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5 min readYiddish Tangos and Klezmer Mambos
The tango that swept the world in the 1910s did not arrive in Yiddish-speaking communities from a single direction. It came from Buenos Aires, where Yiddish-speaking Jews had been immigrating in large numbers. It came from Paris, where the international tango craze began around 1913. And it came from New York, where Yiddish actors and musicians, after their season ended, would tour South American Jewish population centers during the Southern Hemisphere's summer months, networking with colleagues in Buenos Aires and absorbing tango culture firsthand. By the 1920s, Yiddish operettas in New York were featuring tangos as metaphors for forbidden love—the thrill of the dance standing in for the thrill of taboo intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.
The Tango on the Yiddish Stage
The earliest documented tango from the New York Yiddish stage appears in Sholem Secunda's 1927 operetta Zayn Yidish Moyd ("His Jewish Girl"). The character who sings it is a Russian army officer in love with a young Jewish woman; the scandal of intermarriage is resolved when he learns he is himself a Jew. As musician and scholar Ronald Raboy explained, "the unkosher thrill of the tango reflects the thrill of and is a metaphor for their forbidden love."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:07) **Introduction by Alex Weiser** - Host welcomes panelists and sets up the Carnegie Hall festival context for Latin American musical influence on Yiddish-speaking communities.
- 2 (02:18) **Ron Robboy: Origins of the Tango** - Traces tango’s roots to Afro-descendant communities in Argentina and Uruguay, and the influence of the Cuban habanera.
- 3 (03:23) **Tango Mania Reaches the Yiddish Stage** - Describes how tango spread from Paris to New York and Eastern Europe, and how Yiddish actors and musicians brought it to South American Jewish communities.
- 4 (06:44) **Yiddish Tango Examples in New York** - Plays and discusses recordings of tangos by Abraham Elstein, Alexander Olschinetsky, and others, including the famous “Ich hob dich zu viel lieb.”
- 5 (11:09) **The Transmigration of a Tune** - Traces how Olschinetsky’s tango was adapted into English as “I Love You Much Too Much,” then covered by Dean Martin as a cha-cha, and finally by Carlos Santana as an instrumental.
- 6 (18:22) **Sonia Gollins: Latin Dance and Jewish Modernity** - Introduces a Yiddish story about a decadent masked ball where tango symbolizes cosmopolitanism and a break from tradition.
- 7 (20:47) **Why Latin Dances Thrilled Jewish Dancers** - Explains that tango and mambo were signs of being modern, fashionable, and transgressive against traditional Jewish dance norms.
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Show Notes
This panel discussion will explore the remarkable influence of Latin American music and dance on the culture of Yiddish speaking communities in the United States. Ronald Robboy will discuss Latin American musical influences upon Yiddish theater composers, including Sholom Secunda, Abraham Ellstein, and Alexander Olshanetsky; Sonia Gollance will discuss the popularity of dances like the Tango and Mambo in the Borscht Belt, as exemplified by movies like Dirty Dancing and Mamboniks; and Josh Kun will discuss the influence of Latin American music on post-war Jewish music and the influence of Jewish music on U.S. Latino/a artists.
This event forms part of Carnegie Hall’s Nuestros sonidos festival.
This panel discussion originally took place on March 10, 2025.
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