Jevel Katz

Jevel Katz was born in Vilna (Vilnius), known as the "Jerusalem of Lithuania", into a family with few resources. At a very young age he began working as a tool maker in the Rom brothers' printing press. He began singing his first parodies in the Vilnius graphic workers' union. At the age of 27, he decided to follow a brother of his who was already living in Buenos Aires. He quickly became one of the most popular Yiddish performers on the Yiddish stage in Argentina, with a combination of monologues, humoresques, couplets, parodies, nostalgic songs, and satires, while accompanying himself on guitar, mandolin, harmonica, and/or accordion.{{Cite book |last=Baker |first=Zachary |title="Gvald, Yidn, Buena Gente": Jevel Katz, Yiddish bard of the Rio de la Plata in Joel Berkowitz and Barbara Henry, Inventing the modern Yiddish stage: essays in drama, performance, and show business. |publisher=Wayne State University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0814335048 |pages=202}}

Jevel Katz defined himself as a caberet singer (kleynkunst, in Yiddish); he would perform in a tuxedo or dressed as a gaucho or as a woman. Katz sang in Yiddish, mixed with Spanish. The Argentine Jewish poet and critic Eliahu Toker labeled this language mixture castídish.{{Cite web |last=Toker |first=Eliahu |title=¡Andá a cantarle a Jevel Katz! |url=https://eliahutoker.com.ar/escritos/gente_katz.htm}} Performing on radio stations in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, he toured the interior of Argentina, especially the Jewish colonies of Moisés Ville and Basavilbaso, and performed in Tucumán, Uruguay and Chile.

The keys to his success were his versatile performance style and themes of nostalgia, privation, and struggle tugged at his audiences’ heartstrings, combined with comic relief. For example, one of his songs “A rantshera (A ranchera7),” spoofs the travails of a recently-arrived bachelor seeking to flee habits from the old country and establish roots in a new land. Appeals to local patriotism, celebrating the settlements in songs about Moises Ville, Basavilbaso, and Buenos Aires reassured them about the decision to uproot themselves and settle along the banks of the Río de la Plata. These “Argentine shtetl” songs also use a tongue-in cheek method, such as in Basivilbaso called “shtetele du mayns” (my little town)] is referred to as the “Kasrilevke of Entre Ríos,” an affectionate reference to Sholem Aleichem’s fictional town of busybodies. Similarly, “Mosesville” called “mayn kleyn shtetele . . . mayn sheyn heymele” (my small town, my lovely home) is as “a yidishe medine . . . a shtolts far Argentine” (a Jewish state, the pride of Argentina).

In his short ten-year career, Jevel Katz, also called Jévele or Kétzele, wrote or set to music more than five hundred musical pieces of the most varied styles: vidalitas, rancheras, fox-trots, tangos and rumbas. He published one booklet of songs, “Argentiner glikn,” includes Yiddish tangos, rancheras, rumbas and foxtrots (without music){{Cite web |last=Stavans |first=Ilan |title=Jevel Katz {{!}} Moisés Ville |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/169/edited_volume/chapter/3882457 |website=MUSE}}{{Cite book |last=Lapin |first=Vladimir |title=It Takes Two: The Jews and The Argentinian Tango. Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Sacred Music |date=2016 |location=Library HUC |pages=39. 45 |language=English}}

Among his well-known creations are: "Zlate", "Tucumán", "Basavilbaso", and "Moisés Ville".{{Cite web |title=Jevel Katz y sus canciones |url=https://open.spotify.com/album/4QgpBT1KwfTJiJSZZcR4Y4 |website=Spotify}}

Katz's success extended beyond Buenos Aires to other cities and the Jewish agricultural colonies in Argentina and bordering countries. His comic persona is reflected in his reputation as "der freylekhster yid in Argentine" [the happiest Jew in Argentina]. His fame even reached the North American Yiddish stage.

Jevel Katz died at the young age of 37 in Buenos Aires, on March 8, 1940, due to a complication of a tonsil operation that he underwent after receiving a job offer in the United States. According to Di Prese, one of the two main Yiddish-language daily newspapers of Argentina, about twenty thousand people paid their respects preceding the funeral, and about forty thousand people attended his funeral. He was buried in the Cementerio Israelita de Liniers.{{cite book|last1=Svarch|first1=Ariel|date=2018-08-27|chapter=10. Der freylekhster yid in Argentine: The Life and Death of Jevl Katz, Popular Artist of the 1930s|chapter-url=https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004373815/BP000015.xml|chapter-url-access=limited|chapter-format=URL|location=Leiden|editor-last1=Chinshi|editor-first1=Malena|editor-last2=Astro|editor-first2=Alan|title=Splendor, Decline, and Rediscovery of Yiddish in Latin America|url=https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/38741|url-access=subscription|series=Jewish Latin America|language=en|volume=10|publisher=Brill Publishers|pages=225–250|doi=10.1163/9789004373815_014|isbn=978-90-04-37381-5|oclc=8304742624|access-date=2025-02-11}}

In 2005, Argentine filmmaker Alejandro Vagnenkos released the documentary Jevel Katz y sus paisanos, which chronicles the comedian's life in Argentina.{{Cite web |last=Studio |first=Familiar |date=2025-02-05 |title=Interview: Filmmaker Alejandro… |url=https://web.uwm.edu/yiddish-stage/interview-filmmaker-alejandro-vagnenkos-on-the-buenos-aires-yiddish-legend-jevel-katz |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=Digital Yiddish Theatre Project |language=en}}

{{reflist}}

• Jevel Katz [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTOAUUjhQKy4N4zJHMtieOuLrerrJV6gz Jevel Katz]
• Pablo Palomino, "The Musical Worlds of Jewish Buenos Aires, 1910–1940," in Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas, Amalia Ran and Moshe Morad, eds. (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2016), 25–43.
• Ariel Svarch, Der freylekhster yid in Argentine: The Life and Death of Jevel Katz, Popular Artist of the 1930s, pp 225–250 Chapter 10 in Splendor, Decline, and Rediscovery of Yiddish in Latin America. Brill pp. 225–250 ISBN 9789004373815
• Eliahu Toker, [https://eliahutoker.com.ar/escritos/gente_katz.htm :: Eliahu Toker ::]
• Patricia G. Nuriel Interview: Filmmaker Alejandro Vagnenkos on the Buenos Aires Yiddish Legend Jevel Katz. [https://web.uwm.edu/yiddish-stage/interview-filmmaker-alejandro-vagnenkos-on-the-buenos-aires-yiddish-legend-jevel-katz Interview: Filmmaker Alejandro…]
• Patricia G. Nuriel, Jevel Katz: Representing Jewish Buenos Aires ([https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339615643_Jevel_Katz_Representing_Yiddish_Buenos_Aires Jevel Katz: Representing Yiddish Buenos Aires])
• Patricia G Nuriel, Singing the 1930s Doldrums: Jevel Katz's Argentine Yiddish Parodies, Aus der Zeitschrift Latin American Jewish Studies. 2022 by Academic Studies Press. [https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.26613/lajs.1.2.19/html?lang=de&srsltid=AfmBOoq-M1sP7_r2xzL9m5OjmhlQVmOIuVGSCnuwE1MsiODtHw3zx6OO Singing the 1930s Doldrums: Jevel Katz’s Argentine Yiddish Parodies]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vZojDSxplQ Jevel katz y sus paisanos 480p]
• Judith Thissen, "Gvald, Yidn, Buena Gente": Jevel Katz, Yiddish bard of the Rio de la Plata in Joel Berkowitz, Inventing the modern Yiddish stage: essays in drama, performance, and show business. Detroit, Mich : Wayne State University Press 2012
• Shmuel Rozhanski (Samuel Rollansky), "Dos idishe gedrukte vort un teater in Argentine," in Yoyvl-bukh: sakh-haklen fun 50 yohr idish leben in Argentine; lekoved "Di idishe tsaytung" tsu ihr 25-yohrigen yubileum [Cincuenta años de vida judía en la Argentina: homenaje a "El Diario Israelita" en su vigesimoquinto aniversario] (Buenos Aires: 1940), 327–418. Separately published as vol. 1 of the author's Gezamlte shrifn (Buenos Aires: 1941), which is accessible here: [https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/yiddish-books/spb-nybc202123/rozshanski-shemuel-dos-yidishe-gedrukte-vort-un-teater-in-argentine Dos Yidishe gedruḳṭe ṿorṭ un ṭeaṭer in Argenṭine | Yiddish Book Center]
• Marcos Rosenzvaig, "El teatro ídisch en Buenos Aires," in Cuadernos de investigación teatral del San Martín 1 (Buenos Aires, 1994): 54–64.
• Zalmen Zylbercweig, "Katz, Khevel," in Leksikon fun yidishn teater, vol. 7, 6163–6167.

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Category:1902 births

Category:1940 deaths

Category:Lithuanian emigrants to Argentina

Category:Jewish Argentine musicians

Category:Yiddish

Category:Argentine comedians