"Ahuv mehar hamor natan li morasha" (My beloved from the mountain of Myrrh has given me an inheritance)

With Songs They Respond: The Diwan of the Jews from Central Yemen
With Songs They Respond: The Diwan of the Jews from Central Yemen
"Ahuv mehar hamor natan li morasha" (My beloved from the mountain of Myrrh has given me an inheritance)

Performed by Yosef Ozeiri and Zecharia Yitzhak


Wedding ḥaduyya, praising the tradition, sanctity and joy of the wedding, signed alphabetically, as is usual in folk poems.

The melody of this song is one of the most popular wedding melodies, and is identical with those of nos. 25 and 27. It has two motifs: all the verses are sung to one, and the passage `halleluya ki tov ki leʼolam ḥasdoʼ at the end of each stanza is sung to the other. This melody is sung in either duple or triple meter. Other poems, such as Abraham ibn Ezra's poem for Simḥat torah, Atzula lefanim bekhiseh 'aravot, are also sung to it. Sarah Levi-Tanai also used it in her song Im ha- shaḥar (With dawn); she wrote words of her own to the two motifs of this melody, and added another melodic motif at the end of the song. This song has been performed by many singers, and has been the basis of a popular Israeli folk dance. (Bahat, 1983: 427).

Hereby follow the transcription of the beginnings of the five versions:

Yosef Ozeiri and Zecharia Yitzhak sing two stanzas whose verses begin with the first six letters of the Hebrew alphabet. At the time of the wedding celebration more stanzas may be added, up to the end of the alphabet. They sing in a responsorial manner: Zecharia begins and Yosef joins him, and they accompany themselves on the drum.

הרשמו לניוזלטר

הירשם לניוזלטר שלנו כדי לקבל עדכונים