The ‘Lust Machine’

Abstract

This chapter investigates the role of the gramophone in the development of the Jewish national idea through the propagation of specifically Jewish forms of composition. It talks about Pinkhas Minkovsky, who published a book in order to warn the dangers of the “lust machine” or gramophone that constituted a “pornographic” response to the ills of modernity and a threat to the Jewish people. It also mentions Wolf Isserlin and his brother Mordkhe who turned into gramophone entrepreneurs and opened their own gramophone factory. The chapter investigates why Minkovsky opposed the gramophone while Isserlin staked his career on it. It explains that Minkovsky feared the desecration of Judaism and believed Jewish music was sacred, while Isserlin considered the gramophone as a secular commodity and rushed to commercialize it.