JMI Jewish Song School 2007/2008
update 31 January 2008
Jewish Babylonian song in Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew
Dr
Sara Manasseh www.saramanasseh.com
The Babylonian Jews have a rich and proud history. They represent the
first Jewish diaspora from Jerusalem in 586 BCE to what is now Iraq. In
the early 1950s they numbered some 150,000, but with earlier emigrations
to India and the Far East, the mass emigration to Israel in the early
1950s, and emigration to Australia, the UK, North America and Europe,
this sojourn of some 2,700 years has now all but come to an end, with
only a handful of Jews remaining in Baghdad.
We will learn songs in the Jewish Baghdadian Arabic dialect, chosen from women’s songs for the pre-wedding henna ceremony, communal songs for the Passover seder and those sung on pilgrimage to the tombs of the Ezekiel the Prophet (at Al-Kifil on the Euphrates, south of Al-Hilla) and Ezra the Scribe (at Al-Uzayr on the Tigris).
We will also learn sociable ‘table songs’ in Hebrew, in the Iraqi-Jewish pronunciation – from the shbahoth repertoire – hymns associated with the Sabbath, festivals and life cycle events – some of the poems written by the luminaries of Jewish Andalusian Spain, and sung in the melodic and rhythmic modes of Iraqi (Arab) music.
KlezFest
Summer Schools 2008
