” Forget that ! Hasidic culture is not your culture. You will never have access to this universe. »
This is the warning that was given to Jessica Roda when she wanted to explore the Hasidic musical universe that has fascinated her for a long time.
It was little to know the passion of this anthropologist and ethnomusicologist, professor at Georgetown University, who has just published the first work devoted to the artistic universe of ultra-orthodox women of Montreal and New York.
The book For Women and Girls Only – Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age (NYU Press) is a captivating foray into a little-known world that debunks stereotypes about ultra-Orthodox women.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY JESSICA RODA
Professor at Georgetown University, anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Jessica Roda has just published For Women and Girls Only. Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Agethe first work devoted to the little-known artistic world of ultra-Orthodox women from Montreal and New York.
Born in France to hippie parents with Sephardic origins, Jessica Roda grew up in French Guiana in a multicultural environment very far from the Hasidic world that she discovered in Montreal, where she settled to continue her studies. His interest in the ultra-Orthodox world was born after the sudden deaths of two loved ones. Mourning plunged her into a quest for bearings which was more identity than religious. “I felt a lack of rituals. »
After exploring the Jewish heritage of people who looked like her, she wanted to leave the comfort of her belief system to explore the insular world of Hasidic Jews in Mile End and Outremont. Very close to home, but at the same time so far from her reality.
“I have always been fascinated by these people who have done the complete opposite of my family and who have really kept their origins. » Fascinated to see that despite pressure to convert and persecution, these people resisted and still speak Yiddish.
The first time I met Jessica Roda, in 2016, she was on the first stop of her trip to an ultra-Orthodox country in Montreal. She began by exploring the border by meeting those who were leaving the community. She then went to see the other side, those who remained. On the way, she realized that the border was sometimes blurred. Many were neither on one side nor the other, but somewhere in between.
It was by giving piano lessons to ultra-orthodox teenage girls that the ethnomusicologist opened the door to a world she never suspected. “I knew the community was very into music. But I discovered a whole underground market in Montreal with recording studios, shows organized in a Hasidic school in Mile End, in Yiddish, with costumes, singing and dancing where I was the only spectator not Hasidic. »
Shows for women and girls only, in order to respect the religious principles of modesty which prevent any artistic activity in front of men except the family. To attend, the ethnomusicologist had to patiently gain people’s trust.
It was in particular thanks to the mother of one of her talented students that she was able to access this almost inaccessible stage.
“It’s possible to attend if you know someone in the community who invites you,” the Hasidic mother in question told me, who insists on her anonymity. Fame isn’t exactly the goal. “We don’t do it to be known. We don’t advertise. We do it for us. Our community is already large, with large families. Without advertising, we already have a full house. »
Thanks to the director of the Hasidic school, Jessica Roda also had access to archives showing that the artistic performances of the young girls are part of a long tradition. “There are filmmakers, actresses, dancers… It’s a whole universe that we can’t imagine. »
The pandemic has also given rise to the deployment of an online artistic scene for women and girls only. A virtual celebrity space which, if it does not include artists from Montreal, is gaining popularity here too.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SARAH MUGRAHI
New York Hasidic artist Devorah Schwartz accompanied by dancers from her show Chanukah Spectacular in December 2020. Known within the ultra-Orthodox community of Montreal, Devorah Schwartz is one of the Hasidic celebrities of social media.
This space provokes debates and even scandals within ultra-Orthodox communities. “Some people think these women have gone too far with their YouTube videos. Rabbis tried to stop this. Others find it extraordinary and support them. »
Although women from Montreal organize concerts from time to time, we are very far from the excitement or the scent of scandal of New York.
“Montreal remains more traditionalist. It’s a smaller community. In New York, I even acted in a film [de Malky Weingarten] with Hasidic women! »
Watch a video by Malky Weingarten (in English)
By exploring the world of these women from her point of view as a progressive feminist, Jessica Roda wanted neither to defend their way of life nor to destroy it, but first and foremost to understand it. And in a way, these women complicated her life by unfolding before her a reality that was much more complex and modern than one might think. “It’s a world where women have a lot of autonomy,” she says.
Most often, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman, like the Muslim woman, is portrayed as an oppressed woman waiting to be liberated. This is what we see in the popular series Unorthodoxtelling in a caricatured way the emancipation of Esty, a young woman from the community of Satmar, in Brooklyn, who dreams of being a pianist and who can only be creative and autonomous by leaving the fold.
While ultra-Orthodox life can certainly be experienced as oppression by women (and men) who seek to leave it, everything is not black and white.
“There are some very happy women in this lifestyle. Very happy to have eight children. Others, no. »
There are also some who, while having large families, do not want to be “just” mothers and are renegotiating their identity as Hasidic women, particularly through the arts.
By listening to them, we realize that religion can also be very reassuring in a chaotic world like ours where we lose our bearings. “It can be oppressive and comforting,” emphasizes Jessica Roda.
While she sometimes envied the comforting, close-knit family life of the ultra-Orthodox women she met during her trip, she wouldn’t trade her life for theirs. But the opposite is just as true.
To mark the launch of books by Jessica Roda and Jeremiah Lockwood on Hasidic music, a concert will take place at the Museum of Jewish Montreal on March 10 at 4 p.m.
Visit the event page (in English)
A conference on the themes covered in Jessica Roda’s book will also take place at Laval University, in Quebec, on March 26 at 12 p.m.
Visit the event page