concepts

Freylekhs

Yiddish term, popularly used to refer to a joyful Niggun, and is still used as such with the Boyan Hassidim. However, some researchers see it as a 'Terminus Technicus,' a professional-scientific term that, in this case, signifies a musical genre. It seems that Freylekhs tunes …

Tants nign (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…

Hora (LKT)

Communal singing

* This entry is a summarized version of the full artice about communal singing, by Talila Eliram. To read the full article, see below. Communal singing (or public singing,) is a tradition that began in the Halutz movements in the Diaspora, while anticipating their immigration and settling in…

Cantor

See: Hazzan.

Ve-Hi She-’Amda – Piyyut from the Passover Haggadah

This piyyut appears in ancient Haggadot and the author is unknown. It addresses how, throughout history, many enemies have arisen seeking to destroy Israel, but God rescues Israel from their clutches. The piyyut appears in the Haggadah celebrating the rescue of the slaves from Egypt – the central…

Tin Pan Alley

Nickname for the popular songwriting and sheet-music publishing industry centred in New York from the 1890s to the 1950s. By association it came to be applied to the general type of song purveyed by the industry both in America and then Europe up until the rise of the singer-songwriter in the mid-…

The Tedeschian Community

[1]The Tedeschian Jews are Ashkenazi Jews who originated in Germany, and immigrated to Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. The name 'Tedeschi' (Tedescho in singular), which means 'Ashkenazi' or 'German,' was coined by the local Italian Jews who lived in the surroundings of the Tedeschian…

The Jerusalem-Sephardic Tradition

This article shows the crystallization of the prayer and singing style known as “Jerusalem-Sephardic,” which originated among the Jewish communities scattered throughout the Ottoman Empire during the 16th to 20th centuries and developed under Turkish-Ottoman and Arabic musical influences. …

Steiger

A term in use in the European Jewish musical tradition to refer to the different modal types of Nusahei Hatefilah. Nusah Hatefilah is the accepted ritual of liturgical singing that is based on structural elements: the combination of motifs that are built from melodic formulas within a scale…

Karaite Jews Musical Tradition

Since the establishment of this community, the Karaites have maintained the basic principles of their traditions. Over the course of these many centuries, liturgical chants within the synagogue and outside of it have served as an important feature of the Karaite heritage. History According…

Mitsve Tants

The Mitsve Tants, or Kosher Tants, is a ritual dance imbued with mystical significance. It is performed today as the final ceremony of a Hassidic wedding, after the feast. Male members of the two families are invited to dance in turn with the bride. When a Hassidic rebbe is present, he is invited…