How do Jews pray and why? What do the prayers mean? From where did this liturgy come and what challenges does it face today? Such questions and many more, spanning the centuries and continents, have driven the study of Jewish liturgy. But just as the liturgy has changed over time, so too have the questions asked, the people asking them, and the methods used to address them. Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research enables the reader to access the rich bibliography now available in English. In this volume, Ruth Langer, an expert on Jewish liturgy, provides an annotated description of the most important books and articles on topics ranging historically from the liturgy of the Second Temple period and the Dead Sea Scrolls to today, addressing the synagogue itself and those gathered in it; the daily, weekly, and festival liturgies and their components; home rituals and the life cycle; as well as questions of liturgical performance and theology. Introductions to every section orient the reader and provide necessary background. Christians seeking to understand Jewish liturgy, either that of Jesus and the early church or that of their Jewish contemporaries, will find this volume invaluable. It’s also an important reference for anyone seeking to understand how Jews worship God and how that worship has evolved over time.
This edited volume is the result of the 8th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group Maqām in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which brought together scholars from Germany, Turkey, Tunisia, Serbia, Malaysia, Finland, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In order to open up minds and to widen the horizons of discussions on historical traces and present music practices related to the maqām principle in Southern Europe and neighbouring regions, the general topic of the symposium, namely “Maqām: Historical Traces and Present Practice in South European Music Traditions”, was substructured into three special topics: “Between maqām and mode: the intermediate realms”; “Historical traces of Ottoman music in the Mediterranean Region”; and “Role and revival of religious genres in the Balkans”. The contributions included in this volume offer new insights and knowledge on various aspects of the Ottoman music culture and their stimuli in the Mediterranean region and especially in parts of the Balkans, as well as on general aspects of the maqām principle.
Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory is the first comprehensive study of the musical structure and social history of klezmer music, the music of the Jewish musicians' guild of Eastern Europe. Emerging in 16th century Prague, the klezmer became a central cultural feature of the largest transnational Jewish community of modern times - the Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe. Much of the musical and choreographic history of the Ashkenazim is embedded in the klezmer repertoire, which functioned as a kind of non-verbal communal memory. The complex of speech, dance, and musical gesture is deeply rooted in Jewish expressive culture, and reached its highest development in Eastern Europe. Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory reveals the artistic transformations of the liturgy of the Ashkenazic synagogue in klezmer wedding melodies, and presents the most extended study available in any language of the relationship of Jewish dance to the rich and varied klezmer music of Eastern Europe. Author Walter Zev Feldman expertly examines the major written sources--principally in Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Romanian--from the 16th to the 20th centuries. He draws upon the foundational notated collections of the late Tsarist and early Soviet periods, as well as rare cantorial and klezmer manuscripts from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. He has conducted interviews with authoritative European-born klezmorim over a period of more than thirty years, in America, Europe, and Israel. Thus, his analysis reveals both the musical and cultural systems underlying the klezmer music of Eastern Europe.
Filling an important gap in the literature, this volume documents the variety and diversity of Jewish life in the Middle East and North Africa over the last two hundred years. It explains the changes that affected the communities under Islamic rule during its "golden age" and describes the processes of modernization that enabled the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa to play a pivotal role in their respective countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Despite considerable research on the Jewish diaspora in the Middle East and North Africa since 1800, there has until now been no comprehensive synthesis that illuminates both the differences and commonalities in Jewish experience across a range of countries and cultures. This lacuna in both Jewish and Middle Eastern studies is due partly to the fact that in general histories of the region, Jews have been omitted from the standard narrative. As part of the religious and ethnic mosaic that was traditional Islamic society, Jews were but one among numerous minorities and so have lacked a systematic treatment. Addressing this important oversight, this volume documents the variety and diversity of Jewish life in the region over the last two hundred years. It explains the changes that affected the communities under Islamic rule during its "golden age" and describes the processes of modernization that enabled the Jews to play a pivotal role in their respective countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first half of the book is thematic, covering topics ranging from languages to economic life and from religion and music to the world of women. The second half is a country-by-country survey that covers Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, the Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
The Psalms, initially shaped by the experience of Israel, have expressed religious impulses of both Jews and Christians across the centuries. Essays from a spectrum of disciplines demonstrate how the Psalms have functioned over time in these communities of conviction.
Sense and Sadness is a study of music modality in relation to human emotion and the aesthetics of perception. It is also a musical story of survival through difficulty and pain. Focusing on chant at St George's Syrian Orthodox Church of Aleppo, author Tala Jarjour puts forward the concept of the emotional economy of aesthetics, which enables a new understanding of modal musicality in general and of Syriac musicality in particular. Jarjour combines insights from musicology and ethnomusicology, sound and religious studies, anthropology, history, East Christian and Middle Eastern studies, and the study of emotion, to seamlessly weave together multiple strands of a narrative which then becomes the very story it tells. At once intimate and analytical, this ethnographic text entwines academic thinking with its subject(s) and subjectivities. Drawing on imagination and metaphor, Jarjour brings to the fore overlapping, at times contradictory, modes of sense and sense-making. And reconciling multiple worlds as well as modes of thinking and belief, Sense and Sadness portrays events, writing, people, and music as they unfold together through ritual commemorations and a devastating, ongoing war.
Sense and Sadness is an innovative study of music modality in relation to human emotion and the aesthetics of perception. It is also a musical story of survival through difficulty and pain. Focusing on chant at St George's Syrian Orthodox Church of Aleppo, author Tala Jarjour puts forward the concept of the emotional economy of aesthetics, which enables a new understanding of modal musicality in general and of Syriac musicality in particular. Jarjour combines insights from musicology and ethnomusicology, sound and religious studies, anthropology, history, East Christian and Middle Eastern studies, and the study of emotion, to seamlessly weave together multiple strands of a narrative which then becomes the very story it tells. Drawing on imagination and metaphor, she brings to the fore overlapping, at times contradictory, modes of sense and sense making. At once intimate and analytical, this ethnographic text entwines academic thinking with its subject(s) and subjectivities, portraying events, writing, people, and music as they unfold together through ritual commemorations and a devastating, ongoing war.
Expert writers present the major traditions of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, together with personal accounts of performers, composers, teachers, and ceremonies. A special feature of this volume is the inclusion of dozens of brief snap-shot essays that offer "lifestories" of typical musicmakers and their art, as well as first-person descriptions of specific music performances and events. Also includes maps and music examples.