty good and is as good an argument as any for the life-giving proposition of true culture. It vivifies that which it comes into relationship with even when grief is nearby.

Primal Derma is our little attempt to keep alive an ancient tradition too that has a deep connection to place. Thanks so much for your support in keeping it alive.

Talk soon enough.
M