{"id":1564,"date":"2019-02-20T16:31:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T22:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/yiddish-stage\/?p=1564"},"modified":"2023-05-16T16:45:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T21:45:06","slug":"more-argentine-than-martin-fierro-jevel-katzs-debut-in-buenos-aires-1930","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/yiddish-stage\/more-argentine-than-martin-fierro-jevel-katzs-debut-in-buenos-aires-1930\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMore Argentine than Mart\u00edn Fierro\u201d: Jevel Katz\u2019s Debut in Buenos Aires, 1930"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During the 1930s,\u00a0Buenos Aires cemented its reputation as one of the capitals of Yiddishland. A thriving Yiddish-speaking public avidly patronized the newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, literary organizations, caf\u00e9s, mutual aid societies, and philanthropies that sustained their community in spirit and in body. In addition, several Yiddish theatre companies vied for their patronage. A constant churn of stars visited from abroad, leading these troupes for weeks or months at a time. Under the guest artists\u2019 direction, the theatres mounted a diverse repertory of operettas, comedies, melodramas, and literary classics.1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Jevel Katz arrives in Buenos Aires. Source: \u201cA moderner idisher kupletist in Buenos Ayres: Khevl Kats,\u201d in\u00a0Di prese\u00a0<\/em>(Buenos Aires), June 6, 1930.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

To the local critics, however, the glass was merely half full: they deplored the predominance of trashy North American melodramas and operettas over the \u201cbetter,\u201d more highbrow repertory; they lamented the paucity of productions of plays by Argentine Yiddish writers; and they continually lambasted the \u201cstar system,\u201d which favored guests from overseas over homegrown talent. The critics acknowledged one exception to this latter complaint: the singer-songwriter Jevel (Khevl) Katz. He arrived in Argentina in May of 1930, at the age of twenty-eight, and quickly established himself as a hugely popular performer.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Alexander Vertinsky.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After Katz\u2019s untimely death in 1940,2<\/sup><\/a> Shmuel Rozhanski (Samuel Rollansky) commented that Jevel Katz \u201cwas the only Argentine <\/em>\u2018star,\u2019\u201d with over 500 compositions to his credit, running the gamut from couplets, ballads, declamations, and children\u2019s songs, to lampoons, impressions, satires, and parodies.3<\/sup><\/a> Arrayed in a variety of colorful costumes, accompanying himself on different instruments, and producing his own sound effects, this \u201ccheerful Litvak\u201d enchanted audiences young and old alike. His songs, often peppered with expressions in Spanish and the Buenos Aires lunfardo <\/em>dialect,4<\/sup><\/a> draw the collective portrait of an immigrant community\u2019s travails and foibles. Jevel Katz made only a handful of recordings; among these are the evocative \u201cMucho ojo<\/a>,\u201d conveying an immigrant\u2019s struggles to adjust to the new land, and \u201cTucum\u00e1n<\/a>,\u201d chronicling the singer\u2019s train trip (replete with chugs and whistles) to a concert venue in the Argentine provinces. Some of his songs were posthumously recorded by other artists, among them \u201cIkh zukh a tsimer<\/a>\u201d (I\u2019m Looking for a Room) and \u201cOvinu malkeinu<\/a>,\u201d a first-person account of a domino game, set to the melody of the solemn High Holy Day prayer.5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jevel Katz\u2019s arrival in Argentina did not go unheralded. Just a couple of weeks after he landed there, the Yiddish daily Di prese <\/em>ran a brief announcement of Katz\u2019s forthcoming debut at a literary evening honoring the pioneering Argentine Yiddish writer Mordkhe Alperson (Marcos Alpersohn, 1860-1947), convened by the H. D. Nomberg Yiddish Writers\u2019 Association. The announcement, titled \u201cA Modern Yiddish Composer of Couplets in Buenos Aires,\u201d featured a photograph of Katz in top-hat and formal garb, evoking one of his European musical idols (and parodic foils), the Russian singer Alexander Vertinsky (1889-1957)<\/a>.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competing daily\u00a0Di idishe tsaytung\u00a0<\/em>also ran a brief article about the freshly arrived\u00a0kupletist<\/em>. It featured this extract from an undated writeup in the Vilna\u00a0Tog<\/em>, which Katz shared with his Argentine interlocutors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jevel Katz \u2026 is a son of the Vilna streets. A typographer by profession, he has since childhood had a penchant for writing and composing ditties on local Vilna themes. These songs were so simple and folksy \u2013 and they possessed such a hearty folk humor \u2013 that they were inevitably a big hit among the intimate circles where Jevel Katz would sing them. About five or six years ago [circa 1924-1925], he performed for the first time before a larger audience and became very popular in Vilna. He owes his success with audiences not only to the texts and music that he has composed, but also to his renditions of them. He is musically talented, performing on various instruments, and his couplets\u2014which he accompanies on guitar, harmonica, and other instruments\u2014are highly original.<\/p>\n\u201cKhevl Ka\u201dts, kupletist un parodist, in buenos ayres,\u201d in\u00a0Di idishe tsaytung<\/em>, June 3, 1930. The Alperson event took place on June 7, 1930.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This, then, was the artistic toolkit that Jevel Katz brought with him to Argentina. He performed several of his couplets, parodies, and monologues for the staff of Di idishe tsaytung<\/em>, and the paper duly vouched for their tastefulness and their authentically folksy character, while conveying Katz\u2019s wish to perform them before a wider audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katz opened his performance at the Alperson celebration with a humorous \u201cautobiography,\u201d followed by some \u201claughter couplets\u201d (lakh-kupletn<\/em>) and Yiddish parodies of three of Vertinsky\u2019s songs. He brought down the house with his final number, \u201cAn umordnung in noz\u201d (A Nasal Disorder), an amusing couplet that was punctuated by frequent sneezes. A reporter for\u00a0Di prese\u00a0<\/em>wrote that in contrast to the less inventive song lyrics that were ordinarily encountered on the Yiddish stage, Katz\u2019s couplets had \u201ca point, a clear language, and a rhythm.\u201d The journalist felt that the Vertinsky parodies went over the heads of many audience members but, overall, \u201cthe Buenos Aires [Yiddish] theatre has acquired a genuine talent.\u201d7<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cJevel Katz and various characterizations accompanying his songs, couplets, and humoresques.\u201d Source: Shmuel Rozhanski (Samuel Rollansky),\u00a0\u201c<\/strong>Dos idishe gedrukte vort un teater in Argentine,\u201d in\u00a0Yoyvl-bukh: sakh-haklen fun 50 yohr idish leben in Argentine\u00a0<\/em>(Buenos Aires, 1940). This extensive essay was also published as a monograph in 1941.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The rival newspaper\u2019s account of that event was glowing: \u201cRegarding Jevel Katz, it can be truly said that he has come and he has conquered\u2026Jevel Katz declaimed, he recited a monologue, and he acted with ardor and talent\u2026A spicy line, a word\u2014and the word is immediately accompanied by a playful act, a gesture, a laugh, a shout, a sigh, or a sneeze.\u201d The article (probably by Rozhanski) concluded with an assessment and a prediction: \u201cJevel Katz possesses technique; his face sparkles while he sings or declaims, but with restraint\u2014and avoiding exaggeration. He is an artist who, once he feels at home in our milieu and absorbs our way of life, will enrich Yiddish artistic life here.\u201d8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Announcement for a matin\u00e9e honoring Zalmen Zylbercweig, who visited Argentina in 1937 to promote the publication of his\u00a0Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre<\/em>. The headliners at the event included Pesach\u2019ke Burstein and his wife Lillian Lux, visiting from New York. Jevel Katz\u2019s name appears toward the lower righthand corner of the poster. Source: New York Public Library Digital Collections.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Poster for a benefit matin\u00e9e in support of the Ber Borochov Workers\u2019 Schools, Buenos Aires, April 10, 1932. Jevel Katz, wearing a dinner jacket and white bow-tie, is shown by the center-right margin. Members of the\u00a0Yidisher folks-teater\u00a0<\/em>company are pictured here as well. Source: Fundaci\u00f3n IWO, Biblioteca Digital, C\u00f3digo A134.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Polish Yiddish actor-director Yitskhok Nozhik (Izak No\u017cyk) staged \u201cTel-Aviv,\u201d a theatrical spectacle, at the Teatro Excelsior in Buenos Aires in September 1936. \u201cThe parodist Jevel Katz has been specially engaged for this revue,\u201d the poster states. His photo appears in the upper left-hand corner of the Excelsior company\u2019s roster of portraits. Source: Fundaci\u00f3n IWO, Biblioteca Digital, C\u00f3digo A033.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, within the course of Jevel Katz\u2019s first few months in Argentina, this prediction was already being borne out. The Yiddish press reported on several other performances of his\u2014each within the framework of a larger cultural happening\u2014which took place during the Argentine winter months of 1930. These outings reflected the linguistic, cultural, and artistic adjustments that Katz was progressively making to his new surroundings. And in some of the public events, Katz shared the stage with visiting luminaries of Jewish (and Yiddish) culture. For instance, in late June, the famous Yiddish actor-director Maurice Schwartz, visiting Buenos Aires for the first of many tours there, was honored at a festive luncheon. Sandwiched in among the many speeches and performances (including Schwartz\u2019s own remarks to those assembled) Katz performed his lampoon of The Romanian Wedding<\/em>, the hit comic operetta with music by Peretz Sandler and libretto by Morris Schorr \u2013 a genre that contrasted with the more literary fare favored by Schwartz.9<\/sup><\/a> The endless tributes and recitations at events such as this one would become the fodder for some of Katz\u2019s gentle satires of the Yiddish scene in Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks later, \u201cthe well-known artist Jevel Katz\u201d (as a newspaper announcement now labeled him10<\/sup><\/a>) was among the performers at a benefit concert for Vilna\u2019s Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO). The headliners were the Yiddish actors Samuel Goldenberg and Stella Adler\u2014like Schwartz, on tour from New York.11<\/sup><\/a> There, for the first time, he sang two songs on local themes, which were warmly greeted by the audience: \u201cArgentiner glikn\u201d (Argentine Luck12<\/sup><\/a>) and \u201cDer griner bokher\u201d (The Young Greenhorn). In addition, Katz performed his humorous autobiography, and yet again he stole the show with \u201cA Nasal Disorder.\u201d A reporter from Di prese <\/em>commented, \u201cHis couplets make a pleasing impression and they are far from banal.\u201d13<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rounding out the cultural season, at the end of August 1930 Katz recited some of his by-now \u201cwell-known couplets\u201d at a luncheon reception for the Polish-Jewish painter Maurycy Minkowski, visiting Argentina together with his brother Feliks and his wife Rachel Marshak (a fellow Vilner).14<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In succeeding years, Jevel Katz\u2019s reputation and popularity would continue to grow. He was a ubiquitous presence on the Yiddish cultural scene, performing in plays put on by theatrical troupes, in radio broadcasts, at events organized by Jewish societies and schools, and in solo concert tours in and around Buenos Aires, other cities and agricultural colonies across Argentina, and neighboring Uruguay and Chile. The distinctively Argentine Yiddish persona and repertory that Katz created drew upon the rich musical, theatrical, religious, and literary traditions\u2014Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian\u2014that he had absorbed in the Jerusalem of Lithuania.15<\/sup><\/a> In the process, as the Argentine author and theatre commentator Marcos Rosenzvaig has put it, \u201cHe became more Argentine than Mart\u00edn Fierro, without losing his identity.\u201d16<\/sup><\/a> Jevel Katz\u2019s name and his music live on in the memories of the Jews of Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander Vertinsky, accessed September 22, 2018, https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alexander_Vertinsky<\/a><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker, Zachary M. \u201c\u2018Gvald Yidn, Buena Gente\u2019: Jevel Katz, Yiddish Bard of the R\u00edo de la Plata,\u201d in Inventing the Modern Yiddish Stage: Essays in Drama, Performance, and Show Business<\/em>, Joel Berkowitz and Barbara Henry, eds. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012), 202\u2013222.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jevel Katz, accessed: September 17, 2018, https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jevel_Katz<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jevel Katz y sus paisanos, director: Alejandro Vagnenkos. 2005. Video, 70 minutes, accessed, September 17, 2018, https:\/\/vimeo.com\/35317861<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palomino, Pablo. \u201cThe Musical Worlds of Jewish Buenos Aires, 1910-1940,\u201d in Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas<\/em>, Amalia Ran and Moshe Morad, eds. (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2016), 25\u201343.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rozhanski, Shmuel (Samuel Rollansky). \u201cDos idishe gedrukte vort un teater in Argentine,\u201d in Yoyvl-bukh: sakh-haklen fun 50 yohr idish leben in Argentine<\/em>; lekoved \u201cDi idishe tsaytung\u201d tsu ihr 25-yohrigen yubileum <\/em>[Cincuenta a\u00f1os de vida jud\u00eda en la Argentina: homenaje a \u201cEl Diario Israelita\u201d en su vigesimoquinto aniversario<\/em>] (Buenos Aires: 1940), 327-418. Separately published as vol. 1 of the author\u2019s Gezamlte shrifn <\/em>(Buenos Aires: 1941), which is accessible here: https:\/\/www.yiddishbookcenter.org\/collections\/yiddish-books\/spb-nybc202123\/rozshanski-shemuel-dos-yidishe-gedrukte-vort-un-teater-in-argentine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosenzvaig, Marcos. \u201cEl teatro \u00eddisch en Buenos Aires,\u201d in Cuadernos de investigaci\u00f3n teatral del San Mart\u00edn <\/em>1 (Buenos Aires, 1994): 54\u201364.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Svarch, Ariel. \u201cDer freylekhster yid in Argentine<\/em>: The Life and Death of Jevl Katz, Popular Artist of the 1930s,\u201d in Splendor, Decline, and Rediscovery of Yiddish in Latin America<\/em>, Malena Chinski and Alan Astro, eds. (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2018), 225\u2013250. See also his article, \u201cMucho lujo: Jevl Katz y las complejidades del espect\u00e1culo \u00e9tnico-popular en Buenos Aires, 1930-1940,\u201d in ISTOR: Revista<\/em> 53 (2013), 65\u201378.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toker, Eliahu. \u00a1And\u00e1 a cantarle a Jevel Katz!, accessed: September 17, 2018, http:\/\/eliahutoker.com.ar\/escritos\/gente_katz.htm<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zylbercweig, Zalmen. \u201cKatz, Khevel,\u201d in\u00a0Leksikon fun yidishn teater<\/em>, vol. 7,\u00a06163-6167<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Notes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. The number of professional troupes in Buenos Aires fluctuated from season to season\u2014and sometimes, within each season, from month to month. At some points during the mid-1930s as many as five Yiddish theatre companies performed simultaneously in Buenos Aires, including the non-commercial, leftist\u00a0Yidisher folks-teater\u00a0<\/em>(IFT). The Yiddish theatre flourished there into the 1950s, past the heyday of the Yiddish Rialto on New York\u2019s Second Avenue.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Katz succumbed to a post-operative infection following a tonsillectomy; the shock was such that upwards of 25,000 people lined the streets of Buenos Aires for his funeral procession in March 1940. For background on Jevel Katz, see Baker (2012), Svarch (2013 and 2018), and Zylbercweig (undated).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Rozhanski (1940), 407 (emphasis in the original).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. The Argentine Jewish poet and critic\u00a0Eliahu Toker<\/a>\u00a0labeled this language mixture\u00a0cast\u00eddish<\/em>. For an extensive linguistic analysis of Katz\u2019s song lyrics, see Svarch (2018).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. \u201cIkh zukh a tsimer\u201d is sung here by Max Perlman (accompanied by Sim\u00f3n Tenovsky on the piano); \u201cOvinu malkeinu\u201d is sung here by Max Zalkind. There is a playlist of songs by Jevel Katz, sung by him and by other performers, on YouTube, accessed October 3, 2018,\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLTOAUUjhQKy4N4zJHMtieOuLrerrJV6gz<\/a>. Most of these songs, along with scans of a couple of posters, are also accessible through the Fundaci\u00f3n IWO\u2019s Digital Library: http:\/\/www.iwo.org.ar\/biblioteca\/busqueda?Catalogo%5BTodos%5D=Jevel+Katz%7C1. Additional details concerning lyrics to some of these songs are found in my essay \u201c\u2018Gvald Yidn, Buena Gente\u2019: Jevel Katz, Yiddish Bard of the R\u00edo de la Plata\u201d (Baker, 2012), and in Ariel Svarch\u2019s 2018 essay.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. \u201cA moderner idisher kupletist in Buenos Ayres: Khevl Kats,\u201d in\u00a0Di prese<\/em>, June 6, 1930. Many of Alexander Vertinsky\u2019s vintage recordings are accessible online via YouTube. His 1926 recording of the song \u201cDorogoi dlinnoyu<\/a>\u201d (\u201cEndless Road,\u201d composed by Boris Fomin with lyrics by the poet Konstantin Podrevskii) will ring a bell with today\u2019s listeners. The English adaptation (lyrics by Gene Raskin), \u201cThose Were the Days<\/a>,\u201d was recorded in 1962 by the Limeliters and became a big hit in\u00a0Mary Hopkin\u2019s 1968 rendition<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. \u201cDer Mordkhe Alperson ovnt fun H. D. Nomberg Shrayber Fareyn,\u201d in\u00a0Di prese<\/em>, June 9, 1930.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. \u201cDer Alperson-ovend, organizirt fun Shrayber-Fareyn, hot gehat a groysen derfolg,\u201d in\u00a0Di idishe tsaytung<\/em>, June 10, 1930.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. \u201cDer kaboles-ponem fun \u2018Shrayber-Fareyn H. D. Nomberg\u2019 far Moris Shvarts,\u201d in\u00a0Di idishe tsaytung<\/em>, July 1, 1930. \u201cDi rumenishe khasene\u201d had its premiere in September 1923, with Aaron Lebedeff and Bessie Weisman in the leading roles.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. \u201cAn interesanter frimorgn farn Idish visn. Institute,\u201d in\u00a0Di prese<\/em>, July 21, 1930.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  11. As a Vilner, Katz would likely have been aware of YIVO\u2019s work, including its assiduous collecting of Yiddish folklore.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  12. Argentiner glikn\u00a0<\/em>was the title of the only book or booklet to be published by Jevel Katz; it appeared in Buenos Aires in 1933.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  13. \u201cMit derfolg iz nekhten gevorn durkhgefihrt der \u201cIVO\u2019-frihmorgen,\u201d in\u00a0Di idishe tsaytung<\/em>, July 28, 1930; \u201cDer nekhtiker frimorgn fun der IVO,\u201d in\u00a0Di prese<\/em>, July 28, 1930.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  14. The reception was sponsored by the Association of Polish Jews in Argentina. See, \u201cA kaboles ponem lekoved dem kunst-moler H\u2019 M. Minkovski un zayn familye in\u2019m Poylish Idishen Farband,\u201d in\u00a0Di idishe tsaytung<\/em>, September 1, 1930. It is quite likely that Katz was familiar with the painter\u2019s works and his reputation\u2014Minkowski exhibited in Vilna in 1922 and the painter met his wife in Katz\u2019s hometown. Minkowski, who had been deaf since early childhood, would die in Buenos Aires in November 1930, run over by a car. Dozens of his artworks now belong to the\u00a0Fundaci\u00f3n IWO<\/a>. For background on Minkowski\u2019s 1930 visit to Argentina, see my article \u201cArt Patronage and Philistinism in Argentina: Maurycy Minkowski in Buenos Aires, 1930,\u201d in\u00a0Shofar\u00a0<\/em>19, no. 3 (2001): 107\u2013119.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  15. In July 1939, Rozhanski offered the following summary of Katz\u2019s European artistic influences and subsequent development as a performer in Argentina: \u201cJevel Katz, who came from Vilna to Buenos Aires ten years ago, conveying the artistic moods of a Vertinsky-style cabaret artist and the musical talent of a Wunderkind, adjusted to Argentina more rapidly than any other educated or uneducated immigrant. In Buenos Aires, he did not for a single instant forget Vilna, which was the source of a powerful relationship to culture, the stage, and the art of the stage. The further away he was from Vilna, the greater was the veneration with which he sang his hymn \u2018Vilne, oy, Vilne, mayn heymele\u2019 (Vilna, O Vilna, My Beloved Home). Yet his profound longing for the Old Country was bound up with an indescribable affection for his new home, Argentina. He loved the Argentine Jewish community like a mother, with all of its faults and weaknesses, and he celebrated the community \u2018from head to toe\u2019.\u201d Shmuel Rozhanski (Samuel Rollansky), \u201cAzoy zingt Khevl Kats,\u201d in\u00a0Di idishe tsaytung<\/em>, July 9, 1939; quoted in Zylbercweig (undated), col. 6164. \u201cAzoy zingt Khevl Kats\u201d [What Jevel Katz Sings] was a weekly rubric in that newspaper during 1939 and 1940, both before and after Katz\u2019s death in March 1940 (when it was renamed \u201cAzoy hot gezungen Khevl Kats\u201d). Each installment included the lyrics to and musical notation for a song by Jevel Katz.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  16. Rosenzvaig (1994), 59. Mart\u00edn Fierro was the gaucho hero of the epic poem, \u201cEl Gaucho Mart\u00edn Fierro<\/a>,\u201d by Jos\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez (1834-1886). It was first published in two parts (1872 and 1879) and has been translated into over seventy languages.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    During the 1930s, Buenos Aires cemented its reputation as one of the capitals of Yiddishland. 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