Following the period of Ottoman Greek rule in Moldova beginning 1711, Ashkenazim, Turks and Greeks were drawn into closer contact. In both Moldova and Wallachia all Roma had been enslaved for centuries. The most privileged Roma were the musicians of the professional lautar class. The appearance of Ashkenazic klezmorim in Moldova was an opportunity for them to expand their professional opportunities.
By the end of the 18th century klezmer and lautar musicians traveled together regularly to Istanbul. Leading klezmorim were employed by the Ottoman Greek governors of Moldova in Iaşi. It also became customary to perform Jewish klezmer tunes at Moldovan Christian weddings. Most urban lautari in Moldova employed Yiddish as their professional language.
By the later 19th century the Moldovan klezmer and lautar musicians created a new dance repertoire that came to dominate the klezmer music created in America during the 20th century. Memories of this powerful musican fusion survived in New York primarily among older Greek musicians.
Walter Zev Feldman is a leading researcher in both Ottoman Turkish and Jewish music. During the 1970s he spearheaded the revival of klezmer music. Today he is a performer on the klezmer dulcimer, the cimbal, and on the Ottoman lute, the tanbur. He had taught at Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Bar Ilan University and at NYU Abu Dhabi.
His first book, Music of the Ottoman Court: Makam, Composition, and the Early Ottoman Instrumental Repertoire (Berlin, 1996; Brill 2024) is taught as a basic text worldwide. His Klezmer: Music, History and Memory published by Oxford University Press (2016) is regarded as the most authoritative treatment of klezmer music in Europe. Between 2011 and 2015 he researched the Jewish, Roma and Greek musical traditions of Moldova/Bessarabia, sponsored by NYU Abu Dhabi. Feldman’s most recent book is a musical memoir entitled From the Bronx to the Bosphorus: Klezmer and Other Displaced Musics of New York (Fordham University, 2025).
Walter Zev Feldman. Photo credit: David Kaufman
Walter Zev Feldman is a leading researcher in both Ottoman Turkish and Jewish music. During the 1970s he spearheaded the revival of klezmer music. Today he is a performer on the klezmer dulcimer, the cimbal, and on the Ottoman lute, the tanbur. He had taught at Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Bar Ilan University and at NYU Abu Dhabi.
His first book, Music of the Ottoman Court: Makam, Composition, and the Early Ottoman Instrumental Repertoire (Berlin, 1996; Brill 2024) is taught as a basic text worldwide. His Klezmer: Music, History and Memory published by Oxford University Press (2016) is regarded as the most authoritative treatment of klezmer music in Europe. Between 2011 and 2015 he researched the Jewish, Roma and Greek musical traditions of Moldova/Bessarabia, sponsored by NYU Abu Dhabi. Feldman’s most recent book is a musical memoir entitled From the Bronx to the Bosphorus: Klezmer and Other Displaced Musics of New York (Fordham University, 2025).
Feldman is also an authority on Ashkenazic dance, forming part of his current research on the role of gesture in the performing arts, which he taught in the NYU Abu Dhabi core course “Gesture” (2013-15). In 2017 he gave a series of workshops on this topic in Tokyo, Moscow and in Montreal. He has been teaching ongoing musical and advanced Yiddish dance workshops at Yiddish Summer Weimar, most recently in 2025.
In 2004 he co-directed the successful application of the Mevlevi Dervishes of Turkey as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity for UNESCO. His book, From Rumi to the Whirling Dervishes: Music, Poetry and Mysticism in the Ottoman Empire, supported by the Aga Khan Music Programme, was published by Edinburgh University Press (2022). In 2026 NYU will be opening “Digitizing Cultural Heritage: The Walter Feldman Collection of Turkish Classical Music.” Feldman is currently is the academic director of the Klezmer Institute, a board member of the Corpus Musicae Ottomanicae Project of the University of Münster, and of the Istanbul Research Institute.
Suggested donation: $15
The event is organized by the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.
