Judeo-Spanish Traditions in Transition

Judeo-Spanish Traditions in Transition (Shared session with the Ladino Program)

Chair: Karen Gerson Sarhon

Susana Weich-Shahak, Jewish Music Research Centre, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Estructura poética y núcleo temática en el romancero sefardí (Poetic Structure and the Thematic Nucleus in the Judeo-Spanish Romancero)

Es la intención de mi ponencia proponer un enfoque que nos permita asomarnos a la tradición oral del repertorio romancístico sefardí observando aquellos recursos literarios que orientan nuestra atención hacia el foco temático de cada romance, destacando el núcleo que le hace relevante a sus cantores y auditores. Podremos así reflexionar sobre la coherencia de este corpus con los conceptos y valores básicos de la sociedad sefardí a través de los motivos literarios que resultan evidentes en el uso de las técnicas poeticas que nos los revelan. Será ilustrado con ejemplos de grabaciones y transcripciones de romances obtenidos en mis encuestas entre informantes de ambas áreas de la diáspora sefardí: las comunidades de los Balcanes (la que antes fuera el area otomana) y las del Norte de Marruecos. Los ejemplos propuestos: Por que no cantas, la bella? (Tetuan), La doncella guerrera (Esmirna), Delgadina (Rodas), El veneno de Moriana (Tetuan).

Marion Mader, Köln University, Germany
The Role of the Radio in Relocating and Reshaping Judeo-Spanish Song in Israel

This paper outlines aspects of change in Ladino music due to the impact of radio since the Independence of Israel in 1948. The State-run broadcaster Kol Yisrael offered minority-language programmes to cater to immigrants’ needs in socializing in a new country. Programmes in Ladino have been broadcast since the 1950s, and the importance of music for the identification of the individual with an ongoing newly formed group of immigrants from all over the world is evident. During the first decades of the young State of Israel, moderators of these programmes, became agents for the emotional resettlement of Ladino speaking Jews in Israel. Furthermore, their work included the collecting of songs from listeners, whom they invited for recording sessions to the station. Through this activity of collecting and broadcasting, a multitude of melodies and texts were passed on from individuals to the whole subgroup of Ladino speakers and society at large. Connections were made between repertoires brought by different families from different geographic origins. Thanks to its public staging on radio, the Judeo-Spanish song repertoire could now also be explored by musicians from non-Sephardic backgrounds.

Judith R. Cohen, York University, Canada.
Belmonte et al. Revisited: Music of Crypto- and not-so-Crypto Jews in Portugal

In 1996, I began an ongoing project studying the role of music in the lives of the Crypto-Jews of Portugal, especially rural/village Portugal. At that time my main question was whether they had preserved any archaic melodies or at least any melodies different from those of their neighbors, and the answer appeared to be, basically, that they did not: they use local Portuguese songs in certain ways, and recite prayers in Portuguese without melodies. Over ten years later, the situation of these Judeus, as they call themselves, is somewhat different. Many more people have visited both the emblematic community of Belmonte, and the communities in the urban areas: Lisbon and Oporto. The younger people especially exploit their access to the internet, and there is a state-run Jewish museum in Belmonte. As they interact much more with the outside world than in the past, the role of music in their lives has also changed. On the one hand, they use their own adaptations of local Portuguese songs in certain ways, now extending some melodies as contrafacta in the context of synagogue services, as in fact Jews have done for millennia and also, to some extent, using them as identity markers in the presence of Jewish tourists. On the other hand, although hardly any of them have knowledge of Hebrew, they seem to prefer Israeli music of almost any sort, mostly light popular, to the recordings of Sephardic songs which well-meaning Jewish tourists sometimes leave with them, assuming that these are more relevant to Crypto-Jewish history. In the cities, several members of the bnei anusim congregation have stated that they prefer to learn Ashkenazi songs and synagogue practice rather than Sephardic, for a number of reasons. This paper explores these various aspects of music in the lives of Jews in Portugal, especially Crypto or former Crypto-now-open Jews, and how their musical life does and does not conform to often romantic notions such as “it must be all from pre-expulsion times” or that old Iberian Jewish music shares roots with flamenco and assumes a long-standing connection with Iberian Roma (Gypsies).

4.8.09