Silence appears frequently in discourses of the Holocaustas a metaphorical absence, a warning against forgetting, or simply the only appropriate response. But powerful though these meanings are, they often underplay the ambiguity of silence's signifying power. This article addresses the liminality of silence through an analysis of its richly textured role in the memorial soundscapes of Berlin. Beyond an aural version of erasure, unspeakability, or the space for reflection upon it, I argue that these silent spaces must always be heard as part of their surrounding urban environment, refracting wider spatial practices and dis/order. When conventions are reversedwhen the present is silentthe past can resound in surprising and provocative ways, collapsing spatial and temporal borders and escaping the ritualized boundaries of formal commemoration. This is explored through four different memorial situations: the disturbing resonances within the Holocaust Memorial; the transgressive processes of a collective silent walk; Gleis 17 railway memorial's opening up of heterotopic 'gaps' in time; and sounded/silent history in the work of singer Tania Alon. Each of these examples, in different ways, frames a slippage between urban sound and memorial silence, creating a parallel symbolic space that the past and the present can inhabit simultaneously. In its unpredictable fluidity, silence becomes a mobile and subversive force, producing an imaginative space that is ambiguous, affective and deeply meaningful. A closer attention to these different practices of listening disrupts a top-down, strategic discourse of silence as conventionally emblematic of reflection and distance. The contemporary urban soundscape that slips through the silent cracks problematizes the narrative hegemony of memorial itself.

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This book begins with an invocation of the sounds and significations that make up the complex of meanings of klezmer music in Berlin, as seen through a new jam session that began in the city in 2013. It underlines the importance of locating the music both historically and in its contemporary urban context—giving a brief but important sense of the past and present geographies of klezmer music, and also signaling exactly where and how the debate has significantly moved on from the anxieties of “virtual Judaism” and cultural appropriation. The chapter lays out the author’s methodology, as well as signposting certain theoretical frameworks that structure the narrative: the urban spatial critique of Lefebvre and de Certeau; British cultural studies work by Stuart Hall and others; the applied sociology of Adam Krims and Mark Granovetter; and the ethnomusicological framing of Mark Slobin and Martin Stokes. The chapter finishes with an appealing ethnographic snapshot of an evening of community music making, “the Night of the Singing Balconies”—an event that sums up several of the themes structuring this book. This collective concert is analyzed as a lively embodiment of contemporary Berlin performative culture: grassroots inclusivity; a firm belief in the power of enthusiasm over the necessity of talent; and a structural and ideological integration into the fabric of the city itself. The engaging observational style with which the Singing Balconies are described not only brings the night to life but also makes clear the book’s overall approach of ethnographic detail underpinned by solid theoretical framing.

This chapter steps a little away from the city itself to look at some of the processes of education, repertoire formation, and dissemination that underpin the transmission of klezmer and Yiddish music within Germany, including how these processes link to the wider transnational scene. It begins with a discussion of the nature of “tradition” in this context, especially pertinent considering the postwar development of this particular tradition in Germany (and its revitalization around much of the world) and klezmer’s continual problematic dialogue with nostalgia and cliché. The chapter then critiques the German workshop hegemony of the 1990s that underpins the current scene, including the perceived split between the universalist tendencies of Argentinian-Israeli clarinetist Giora Feidman and the historically rooted work of American musicians such as Alan Bern. The second half of the chapter is a lively case study of the German scene’s (and Europe’s) most important transmission hub, Yiddish Summer Weimar. This influential and well-established annual series is analyzed through several theoretical filters—filters that unite musical and social principles through the praxis of the Weimar workshops themselves. Once again, these theoretical frameworks are both supported and made accessible through a sustained emphasis on first-person ethnographic detail, drawn in this instance from the author’s attendance at the advanced instrumental workshop week in 2014 and from interviews with participants in subsequent years. This ethnography is also strongly supported by deeply articulate and provocative interview material with Yiddish Summer Weimar’s artistic director, Alan Bern.

This chapter devotes specific consideration to the complex relationship between contemporary Jewish identity and klezmer music in the city—as seen in two case studies that both directly address Berlin Jewish history through music. The first of these is a project that unearths the rich recorded legacy of two prewar Berlin Jewish record labels (Semer and Lukraphon) and re-presents their music for a modern concert audience. Despite the pre-Holocaust provenance of this music, a post-Holocaust framing is unavoidable, making these materials both a way of hearing the past and also a commentary on the present (including changing German-Jewish relations). In the process, Semer Ensemble raises important questions about the relationship of bounded historical materials to contemporary performance practice. The chapter also critiques the project, arguing that while it powerfully illustrates the wealth of talent and creativity in Berlin’s Jewish music scene, it also bends certain historical narratives to better suit its own artistic aims. Secondly, the chapter discusses the life story and work of singer Tania Alon, one of the few Berlin-born Jews on today’s klezmer and Yiddish scene. Tania’s deeply felt testimony as the granddaughter of Holocaust victims stands as a powerful contrast to the easy fluidity of the contemporary milieu and reminds us of the very personal resonances that this music also contains. In particular, Tania’s singing at Stolpersteine ceremonies is explored, through her own words, as a way of sounding the silenced voices of her family and simultaneously an aural part of the urban fabric.