The Social Life of Jewish Music Records from 1948 Czechoslovakia by 'Hazzan' Josef












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            Abstract

            This article traces transnational “life” trajectories of two rare Jewish religious music r
            Communist Czechoslovakia and of their main performer Josef Weiss (ca. 1912, Veľké Kapušany
            who was a hazzan (cantor) in synagogues in Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Jerusalem, Ramat Gan,

            New York, but has remained mostly unknown to music history. It shows how these two 78-rpm 
            the core of Weiss’s grandson’s family / music / memory project, which has revealed and pre
            52 audio recordings to preserve his grandfather’s legacy. While following these and other 

            technologically modified recordings of Weiss on their recent path between the Czech Republ
            Hungary, and the US, the article sheds light on how this case fits into the broader framew

            life of things and the context of musical remembrance. Already put to use during the life-
            Weiss’s children and grandchildren, as well as in a museum exhibition – this family projec
            fragment of a Jewish sonic past for the present needs of its actors, while being entangled

            practice of Jewish memory institutions, as well as with the activities of private record c
            one ethnomusicologist (myself).
            Keywords: Cantorial records; ethnomusicology; hazzan; multi-sited ethnography; social life

            Veronika Seidlová [ URL "LM-339.html "]

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