Millennial Bundist: an interview with Yiddish musician and activist Isabel Frey

In the spring of 2019, as thousands protested outside of the Vienna Chancellor’s office against a far-right politician embroiled in a corruption scandal, 24-year-old Isabel Frey performed the classic Yiddish ballad “Daloy Politsey” — “Down with the Police.” Originally written in the early 20th century to call for the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas, Frey adapted her own version of the song in Yiddish and German with the line “Down with HC (Strache)!” referencing Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, who resigned a few weeks later. The song “became like a hymn for the next time; they printed out text and gave it to everyone, and I sang it again the next week,” Frey remembers. 

A Bundist herself, Frey’s performance of classic Yiddish protest songs at demonstrations from Amsterdam to her home city of Vienna helped re-inject Jewish identity into Europe’s leftist and anti-fascist movements. In 2020, she produced her first album of Yiddish revolutionary songs called "Millennial Bundist" and is now working on a new album of Yiddish folk songs, "The Flying Peacock," set to be released this October.

Der Spekter editors caught up with Frey last month about her activism and music projects. Our conversation took an unexpected yet fascinating turn into the growing problems with combating antisemitism within the context of the rise in prominence of philosemitism, a particularly acute problem in Europe, where atonement for the Holocaust too often masquerades as support for the state of Israel.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Malka Leah [ML]: Tell us just a little bit about your background — how did you realize you were a Bundist, and what brought you to combining music and politics?

Isabel Frey [IF]: I grew up in Vienna in a very secular environment, but still very much with this strong minority identity. It was important to go to synagogue and to retain that identity, less so for religious reasons. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and I grew up in this city which has a very strong Jewish history; my family is also very rooted in that Jewish history, in the Austro-Hungarian empire. I grew up in a time when there was a very small Jewish community.

Growing up, I went to a socialist Zionist youth movement, Hashomer Hazair. It was less of a choice motivated out of Zionism per se, which is the case for a lot of European Jewish communities. For my family, it was just an opportunity to give me some kind of Jewish environment because I went to a public Austrian school and not a Jewish school. 

When I was 18, I didn't realize I was a Bundist yet, but I started to feel a disjuncture with the Zionist narratives I had grown up with. I had already started engaging with socialist ideas through the youth movement and joining anti-fascist protests. And then I went to Israel for a gap year with the youth movement. And there my first realization that I was a Bundist started, because I felt homesick in the place that was supposedly my home, realizing that Israeli culture is a lot farther from what I had grown up with, and it was not familiar to me. I also realized that I missed this urban, Jewish life that I felt very strongly. The other realization was going to the West Bank for the first time on a Breaking the Silence tour and learning about the occupation and the gravity of the occupation, understanding that I had grown up with only half of the narrative, or a falsified historical narrative. 

I didn't really know about the Bund until two years after, when I was living in Amsterdam and studying there. I was in a very politicized student scene — the squatters movement, student protests; it was also very decolonial. Through coincidences, I found Jewdas, the London Jewish anarchist collective, online. I went down the rabbit hole of the Jewdas website and then stumbled upon Daniel Kahn's music. A few songs like Daniel Kahn’s “Arbetlose Marsch” and “Daloy Politsey.” Through that, I started to learn more about the Bund. And then there was the feeling of “wow, I'm not crazy; these things already existed in an ideology, and they continue to exist in a lived world of young left-wing Jewish people.”

Before I even got into the Yiddish music world, I joined a “Birthwrong” trip in Marseille. It's the idea of having a birthright to the diaspora and exploring diasporist politics. I was also, at the time, already into singing songs but didn't really know any Yiddish and didn't really know about the Yiddish music world. But [the trip] was already very Bundist, and we were singing a lot of Bundist songs. So from there, I learned for the first time about the Yiddish music world. And I got inspired to also take lessons in singing and going to KlezKanada and Yiddish Summer Weimar. And this also furthered my engagement in this combining of music and Bundist politics. But also, I started singing Yiddish songs when I was still in Amsterdam, which I learned mostly through YouTube, but I started performing them at protests. The first time ever was when there was a small tent student occupation against neoliberal politics at the university. I just went there with my guitar and started singing. And then the police evicted us, and I sang Daloy Politsey. My first concert that I did was in a squat, also in Amsterdam. Another time I performed at a climate justice protest. So I really started more as a protest singer because I was very actively involved in a lot of these movements. 

"[In Israel] my first realization that I was a Bundist started, because I felt homesick in the place that was supposedly my home..."

Running for District Council of Vienna

ML: And you ran for City Council in 2020, is that right?

IF: I ran for District Council in 2020. It was quite spontaneous. 

A bit before that, in 2019, there was a very conservative far-right coalition in Austria. And there were these weekly demonstrations that I was part of that also existed in the early 2000s, when the far-right was part of the government for the first time. They were called the Thursday demonstrations, and they were legendary in the 2000s. The attempt was to build that again — to have a weekly protest movement against the government. For this movement in May 2019, I performed the Daloy Politsey, but I rewrote it. I performed in Yiddish and then in German, where I rewrote it against the government. And it actually became like a hymn for the next time; they printed out text and gave it to everyone, and I sang it again the next week. And then there was this big scandal, the coalition broke, and there was a really big protest in front of the chancellor's office, and I performed it there again. 

The people from the Thursday demonstrations, because they had built this movement, founded this party as a new left-wing party in alliance with the Communist Party. They asked me shortly before the election whether I want to run for District Council. It was also because they had quotas – not only for gender but also for minority representation. As a Jew, I was counted for that, and my idea was, if I run, then maybe in the second district, because that's the historical Jewish district, and it still is the district where most Jews live, and to also build a left-wing Jewish politics. Which didn't work so well in terms of this particular district, but I performed a lot of Yiddish music in the course of the campaign.

ML: And you were eventually elected into that position, right?

IF: I was number three, and they only got two seats, but it was clear that number one would retire very soon, in a year. But then, when the year came, I ended up not being able to do it because I was already working on my PhD, and so I ended up never actually working as a councillor and someone else from the party filled my seat.

ML: I think a lot of the work that this new Bund, which seems to be disproportionately concentrated in the U.S. and Canada at the moment (even as it pulls people in from Europe, Asia, and Latin America), a lot of people have been concentrated on grassroots organizing and solidarity organizing right now, partially because of the political moment. But do you think that there is also a benefit in getting into local politics?

IF: I think, in general, there is definitely a benefit in getting involved with local politics. For me, it was really a question of time and resources and the fact that I saw myself more as a musician and maybe a campaigner rather than sitting in the council, which is also a very administrative job that I just didn't have the resources for. But I think it's also very important. It was really interesting for me to see how it was possible, especially with this left-wing Yiddish musical repertoire and identity, to join in with contemporary protest movements that don't have any connection to Jewish politics. I think that already did a lot. 

It's very fruitful to also do Bundist activism outside of Jewish politics, even though the Palestine axis is much larger. And obviously, this depends on the place and time; what questions are most important. In the U.S., it's a lot more about Black Lives Matter or other solidarity movements. Here in Europe, it's about refugee solidarity, for example. And anti-fascism is really necessary. Fascist parties are on the rise.

Josh Waletzky [JW]: I have a question about that in terms of local politics. You mentioned that the Jewish population in Vienna seems to be concentrated mostly in one area. Is there any way in which having local representation would enable you to actually serve that population?

IF: It's not necessarily that the Jewish community is concentrated in that area. It's just that it's a historically Jewish district, especially the Hasidic communities live there. You have more synagogues. So they’re religious Jews who need to live next to a synagogue. But other than that, the secular Jewish life with which I grew up wasn't necessarily concentrated in that district. 

The problem is that parts of the Jewish community have an antagonistic relationship with me sometimes because of questions of Palestine solidarity. For some people in the community, it's too much and too far. So it was already clear when I was running that I can't really be a representative in that sense. Most important was the many questions of memory politics in that district. But with the living communities, it's a bit more difficult in my position; also, because I am a woman, it's not so easy with the Hasidic communities. 

Combating philosemitism and antisemitism through solidarity

JW: Have there been issues of antisemitic incidents? Is that a factor? I remember there were times in Poland when the Bund would take positions, for example, against anti-kashres laws (laws banning the preparation of kosher meat), even though they were staunchly secular and none of them were using shokhtim (ritual slaughterers), but because they felt it was an antisemitic act.

IF: It gets a bit messy nowadays because there's so much weaponization of antisemitism and so much Palestine solidarity is being criminalized as antisemitic. At the moment, for example, at any kind of Palestine protest that goes through the second district is already an “antisemitic” incident in the media. There was also a time a couple of years ago when the Austrian government was really starting to question ritual slaughter. And these are both cases which affect both Jewish and Muslim populations. I think the ritual slaughter conflict was also in Germany, and it was very bad because there was a lot of antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism happening in these debates. 

Obviously, there is antisemitism in Austria and Vienna, and unfortunately it’s growing. It's just so difficult at the moment as a left-wing Jew because part of this struggle right now is not just to fight antisemitism but also to fight the anti-antisemites who are doing this in a reactionary way. So it gets very muddy and complicated in that sense. 

Antisemitism is also often strategically exaggerated, especially when we're talking about antisemitism in Europe, and especially Austria and Vienna. It's important to be honest about it and focus on the populations who are actually facing much more extreme forms of racism at the moment, which in particular is refugees and undocumented people and racial minorities that are racialized, in hegemonic public discourse. 

I would say a lot of it is also philosemitism at the moment, especially in Austria and in Germany. Calling out philosemitism is a big part of what I do. Philosemitism is a part of antisemitism; it is kind of the other side of the coin. It's still an Othering. It's a fetishization and instrumentalization. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily good. 

ML: I'm glad you mentioned philosemitism. That's actually a lot of what we see in places like Taiwan and China as well. There's this very stereotypical understanding of Jews as rich, smart, good at business. In China, specifically, since it's so closed off and it's such a surface level understanding of what a Jew is, it actually completely flipped on its head after Oct. 7 and became much more blatantly antisemitic, particularly fusing all Jews as Israelis or supportive of Israel. Is that playing out similarly at all in Austria as well? 

IF: I will say the philosemitism is less so about positive stereotypes about Jews. It's a lot about this idea of “all Jews support Israel,” and this very strong support of [Israel]. A week after October 7, when the bombing attacks of the IDF had already been in full swing in Gaza, the Austrian government raised the Israeli flag in front of the chancellor's office. And they already did that two years ago in the last Gaza war, when there wasn't even an Oct. 7; basically, the whole thing was started by the IDF in Jerusalem. 

So this is the kind of philosemitism, and it's a philosemitism that is directly also spurring antisemitism in marginalized populations in Vienna, especially Palestinians or people with ties to other Arab countries see that and are like, “What the fuck? Who are these Jews that manage the government?” Really, it has to do with the way the centrist and the elite in Austria has found a way to portray itself as post-Nazi, but then at the same time liberal, but then use that to exclude other minorities and espouse anti-Muslim racism. So it's part of this instrumentalization that there's this very strong support for Israel. 

Another part of the philosemitism, I would say, I feel it a lot as a musician. On one hand, I'm kind of profiting from it. The reason why I have concerts and why I can organize music festivals is because there is a certain kind of societal, if not philosemitism, then this type of interest in Jewish culture that is also spurred out of guilt, or the fact that this lack of acknowledgement of responsibility hasn't happened for so long. But I feel it a lot also when I'm performing, that there's a kind of Othering gaze, even though it's not necessarily a negative gaze. And it makes sense, because there's a very, very small Jewish community of about 8,000 in Vienna. In the Austrian public school system, you learn a lot about the Holocaust. The Holocaust is mostly focused on the genocide of Jews and less so on other populations, like the Roma. I still think it's way better than antisemitism, but it just doesn't mean that the Othering is gone. I think that's important. 

LC de Shay [LC]: I'm grateful for you talking about the nuance and the complexities of your experience with philosemitism, because as a Black Jew, the othering that goes on with philosemitism means I am excluded from being considered Jewish in a very hostile way by people who are not Jewish. From my standpoint, I see philosemitism as a tool for tokenization. In the United States, we have an issue called the model minority complex, and it's most commonly directed at Asians, but it has historically, very intentionally, been used by the government as a means of propaganda to break up solidarity labor movements. 

I'm wondering, are people who are stereotypically Jewish according to European stereotypes recognizing this new sort of fetishization? What are your thoughts on trying to get ahead of the insidious nature of this fetishization and ultimately the role it plays in Bund movements that are meant to be intersectional? 

IF: It's also difficult in doing Jewish politics at the moment in Vienna because, for example, there is a part of the Jewish community that see themselves as young left wing activists, like the Jewish student union, for example. The left in Austria is also split between the anti-imperialists and the post-colonial left, and the so-called anti-German left. It's historically developed as a pro-Israel left and sees the fight against antisemitism as one of the most simple parts of its understanding, but then sees the fight against antisemitism very much tied up with the fight against Palestine activism, and that's what makes a lot of it very muddy and difficult. It's not just a problem that it's Zionist. The problem is that they delegitimize other people of color and solidarity movements on the basis of them being antisemitic, and they weaponize that. And that's what I've been trying for many years to fight against, and that's also what I've been clashing against. A lot of what they they do is delegitimize precisely those movements that I think they should be building alliances with. And that would be the responsibility, I think, of Bundists also in that sense, because they're not doing it through this Zionist zero-sum game. And not conflating antisemitism and anti-Zionism. 

But the bigger problem is really the delegitimization of other minority groups, because this is what the government is pushing: “Muslims, Arabs, they're all antisemites.” There's a German-language discourse now which is called “imported antisemitism,” which is insane if you think about this term in the birthplace of Nazism. But it's a discursive exclusion mechanism. 

LC: It's difficult to have this conversation in English, but specifically talking about the attribution of the word “antisemitic.” I'm a reproductive sociologist academically, and combining that with journalism, it's very tense for me around this word because, from an anthropological standpoint, Semites are in a region, and Israel is not the only region. I know that this is a completely separate understanding of the colloquial and pop culture understanding of Semitism. And I accept this. I don't have a problem with it. But I've had to step out of so many conversations with German and Swiss and Austrian colleagues when people start to even suggest this idea of imported antisemitism, because every aspect of that term, specifically the way that it is used in German, upsets me beyond compare. You cannot import people who are coming from the region that have the ancestral background that you are telling them that they hate; they cannot import that. Do they have prejudice and discrimination? Absolutely. But this is an intra-ethnic quarrel. Particularly in German speaking countries, they're looking at people who have a shared cultural region, and they have a history longer than you have even known, to tell them that they're importing something that you all made up is so asinine. Of course, they have prejudices, and some of them have very violent, discriminatory politics in their countries that are very anti-Jewish, but it's not antisemitic. 

So I would love to hear how you feel about how the Bund can help clarify this issue so that we can have real discussions about what's happening; this is not what's being imported. 

IF: I think it's very important to understand that antisemitism is a white Christian construct and is tied to, as you say, white supremacy and Christian hegemony and European hegemony and colonialism. I'm not sure one has to work over the term antisemitism, because I would also understand the way that it colloquially gets used in relation to Jew hatred. But you are right that it's still broader than just being a form of true hatred. 

LC: I think for me, it boils down, especially as a Black person, of like, these people are over here accusing Muslims of hating Jews, but you hate them both! 

IF: I've been thinking a lot about this, the way that Jews and Muslims, not just Muslim minorities, but all kinds of MENA region migrants, also Turkish and Levant, a lot of different groups are basically being played out against each other through these different strands. And the same thing is kind of happening in Israel-Palestine. And it's also Western imperial powers that are playing out these populations against each other. Obviously, in a very different context, and in a more structurally violent and unequal context. In the context of living as minorities in Europe, you're still both in the same boat of having to fight fascism and the right wing. It's interesting to think about how it plays out on the global scale, and that, I think again, is really, really crucial for the Bund. And that's also something that is, historically — the kind of solidarity building and alliance building with different struggles, local struggles, and different groups and different minorities in a very local context — really, really important that we should continue talking about.

Organizing for Palestine in Vienna

"There are many situations where pretending that there are equal sides really leads to a reproduction of violence. On the other hand, what a lot of people who have been there, or lived there, or are from there, feel is that it cannot work without some kind of eye to eye. If it does reproduce violence, maybe the goal is to try to find formats, or find ways of joint action that are not reproducing violence."

ML: You mentioned before that when you started doing a lot of performing at protests and then later running a seat on the District Council, you were hoping that it would give rise to a new leftist Jewish politics in Vienna. I'm wondering if you're seeing that play out more now, post-Oct. 7. I also know that you recently founded an organization called Standing Together in Vienna, inspired by the movement of the same name in Israel-Palestine. Are you seeing this type of organizing grow now more than ever? 

I’d also like to ask  about some of the discussion around Standing Together. Some people think that the organization is normalizing Israel; there has been some controversy around the language they use.

IF: Standing Together is just a movement in Israel-Palestine, not an international group. But [our group] is inspired by Standing Together, and it started with the German term, but somehow we ended up having the English term because many people in the group don’t speak German. And for us, it's nice to have this association, but we are not part of the same organization. We see the main goal and impact is to stop this playing out of different minority groups against each other and to actively build against that in Vienna. And I think that's what's really important at this moment. 

Since Oct. 7, I see globally that there has been a lot of change in the global Jewish left happening. I would say in Vienna, not so much. A bit. There are more pro-Palestine Jewish groups, or Jewish people in Palestine activism, but it's also gone in the other direction. The mainstream has also radicalized toward the right. So, it's a bit difficult. The inspiring pictures of the Jewish Voice for Peace actions in the U.S. [are] not really what's happening in Vienna. What I've been doing with Standing Together is a bit of a different thing. And maybe things shifted for me on some on some level on Oct. 7, with the realization that a certain level of societal polarization, and also standing between different communities that I'm engaged with a lot, has gotten so extreme. It really came out of this week after Oct. 7 and the sense that there were demonstrations happening where only the Palestinian victims were acknowledged, or only Israeli victims were acknowledged.

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Maybe this brought me away from some more radical critiques of universal humanism than trying to organize something that was acknowledging the humanity of people while at the same time addressing the structural violence that has led to it. I co-founded it with people from the Israeli-Palestinian artist collective One State Embassy, many of whom have been involved with the Israeli peace movement. Also, Palestinians who have also been marginalized in their communities for engaging in a joint group with Israelis. 

I have to say, with normalization critique — I can understand where the critique comes from. There are many situations where pretending that there are equal sides really leads to a reproduction of violence. On the other hand, what a lot of people who have been there, or lived there, or are from there, feel is that it cannot work without some kind of eye to eye. If it does reproduce violence, maybe the goal is to try to find formats, or find ways of joint action that are not reproducing violence. 

I felt a personal need to have this mixed group, but I also felt the need to have a group that explicitly took a stance against indiscriminate violence against civilians, and I think that was missing for me, especially in those first days and weeks from the global pro-Palestine left. So that was kind of the space in which we started the group, and this developed into a very local form of peace activism that tries to amplify voices of the Palestinian and Israeli peace movement. But also a space for people's different biographical stories and ways to connect and actually have people who are affected by what is going on speak.

ML: You mentioned that a lot of pro-Palestine organizing has been outlawed or really heavily controlled by police. Has that impacted you? 

IF: We have not been affected by these outlaws and criminalizations, although I've been speaking against it for many, many years. I've gotten, for many, many years already, a lot of backlash from the Jewish community. I'm very involved in the Jewish community, I curate the Vienna Klezmore Festival, the festival for Jewish music in Vienna. I’m active in this cultural work. It’s very, very difficult to tread this line, which is also the reason why I'm trying to find ways to still be heard, at least by some part of the Jewish community, and not to completely marginalize myself, because I just don't have that option. Maybe if I lived in New York, I would have that option. 

The Standing Together group, we get boycotted for being too pro-Palestine or accused of being BDS supporters. But then we get boycotted by BDS. We got the accusation of promoting a kind of “all lives matter” narrative, but again, from both sides. Which I can understand especially from a pro-Palestine standpoint, where it comes from, but I still think the fact that it comes from both sides already shows that it's not the same as the “all lives matter” debate happening in the U.S. 

Yiddish songs for Palestine

ML: The last thing that we wanted to ask you about was the music project that you're working on with Josh [Waletzky] and some other folks — an album of Yiddish songs in solidarity with Palestine. Tell us more about that.

IF: I've been thinking about this question for a long time as a researcher, but also as a singer. I'm really interested in songs that enable new forms of solidarity with other struggles and other minorities. I also co-wrote a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Jewish Identities with Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky that will be coming out in July. We wrote about Yiddish songs that are in solidarity with Palestinians, and we analyzed those. 

I've also been playing with this idea of bringing out an album of original music that is in solidarity with Palestinians. The idea for the collaboration came up also because Joe [Dobkin] also performed a really wonderful, very touching song that I was able to hear in early January in New York which he wrote out his feelings [about Gaza] in November. 

I have a song that I also worked on with Josh, a diasporist version of Hatikvah in Yiddish and English. Its context on the  album is a celebration of  the creativity and the ability of Yiddishists and Yiddish songwriters to engage in a type of solidarity with Palestinians that is also very Jewish. The idea is to have it as a charity fundraising project where we direct funds to arts and culture [organizations] in Gaza. 

Follow Isabel Frey on Instagram and Facebook. Donate to her crowdfunding campaign for her next album of Yiddish folk songs, “The Flying Peacock,” to be released in October 2024.