ארץ־טורינגען

An earlier Yiddish version of this song, suitably set to Schubert’s “Aufenthalt (Dwelling)” was created in 2001 by Psoy, with the participation of Andrey Bredshteyn, for cantata “Khaloymes” (project of Boris Filanovsky with Psoy, eNsemble and composer Yuri Krasavin). It parodically addressed early Zionism and Russian modernity and contained vague allusions to Yiddish “Khalutsim” songs. Seven years later, its modified version became the official anthem of “Medinat Weimar” - a movement for the establishment of a new Jewish national homeland in the economically-depressed former East German state of Thuringia, with Weimar as its capital. Under the visionary leadership of the long-bearded Jerusalem-born artist Ronen Eidelman, the movement blossomed in the late 2000s from an obscure performance concept, to a promisingly controversial political provocation, to an culturally celebrated art installation. The Unternationale’s official endorsement of the movement was communicated remotely from an undisclosed location, celebrating the re-transformation of “Europe into Jewrope,” and declaring that “the founding of a Jewish state inside Germany is the absolutely worst idea we would ever fully support.”