The Culture of Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Yiddish Song

Abstract

This article examines a body of Yiddish songs published between 1860 and 1890 with the intention of tracing the historical cultural milieu of Jewish merchants in eastern Europe and how songs functioned in their world and how these songs—at times, playfully, insightfully, or ironically—captured it. Behind this inquiry is a larger one regarding the relationship between folk material and historical material.