From Destruction to Rebuilding in the Iberian Peninsula

This article touches upon the Ninth of Av qinot (dirges), as sung at the Nefutsot Yehuda synagogue in Gibraltar, through a study of three musical examples from the community repertoire and the comparison of these examples with other musical sources from the greater Spanish and Portuguese tradition. The article will elaborate on the historical circumstances which led to the establishment of a Jewish settlement at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula just two centuries after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. The article will characterize the unique social profile of this community which inevitably allowed it to prosper and become a bridge between West-European and North-African traditions. The article will examine the Sephardi and Portuguese axis which Gibraltar is part of, while introducing prominent chazzanim from this tradition whom are relevant to this study.

This article will be first at presenting musical transcriptions of the Gibraltarian qinot repertoire based on the recordings of the late Chazzan Abraham Beniso. Mr. Beniso led the services at the 'Nefutsot Yehuda' synagogue for approximately seven decades and is the most recognized voice of the Jewish Gibraltarian liturgical singing tradition. The main body of the article will present a research on both the textual and the musical materials derived from the qinot. The literal analysis will include the verbal meaning of the sacred text, inner subdivisions, rhyming patterns and the overall structure. The musical analysis will compare the Gibraltarian transcriptions with transcription of the greater Spanish and Portuguese 'mother communities' while examining the thematic structure of phrases, motives, melodic variations and overall tonal syntax. All of the above will serve the main goal of the pioneering research presented here, which is to elaborate on the local stylistic characterization of the qinot singing tradition at the Gibraltarian synagogue.