This year’s Jewish Culture Week Augsburg Swabia*25 is all about music. But what is Jewish music? We asked composer and musician Alan Bern in advance.
What defines Jewish music for you?
Alan Bern: The term “Jewish music” is very broad. It includes religious, secular, folk, popular, theater and classical music and much, much more. Wherever Jews have lived in the world, a new musical synthesis has emerged that incorporates the musical culture of their non-Jewish neighbors. Jewish music can therefore also be understood as a gigantic network that connects most, if not all, of the world’s cultures.
In Augsburg, you are leading a workshop on contemplative nigunim singing. Could you explain to us what nigunim (Yiddish: nign) are – and what makes this form of singing so meaningful to you?
Alan Bern: The hasidic nign is a melody that has a specific spiritual purpose, whether to encourage deep introspection, create community or inspire dancing. In the Hasidic world, a nign is passed down from one generation to the next by hearing and sung only by boys and men in public. Today, they are also sung and appreciated by men and women in the secular world. They express something indescribable about our relationships to each other, to the world and to the most important values of life.
In your opinion, which musical styles within the Jewish musical tradition are too often forgotten – when they should be much better known?
Alan Bern: There are Jewish musical cultures all over the world – not only Ashkenazi, but also Sephardic, and those from Italy, Greece, the Caucasus and many other countries. Most of them are hardly known in Western Europe. In Germany, we know certain Yiddish folk songs, klezmer dance music and synagogue music, but Ashkenazi culture encompasses many, many more genres, such as the genuine folk song tradition of women, songs for the Shabbat table, klezmer genres for listening, and the new wave of experimental New Yiddish Music.
Alan Bern is a musician, composer and has been an advocate of Yiddish culture and music for many years. He is the founder and artistic director of the renowned Yiddish Summer Weimar festival, has founded music education initiatives and plays in various international bands. Together with violinist Mark Kovnatskiy, he will perform at the opening ceremony of the Jewish Culture Week Augsburg Swabia*25 and give two workshops for school classes and adults.
May 2025