Musicology

A survey of the history and personalities of an ambitions pre-World War II attempt to create an institution that will document and promote Jewish music while moving the operations from an insecure Europe to Palestine. Based on the archives of the WCJM located at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, the book includes useful indices.

A general introduction geared to undergraduate college students offering a panoramic overview of the main issues of Jewish music for the uninitiated. Accompanied by a CD.

Written as a memoire of the musical encounters of the author, composer and conductor Lazare Saminsky (1882-1959), with Jewish communities in his homeland, the Russian Empire and elsewhere, the book is a document of the late Romantic Orientalistic views of Western intellectuals regarding the authenticity of Jewish music in the East.

A programmatic article including a very valuable critique of most of definitions of Jewish music. It stresses the ambiguity of the concept of Jewish music as well as the racialized discourses related to it that developed after Richard Wagner.