SephardicJews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the Iberian Peninsula. The term, which is derived from the Hebrew Sepharad, can also refer to the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, who were also heavily influenced by Sephardic law and customs. Many Iberian Jewish exiled families also later sought refuge in those Jewish communities, resulting in ethnic and cultural integration with those communities over the span of many centuries. The majority of Sephardim live in Israel.
The music of Israel is a combination of Jewish and non-Jewish music traditions that have come together over the course of a century to create a distinctive musical culture. For almost 150 years, musicians have sought original stylistic elements that would define the emerging national spirit. In addition to creating an Israeli style and sound, Israel's musicians have made significant contributions to classical, jazz, pop rock and other international music genres. Since the 1970s, there has been a flowering of musical diversity, with Israeli rock, folk and jazz musicians creating and performing extensively, both locally and abroad. Many of the world's top classical musicians are Israelis or Israeli expatriates. The works of Israeli classical composers have been performed by leading orchestras worldwide.
Sephardic music is an umbrella term used to refer to the music of the Sephardic Jewish community. Sephardic Jews have a diverse repertoire the origins of which center primarily around the Mediterranean basin. In the secular tradition, material is usually sung in dialects of Judeo-Spanish, though other languages including Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, and other local languages of the Sephardic diaspora are widely used. Sephardim maintain geographically unique liturgical and para-liturgical traditions.
Jewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian exile. Jewish languages feature a syncretism of Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic with the languages of the local non-Jewish population.
Yehoram Gaon is an Israeli singer, actor, director, comedian, producer, TV and radio host, and public figure. He has also written and edited books on Israeli culture.
The baqashot are a collection of supplications, songs, and prayers that have been sung by the Sephardic Syrian, Moroccan, and Turkish Jewish communities for centuries each week on Shabbat mornings from the early hours of the morning until dawn. They are usually recited during the weeks of winter, from the Jewish festival of Sukkot through Purim, when the nights are much longer. The baqashot services can last for three to four hours. The Ades Synagogue in Jerusalem is the center of the Syrian practice today, and communities in Ashdod and Montreal are the center of the Moroccan practice.
Syrian Jews are Jews who live in the region of the modern state of Syria, and their descendants born outside Syria. Syrian Jews derive their origin from two groups: from the Jews who inhabited the region of today's Syria from ancient times, and sometimes classified as Mizrahi Jews ; and from the Sephardi Jews who fled to Syria after the Alhambra Decree forced the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originate in biblical times, differences of rhythm and sound can be found among later Jewish communities that have been musically influenced by location. In the nineteenth century, religious reform led to composition of ecclesiastic music in the styles of classical music. At the same period, academics began to treat the topic in the light of ethnomusicology. Edwin Seroussi has written, "What is known as 'Jewish music' today is thus the result of complex historical processes". A number of modern Jewish composers have been aware of and influenced by the different traditions of Jewish music.
Shir LaShalom is a popular Israeli song that has become an anthem for the Israeli peace movement.
Alberto Hemsi was a composer of the 20th century classical era. His work in the field of ethnomusicology and integration of Sephardic melodies has been noted as parallel to Béla Bartók's collection of traditional Hungarian music and consequent integration to his music.
Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino, is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish.
"Kuando el rey Nimrod" is a Sephardic folk song. It is sung in the Judaeo-Spanish language and tells the story of the birth of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people and of monotheism.
Matilda Koen-Sarano was an Italian-born Israeli writer. Born to Turkish Jewish parents, she was one of the most widely known writers in the Ladino language.
Yair Rosenblum was an Israeli composer and arranger.
Samuel Gordon Armistead was an American ethnographer, linguist, folklorist, historian, literary critic and professor of Spanish. He is considered one of the most notable Hispanist scholars of the second half of the 20th and early 21st century.
Assaf Shelleg is an Israeli-American musicologist and pianist, a senior lecturer of musicology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was previously the Schusterman Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology and Jewish Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia (2011–2014), and had taught prior to that as the visiting Efroymson Scholar in the Jewish, Islamic & Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department at Washington University in St. Louis (2009–2011). Shelleg specializes in art music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, modern and contemporary Jewish Art Music, Oral Jewish musical traditions, historical musicology, post-tonal theories, actor-network theory, and contemporaneity, often whilt focusing on the cultural networks in which art music was written by or about Jews, in Europe, North America, British Palestine, and Israel. Between 2021 and 2023 Shelleg has served as the director of the Cherrick Center for the study of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the State of Israel, and between 2020 and 2022 he was appointed curator of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, with projects that saw the premiers of works by Betty Olivero, Chaya Czernowin, Oedoen Partos, Verdina Shlonsky, and others.
David Monson Bunis is a professor in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Languages, Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and heads its program in Judezmo studies. He is also an advisor to the Israel Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino and a member of the Akademia Nasionala del Ladino. He is the editor of Languages and Literatures of Sephardic and Oriental Jews, co-editor of Massorot, a Hebrew-language journal devoted to the study of Jewish language traditions, and author of books and articles on the Judezmo language and its literature.
Yitzhak Isaac Levy ; May 15, 1919, Manisa, Turkey – July 21, 1977, Jerusalem, Israel) was an Israeli singer-songwriter, musicologist and composer in Judaeo-Spanish. He also worked as director of a radio program and was an author of various works on musicology.
Joseph (Yossi)Chetrit is Emeritus Professor of the French language and literature department and the Hebrew language department at the University of Haifa, former head of the Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture in Spain and Muslim Countries, and founder of the Tsfon-Maarav Troupe.
Judith Rita Cohen is a Canadian ethnomusicologist, music educator, and performer. Her research interests include Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) songs; medieval and traditional music from the Balkans, Portugal, French Canada, and Yiddish; pan-European balladry; and songs from Crypto-Jewish regions in Portugal. She has received numerous research and travel grants to do fieldwork in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Israel, Turkey, Greece, France, Belgium, Canada, and the United States, and has published many journal articles, papers, and book chapters. She plays a variety of medieval musical instruments, and sings and performs as part of her lectures and in concerts and solo recitals. She is also the editor of the Alan Lomax Spanish collection maintained by the Association for Cultural Equity.
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