This playlist is the advanced release of Yuval Music Series 14, Splendid Singing Birds: Jewish Women’s Songs from Kerala. This is one of the longstanding projects of the Jewish Music Research Centre. Led with diligence, profound dedication and meticulous scholarship by anthropologist Barbara C. Johnson, the project relies on fieldwork carried out in India and Israel for over four decades. Johnson’s work, in collaboration with singer and translator Tzipporah (Venus) Lane, unravels the symbolic and aesthetic layers of the Malayalam language song repertoire, anchored in the life of the Jewish communities of Kerala, on the southwest seacoast of India.
A guide to reading this book online
The playlist is divided into five sections, each accompanied by a brief introduction describing its theme. In Section I, some songs narrate legendary accounts of how the Jews first arrived in Kerala, and others describe particular synagogues. Section II includes blessings sung by women at celebratory family feasts, plus a variety of romantic and playful songs associated with weddings. Songs in Section III recount stories from the Hebrew Bible and Midrash, many featuring women characters. Section IV includes Malayalam adaptations of Hebrew prayer songs, plus devotional songs with a uniquely Indian flavor. Section V presents 20th century Zionist songs composed in Kerala. Many of these anticipate the community’s aliyah (emigration to Israel), which began in the early 1950s, and some were composed to the melodies of popular Indian cinema songs of that era.
To listen to a song in the playlist, click on the picture of the parrot next to the title of that song. To read its English translation and commentary, click on the song title itself.
To access other important information, see the list of attachments at the bottom of this opening page. To open and read an attachment, click on the down arrow next to its title. (This also gives you the option of downloading that attachment in PDF format.)
To learn much more about the Kerala Jewish women and their songs, click on this underlined attachment: Preface by Edwin Seroussi and the Introduction by Barbara Johnson.
To read the brief section introduction to any one of the five playlist sections, open it by clicking on the attachment for that Section.
The following parts of the book are also available to read and to download in PDF format: the Title Pages and Table of Contents; a previously unpublished Essay by Scaria Zacharia (a noted Malayalam linguist); the Bibliography; and the Dedication and Acknowledgements. To access a list of all the attachments, click here.
To read one of the following brief biographies, click on the participant’s name: Barbara Johnson, Venus Lane, Scaria Zacharia, Ruby Daniel, Galia Hacco.
See also the CD "Oh, Lovely Parrot! - Jewish Women's Songs from Kerala," published by the JMRC in 2004, which includes forty-two songs representing a selection of the traditional songs preserved by the Jewish women of Cochin.
