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Forum -> Hobbies, Crafts, and Collections -> Music and Performing Arts
What is Jewish music anyway????
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avrahamama




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 2:58 pm
Several posters have mentioned hartzidig haimish music being the only thing they'll listen to.

I find this interesting because for sure my Sephardic melodies wouldn't fall in the category. But then I remembered that maybe there is no "Jewish" music anyway. Meaning yes the lyrics are Jewish. But even the tunes are influenced by your region.

Sephardic music is influenced by the middle eastern sounds of it's location... Even chasidish music is influenced by the songs that were sung in the inns and tavernsof Europe ... (Sorrrrrryyyy just repeating what I learned)

So when you say you only listen to haimish holy tunes ... The origins may have even started in the inns of Europe.

The same can go for many foods that we think are "Jewish" but we can save that for another time.
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PeanutMama




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 3:02 pm
That’s a good question.
Wish I had an answer...
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Genius




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 3:22 pm
Many things come from the non jews but we’re far’yiddish’t along the way. I guess Jewish music would be what’s sung by heimish yidden and sound like something that I wouldn’t mind if my kids listened to it.
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avrahamama




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 3:24 pm
genius wrote:
Many things come from the non jews but we’re far’yiddish’t along the way. I guess Jewish music would be what’s sung by heimish yidden and sound like something that I wouldn’t mind if my kids listened to it.


So music sung by Sephardic yidden is not in that category of what you would let your children listen to?
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Genius




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 3:26 pm
avrahamama wrote:
So music sung by Sephardic yidden is not in that category of what you would let your children listen to?

What makes you think so?
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Genius




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 3:30 pm
avrahamama wrote:
So music sung by Sephardic yidden is not in that category of what you would let your children listen to?

What do you call Sephardic music? Does shwekey fit the bill? If yes he happens to be one of my favorites.
Honesty I didn’t comment on any of the other threads so maybe I should just shut up
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avrahamama




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 3:31 pm
genius wrote:
What do you call Sephardic music? Does shwekey fit the bill? If yes he happens to be one of my favorites.
Honesty I didn’t comment on any of the other threads so maybe I should just shut up


Don't worry. You're fine. Well he is Syrian. So he's Sephardic. And he sings music of all types. So I suppose it depends on which songs of his. But yes. He can fit the bill if you like all his songs.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 3:52 pm
We know it when we hear it Wink
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amother
Pink


 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 4:17 pm
avrahamama wrote:
So music sung by Sephardic yidden is not in that category of what you would let your children listen to?


I think you misunderstood what she meant by heimish. It is sometimes used to mean "sort of Chassidish" , sometimes used to mean "Hungarian". But the more correct meaning, and the one used in this context is more like, "one of us", meaning part of the broader frum community. She did not mean to exclude sfardim, G-d forbid.
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avrahamama




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 4:23 pm
amother [ Pink ] wrote:
I think you misunderstood what she meant by heimish. It is sometimes used to mean "sort of Chassidish" , sometimes used to mean "Hungarian". But the more correct meaning, and the one used in this context is more like, "one of us", meaning part of the broader frum community. She did not mean to exclude sfardim, G-d forbid.


So Heimish means familiar. Not Jewish. Ok.

But still interesting to note. That any music we think of as Jewish is actually just a reflection of the broader population we are part of.
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Genius




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 4:32 pm
avrahamama wrote:
So Heimish means familiar. Not Jewish. Ok.

But still interesting to note. That any music we think of as Jewish is actually just a reflection of the broader population we are part of.

The way we dress is too. We were always influenced by the culture we lived in. Sometimes more other times not so much.
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amother
Teal


 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 4:50 pm
A poster on the other thread implied that the problem with non-Jewish music is that we are not supposed to listen to music since the chorbun. I think she may be right: all the Jewish music I've heard probably doesn't count as music, except that which has been accused vaguely of having a "non jewish tone"--not referring to plagiarized elements.
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liveandlove.ima




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 4:54 pm
why does music reflect on the singer? its all about the composer of song not even so much the lyrics..
will a song from the movie Aladin become "Jewish" just because some singer decides to do a cover? hell no
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avrahamama




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 4:57 pm
mocha wrote:
why does music reflect on the singer? its all about the songs not so much the lyrics..
will a song from the movie Aladin become "Jewish" just because some singer decides to do a cover? hell no!
[youtube]https://613tube.com/watch/?v=MesvAUBLknQ[/youtube]


Actually Nakdishach sounds beautiful to the tune of a whole new world .... But for example. There is a tune of adon olam that is really the tune of an old German beer hall song.
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imasinger




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 5:07 pm
This is an area I've studied.

Through the centuries, there are many times that have been appropriated from outside the Jewish world and repurposed, as well as some flow in the other direction.

One well known example -- Chabad uses the tune for the French national anthem in part of their bentching. My Chabad friends tell me that when chosen secular tunes are repurposed for holy words, they gain kedusha.

Certain sounds, modes, instrumental arrangements that are popular in a given community often are considered as proper, while other sounds are not. Listening to the sounds of Jewish music broadens one's understanding of what people consider Jewish music.

In modern days, we have questions of composers who are Jewish by birth, but maybe don't care, or don't consider themselves more than "culturally Jewish." Is their music inside a definition of Jewish music, or not? ("White Xmas"?)

My takeaway is that we really can't come up with a definitive answer that will be widely accepted as to what Jewish music is. So, as with many other matters, AYLOR, if it's important to you.

ETA: Pet peeve. I hate, hate HATE people using kedusha in davening as a place to insert tunes that have nothing to do with the actual meaning of the words. It drives me bananas. Musaf kedusha is the holiest moment (anyway, it SHOULD be) of a Shabbos/YT davening, and people make it into something else. I wish people would think about it more.
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Hillery




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 5:17 pm
imasinger wrote:
This is an area I've studied.

Through the centuries, there are many times that have been appropriated from outside the Jewish world and repurposed, as well as some flow in the other direction.


Regarding repurposing, I've heard it said that it started the other way round. When the Yidden went into golus, many beautiful strains of shiras haleviyim got 'lost' among the nations. At times tzaddikim recognised the origins of non jewish songs, and 'redeemed' them from their golus.

My husband once gave a good definition for what's Yiddish music. He said anything that you wouldn't raise an eyebrow if you heard it sung by the rebbe's tish (whichever rebbe you want).

Some things are hard to define, but you definitely know them when you see or hear them.
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amother
Orange


 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 6:07 pm
Hillery wrote:
Regarding repurposing, I've heard it said that it started the other way round. When the Yidden went into golus, many beautiful strains of shiras haleviyim got 'lost' among the nations. At times tzaddikim recognised the origins of non jewish songs, and 'redeemed' them from their golus.

My husband once gave a good definition for what's Yiddish music. He said anything that you wouldn't raise an eyebrow if you heard it sung by the rebbe's tish (whichever rebbe you want).

Some things are hard to define, but you definitely know them when you see or hear them.


The best guess for what the music in the mikdash sounded like is a Gregorian chant.

And plenty of chassidim sing songs at the tisch to tunes that would've been familiar to anyone in a Ukrainian tavern. No one raises an eyebrow now because they've gotten used to these stolen tunes.
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 6:21 pm
As far as I'm concerned, it's the lyrics that make the music Jewish or otherwise just as it's the kashrus that makes food Jewish or otherwise. People adopt that which is available in their surroundings and adapt it to their needs and tastes, and the traffic goes both ways. (Some choose to call this cultural theft; I prefer to think of it as cultural drift. It's inevitable to a degree, because nobody lives in a vacuum.) That's why I am offended by the overwhelming assumption that European food, music, poetry, art and clothing, especially from Germany and eastern Europe, are THE authentically Jewish stuff. Ashkenazi culture is neither more nor less authentically Jewish than its counterparts from Spain, North Africa, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor or anywhere else. Yiddish is neither more nor less a Jewish language than Ladino or any of the other Judeo-XXXXX languages. Neither Rashi nor Rambam spoke Yiddish.

Ah, well, we're all self-centric. What passes for 'world history' in most American high school curricula is really western European history with very little attention given to anything else, except as it relates to the United States.
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singleagain




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 6:26 pm
Well said zaq!
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Ora in town




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 20 2020, 6:46 pm
avrahamama wrote:
Several posters have mentioned hartzidig haimish music being the only thing they'll listen to.

I find this interesting because for sure my Sephardic melodies wouldn't fall in the category. But then I remembered that maybe there is no "Jewish" music anyway. Meaning yes the lyrics are Jewish. But even the tunes are influenced by your region.

Sephardic music is influenced by the middle eastern sounds of it's location... Even chasidish music is influenced by the songs that were sung in the inns and tavernsof Europe ... (Sorrrrrryyyy just repeating what I learned)

So when you say you only listen to haimish holy tunes ... The origins may have even started in the inns of Europe.

The same can go for many foods that we think are "Jewish" but we can save that for another time.

Actually, this is exactly the conclusion jewish musicists and jewish musicologists draw.
Giora Feidman, the klezmer-clarinetist claims that there is just one kind of jewish music: the sound of the shofar!

Israel Adler, professor for musicology says exactly what you say: there is not homogeneity in jewish music, at each period, in each country, jews drew inspiration from the muscial styles around them and sometimes added something a little bit different that made it "jewish"...

I, for my part, am very happy to see a renaissance of all kinds of styles of jewish music, including Motty Ilowitz, Lipa Szmelczer, Idan Reichelt, AWA, etc. etc...

I have to say that rock-pop-style is not my predilection, and that I am surprised at the vast wealth of hareidi music inspired by rock-pop and by its popularity... I would rather go back to accustic instruments, that's what I like...
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