"A New-Old Folk Tradition is Born": A Little-Known Correspondence between Edith Gerson-Kiwi and Alan Lomax

In 1952-3, two legends of ethnomusicology and folklore had a brief, but fascinating correspondence: Edith Gerson-Kiwi of the then new country of Israel, and Alan Lomax, an American living in self-imposed exile in England and France. The letters from Gerson-Kiwi accompanied reel-to-reel tapes which she had prepared at his request, for his Columbia Library of Folk and Primitive Music, and the letters address, among other things, issues of what constitutes a Jewish "folk" song, the role of religiosity, and Gerson-Kiwi`s own sense of professional competence. The correspondence also reveals, surprisingly, that Lomax sent Gerson-Kiwi an important, new at the time, publication of Moroccan Sephardic songs. Lomax is not typically associated with Jewish music, and, at the time of his correspondence with Gerson-Kiwi, was living in Spain, and then had recently returned from Spain to Paris. The letters reveal an little-known side of his own research and interests, as well as a gleimpse into Gerson-Kiwi`s work, and her vision of her role; her selections for the tapes she sent to Lomax in both the original and revised versions, and his reactions to them, reveal not only their own approaches, but, as well, ideas of the budding discipline of ethnomusicology, not yet names in the early 1950s. To my knowledge, this is the first time this correspondence has been discussed.