Jews Singing the News: The Performance of Older Yiddish “Historical” Songs

Oren Cohen Roman is faculty in the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa. He researches Yiddish literature from its medieval beginnings up to the twentieth century, as well as the cultural history of Ashkenazi Jews. He is particularly interested in the relationship between text and music and the aural aspect of reading. His current research focuses on sung texts in older Yiddish such as news ballads known as “historical songs” and epic poetry on biblical themes.