Klezmer’s Afterlife: An Ethnography of the Jewish Music Revival in Poland and Germany. By Magdalena Waligórska

In Klezmer’s Afterlife, Magdalena Waligórska seeks to prise open one of the most contentious topics in recent discourses on Jewish music: the widespread enthusiasm for and participation in contemporary klezmer music by (largely) non-Jewish Poles and Germans. Observing that previous literature exploring this topic, both popular and academic, has tended to focus on questions of legitimacy rather than explore the encounters and motivations of non-Jewish Polish and German musicians who engage with klezmer (p. 8), Waligórska lays out an admirably detailed historical and social context for the contemporary revival of pre-Holocaust east European Jewish music in Poland and Germany, and explores the place of klezmer music in identity conversations, both individual and national, based upon a comprehensive series of interviews with musicians in Berlin and Krakow undertaken during 2004–8.