Art Is My Weapon the Radical Musical Life of Lin Jaldati

May 05, 2022 Post a Comment

Biography

David Shneer, queer-Jewish scholar and activist, was born on Apr 6, 1972 in Los Angeles, California, to Diane and Jim Shneer. A prodigious child, he taught himself to read by age three. When he began formal education, his kindergarten teacher spotted his abilities and arranged for him to exist placed in the third class. David'due south personality adult to become kind, generous and engaging alongside his advanced and oftentimes anarchistic academic ability. He did university studies at University of California: Berkeley, earning a B.A. caste (1994) in history and Slavic languages, an M.A. (1996) and Ph.D. (2001) both in history.

Shneer'due south Ph.D. thesis, expanded and published in 2004 as Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture 1918-1930, explored the noon of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union before the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s. Shneer noted in a 2010 interview that his grandparents were originally from Russia simply were fully assimilated, "with no trace of a Yiddish accent in their English." He believed that "Yiddish is never just Yiddish;" interest in Yiddish was a search for an culling Judaism which was popular in Berkeley during his pupil years. Shneer was amidst the first scholars to gain admission to the Soviet archives, well-nigh importantly, the archive of the Moscow Yiddish newspaper, Der Emes. This allowed him to bring new insights to this aspect of Soviet Jewish history.

Schneer's deep appreciation for Yiddish led him to run a summer program at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts from 2005-2016. The Center's founder and long-fourth dimension director, Aaron Lansky, highly praised Schneer's piece of work there: "The students loved him. You lot get those reviews at the end, and they were simply off the charts."

Shneer'southward gay activism too began during his Berkeley years. He served as the educational activity managing director of Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, the LGBT synagogue in San Francisco from 1997 through 2001. In the summer of 2003, Shneer was one of the founders of Mosaic: The National Jewish Heart for Sexual and Gender Diverseness. As the first such national organisation in the U.S., Mosaic'southward purpose was stated as: "partners with Jewish organizations, communities, and individuals of every denomination to create a world where all Jews are fully included in Jewish communal life, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity." In 2010, Jewish Mosaic merged with another national organization, Keshet. Shneer served on the Keshet board of directors and as vice-chair for a fourth dimension. In 2002, Shneer co-edited a book of essays, entitled Queer Jews, which describes how queer Jews are irresolute Jewish American culture, creating communities and making room for themselves, every bit openly, unapologetically queer and Jewish.

Shneer was the 2003-2004 Pearl Resnick Postdoctoral Beau at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. His inquiry project was entitled, "On the Frontlines: Soviet Jewish Photographers Confront World War II and the Holocaust." During this and following years he studied the lives and works of ii dozen Soviet Jewish World War 2 military photographers, examining what kinds of photographs they took when they encountered evidence of Nazi genocide on the Eastern Forepart. He published this as Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, State of war, and the Holocaust (2011), which won the 2013 Jordan Schnitzer Prize of the Clan for Jewish Studies and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Accolade. In fall 2011, the traveling museum exhibit "Through Soviet Jewish Eyes" debuted at the Colorado University Art Museum in Boulder, and and then displayed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, the Holocaust Museum Houston, the University of Louisiana's Museum of Art, and at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Chicago.

Shneer began pedagogy at the University of Denver in 2001 and became the Managing director of the Middle for Jewish Studies there in 2003. He moved to the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2008 where he served equally Managing director of Jewish Studies until 2015. He became the Louis P. Singer Chair of Jewish History in 2012 and likewise served as Chair of the Department of Religious Studies from 2016-2019.

Shneer has lectured extensively nationally and internationally. Also a prolific author, he has been published in numerous scholarly, cultural and popular publications. Almost recently, he served as editor-in-chief of East European Jewish Diplomacy and on the editorial boards of Periodical of Jewish Identities, the Clan for Jewish Studies' mag Perspectives, and for the volume series Borderlines with Academic Studies printing. He has served as consultant to numerous Jewish agencies on questions of gimmicky Jewish identity, and on the board of directors of the Association for Jewish Studies.

Shneer blended astute scholarship with cultural reflection and social activism which drew many students to him for counsel and direction. He relished the function of mentor and guide for students and immature scholars and was e'er attainable and attentive to their needs. His pedagogy typically drew loftier marks from his students.

Shneer's broad-ranging passion for the arts and storytelling could lead to an innovative scholarly project. During a visit to Berlin, he met the German-Jewish vocalist and extra Jalda Rebling and learned about her female parent, the Dutch-Yiddish singer and actress, Lin Jaldati. Jaldati survived the German concentration camps during the Holocaust and settled in East Berlin. In that location she became the Yiddish diva of the Communist world, touring with concerts of Yiddish songs and releasing several albums. In collaboration with singer-colleague Jewlia Eisenberg whom he met when they were Berkeley students, Shneer created a multimedia project, "Art Is My Weapon: The Radical Musical Life of Lin Jaldati." This project tells Jaldati's story through song, showing how she was instrumental in shaping Holocaust retentiveness in E Germany until her death in 1988. Shneer impressed his scholarly colleagues past presenting his work through singing and storytelling as shown in the video below Shneer and Eisenberg performed in numerous synagogues and universities.

Shneer most recent piece of work, Grief: The Biography of a Holocaust Photograph, describes the history of the world's first widely circulated Holocaust liberation photographs as they travel from the killing fields of southern Russia in 1942 to the white walls of the Museum of Modern Fine art in the 21st century. This was published past Oxford Academy Press in 2020.

Shneer married Gregg Drinkwater in a traditional chuppah ceremony in 1996. They co-parented daughter Sasha. Shneer struggled with the onset of brain cancer for several years before entering hospice care and completing his life journeying on November iv, 2020.

(This biographical statement written by Marker Bowman from these sources: https://world wide web.davidshneer.com/biography.html
https://www.jta.org/2020/eleven/ten/united-states/david-shneer-beloved-professor-of-jewish-studies-dies-at-48
https://forward.com/civilisation/yiddish-culture/458167/david-shneer-professor-who-led-student-visits-to-prewar-yiddishland-dies/
https://www.ijn.com/prof-david-shneer-dear-professor-passes/)

Biography Date: November 2020

Additional Resources

Website: davidshneer.com

Hear David'due south cute voice every bit a vocaliser in this musical collaboration with Jewlia Eisenberg. He is singing Dem Milner's Trern ("The Miller's Tears") in Yiddish which is part of the "Art Is My Weapon" project. https://vimeo.com/233875586