Vox Tablet

Is It OK To Dance After the Holocaust? Absolutely, Says the Band Golem

The klezmer punk rockers cover lots of ground on their rollicking new album, ‘Tanz.’ They want you to get crazy to all of it.

May 12, 2014
Golem, 2014. (Pascal Perich)
Golem, 2014. (Pascal Perich)

Known for frenzied takes on Yiddish and Eastern European music, the members of Golem bring the party with them wherever the band plays and no matter what they’re singing about. Their new album, Tanz, which means dance in Yiddish, covers religious rites, anti-Semitism in the former Soviet Union, dark children’s poems, and more, in a mix of rollicking interpretations of classic songs and original numbers.

Golem’s founder and accordionist, Annette Ezekiel Kogan, and its violinist, Jeremy Brown, join Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the band’s surprising Mexican fan-base, how painful it is to sing the song “Odessa” now that Ukraine is in the throes of Russian occupation, and their ambivalence (now overcome) about singing about religious topics when the band members themselves are not particularly devout.

Vox Tablet is Tablet Magazine’s weekly podcast, hosted by Sara Ivry and produced by Julie Subrin. You can listen to individual episodes here or subscribe on iTunes.

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