by Dr. Jakob Eisler  

Friday, October 13, 10:00-11:30am, B-342 Wells Hall

After Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933, antisemitism became a state doctrine. The National Socialists’ aim was the physical destruction of the Jews. Every memory of the sound and voice of Jewish artists was to be consigned to oblivion in the same way as the Yiddish language. On being liberated from Theresienstadt concentration camp, the Berlin Rabbi, Leo Baeck, stated his conviction that the 1,000 year history of the Jews in Germany had come to an irrevocable end. This documentation is proof of the victory of life over death – priceless sound documents have been rescued, then restored with a great expenditure of technological effort and, after sixty years, made available once more for all time. Under constant surveillance by the Gestapo, the members of a Jewish Cultural League [Juedischer Kulturbund] in Berlin were able to pursue their artistic activities and make and distribute records. Some of the titles recorded in Berlin were released in Palestine from 1933 to 1938 – forming part of the early history of Israel’s record industry. These records that are scattered throughout the world for the most part exist only as single copies or test pressings. The repertoire is wide and includes classical music, Yiddish comedians, German cabaret, Palestinian folk songs and, above all, cantorial singing of enormous eloquence.

Dr. Jakob Eisler works as a researcher in the Wuerttembergian Church State Archives in Stuttgart, Germany and as lecturer at the University of Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart.  His publication, Beyond Recall:  A Record of Jewish Musical Life in Nazi Germany 1933-1938, won first prize for the Best Research in Recorded Music from the Association of Recorded Sound Collections in 2002.  His research interests include the activities of Europeans and Americans in the 19th century in the Land of Israel, German Jewry in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the history of Israel during the Ottoman period and Mandate eras.