In this Market of Fleas, Selling Klezmer CDs: A Conversation with Daniel Kahn (Interactive Group Video Session – 26th January 2021)

“All you drunken Shiksa sweethearts with your bloodshot eyes of blue
All you border-crossing Feyglekh who’ve been quarantined for flu
All you lost exilic aliens, you migrant mongrel stew
You needn’t feel Farloyrn, you don’t have to be blue
Just climb aboard this ark of ours and join the soggy crew
It’s a diasporic politics, it’s a reconstructed you
With permeable borders in between the old and new
A way to hide away what they would take away from you
Forget your god and country, and your revolution too
It’s possible for you to leave the many, for the few
It don’t matter if your daddy is from Poland or Peru
Your blood might come from Turkey, or Detroit or Timbuktu
Your language could be Farsi, Sanskrit, German or Zulu
Come on we’ve got some wandering to do”   – Daniel Kahn

In this session, we will be wandering alongside Daniel Kahn, a Yiddish musician, playwright, poet and translator. His music is entangled with his heritage in a myriad of ways. Armed with an accordion, he tells folk-stories rooted in his Jewishness and the historical experience of 20^th century Eastern Europeans, which convey a subversive and challenging politics.

It should be an eclectic discussion with Daniel, where we will speak about his cover version of the communist Internationale, his simultaneous philosemitism and harsh criticism of the Israeli state, as well as asking what drives his passion for translation and, more generally, why translation is so fundamental to the Jewish tradition.

This session will be run as part of the Exploding Appendix Avant-garde Art Practice and Research Group’s fortnightly meetup, which will be taking place online via Zoom (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7317698673?pwd=OTlBN3RzalBRMGh1TW9qSHNDWmptdz09). The meeting ID is 731 769 8673. The passcode is “go“. This session will be run by Harvey Barrett and take place on the 26th January 2021 from 19:30 – 22:30 (GMT). If you would like to join us for the session, or have any questions please message me at explodingappendix@gmail.com

Follow the event on Facebook here.