Wiener Zeitung, November 21, 2019
German original: https://www.wienerzeitung.at/meinung/blogs/juedisch-leben/2039221-Meschugge-darf-man-sein.html
On Sunday, this year’s Yiddish Culture festival Vienna begins (November 24 – December 15).
“You may be Meschugge, but not crazy,” is the title of the new book by Topsy Küppers. Whoever wants to listen to her read from it can do so during this year’s Yiddish Culture Festival in Vienna, which will start this Sunday. Together with singer and cantor Svetlana Kundish, the musician Alan Bern (piano and accordion), and the Klezmer violinist Mark Kovnatskiy, also director of the Hamburg Klezmer Band, Küppers organized the evening “Oj, Mame, bin ich Falibt!” An evening about love sounds like an enjoyable program – the festival itself is designed to kindle positive emotions.
Maybe it’s just me, but this festival moves me with its nostalgia embedded in lots of music and humor. There will be plenty of that again this year, for example when Klezmer Reloaded and Inge Maux present “Jiddischkeiten” or when the lovely Shlomit Butbul together with her band and Gerhard Ernst begin a journey through the Jewish cultures of their families under the title “Amol iz gewen a maisse.” It starts in a polish Schtetl, then leads them to the Orient and back to Europe, into today’s Vienna. This way a mixture of European, oriental, and jazz sounds is created.
Mandy’s Mischpoche, together with Joesi Prokopetz, in turn put Vienna center stage of their evening “Wien, Wien, nor du aleyn.” It will also be a melange than can be heard there, in this case consisting of Viennese, Jewish, and Balkan sounds. Additional artists to be seen and heard in the framework of this festival include Michael Mertens, Ethel Merhaut, Daniel Serafin, Ondrej Janoska and Bela Koreny (“Nu, vielleicht…”), the Wiener Jüdische Chor, the Shalom! Band, as well as Wolfgang Böck (“Mazel Tov!”), the theater group Glatt Jiddish (“Purimshpil”) and the Wiener Klezmer Orchester with Küf Kaufman (“Le’Chaim!”).
Swingin’ Chanukkah
But my very personal highlight will again be the the Swingin’ Chanukkah evening at the Metropol. The musician and composer Roman Grinberg (the artistic director of the festival), together with the Jazzorchester Klezmetropol and the singer Tini Kainrath, mixes Klezmer, swing, and bossa nova together, which will create a good mood to last days beyond the concert. There are a lot of Christmas concerts during advent – Chanukkah programs naturally are harder to come by. It is all the better if there is something to look forward to, also because one knows what to expect and how good that feels. “Achtsamkeit” is currently all around – to treat yourself with feel-good – music for me is part of that.
“Some wonder about Jewish artists presenting themselves in Vienna so confidently – after all that Jews have endured here,” says Oskar Deutsch, President of the Jewish Community Vienna (IKG). However, the confidence is not self-explanatory, as Jews are constantly confronted with old hatred searching for new ways.
The Yiddish Culture Festival Vienna, which is organized by the booster club Förderverein des Jüdischen Instituts für Erwachsenenbildung – JIFE) conversely shows primarily one thing: a lot of heart. This connects and creates a good mood. Naturally, one can always contemplate that there was so much culture that today is no more. And what is possible in Jewish and Jiddish culture in Austria is demonstrated by artists like Roman Grinsberg, Shlomit Blutbul, or Mandy’s Mischpoche – not just at this festival, but via their diverse programming throughout the entire year.