Yiddish Folksong (The Music of the Yiddish Folksong)
The Yiddish language, which probably began to develop around the tenth century A.D. in south Germany, was the main spoken language and language of oral creation of the Ashkenazi Jews of both Western and Eastern Europe, whereas in the latter region it was influenced by Slavic languages. Both the…
Fun der khupe (LKT)
This entry is part of the Lexicon of Klezmer Terminology (LKT). The LKT compiles a wide array of source materials that shed light on the historical and contemporary state of knowledge about klezmer music. Each entry includes a number of citations from primary and secondary sources that…
Bazetsh di kale (LKT)
This entry is part of the Lexicon of Klezmer Terminology (LKT). The LKT compiles a wide array of source materials that shed light on the historical and contemporary state of knowledge about klezmer music. Each entry includes a number of citations from primary and secondary sources that…
Freylekhs (LKT)
This entry is part of the Lexicon of Klezmer Terminology (LKT). The LKT compiles a wide array of source materials that shed light on the historical and contemporary state of knowledge about klezmer music. Each entry includes a number of citations from primary and secondary sources that…
Majafes (LKT)
This entry is part of the Lexicon of Klezmer Terminology (LKT). The LKT compiles a wide array of source materials that shed light on the historical and contemporary state of knowledge about klezmer music. Each entry includes a number of citations from primary and secondary sources that…
Society for Jewish Folk Music
Violins, Voice and Jews
In the spring of 1897, on the eve of the Russian Orthodox Easter, two Russian musicians met in an encounter that was to have impacts on classical and popular music to this day. Vladimir Stasov, music historian and promoter of the New Russian National School of “The…
Kaddish
Kaddish is one of the most important and central parts of the Jewish liturgy. Most of it is in Aramaic, and it is used as a passage between various parts of the prayer, and at its end.
Originally, the Kaddish was not an integral part of the liturgy. The Talmud describes the Kadish as a finishing…
Hora
Origin of the term
The word originates from Rumanian. As an ancient term it meant a circular folk dance. Later, it came to signify also a specific dance. The term is also used for two kinds of dance melodies in the Rumanian and Moldavian folklore: slow with triple meter, and fast with duple meter.…
Diwan
In Arab culture, a Diwan is an anthology of poems by one or several poets. In the medieval Hebrew poetry of Al-Andalus, the term Diwan meant exclusively a collection of poems by a single author. Today however, the term refers to an anthology of poems by a number of authors.
The Diwan of the Jews…
The Israeli Mediterranean Style
*The following is a summary of an article by Ronit Seter, to read the full article.
The term Mediterranean style, as it has been used in Israel, originally referred to selected versions of European Mediterranean styles in art music that Jewish composers—the founders of Israeli music, among them the…
Aḥot qetanah
Aḥot qetanah, or little sister, is a hymn that is traditionally sung on Rosh Hashanah. It was composed by Abraham Hazzan Gerondi, a prolific writer of devotional poems who was active in the 13th century in Southern France. This hymn is comprised of eight metrical stanzas, each four to five lines in…
Menagen
The word 'menagen' (menágn in Yiddish accent) comes from the verb 'nagen,' which in the hasidic writings and in oral tradition means singing (and not playing an instrument, which is its usual Hebrew meaning). The terms 'Menagen,' 'Ba'al Menagen,' as well as the less common 'Ba'al Negina,' signify a…