_The Music of the Mountain Jews_: A Review

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

This from Mendele. Thought it would be of interest to listmembers.
Leonard Prager's e-mail address is not working for me.

2)------------------------------
Date: 30 May 2000
Subject: _The Music of the Mountain Jews_: A Review
From: Leonard Prager <lprager (at) reserch(dot)haifa(dot)ac(dot)il>

Piris Eliyahu.  _The Music of the Mountain Jews; Transcriptions and
Commentaries_.  Jerusalem:  The Jewish Music Research Centre, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, 1999.  [ISBN:  0792-3740].

The phenomenon of Yiddish can only be understood fully in the context of
Jewish linguistic history, which encompasses the chronicles of a score
of "Jewish languages."  In its longevity, geographical range, literary
monuments, socio-cultural and political importance, no Jewish language
-- Hebrew excepted -- can quite compare with Yiddish.  But all Jewish
languages share certain common features such as the use -- at least
originally -- of the Hebrew alphabet and a lexicon including many
loshn-koydesh- (Hebrew-Aramaic) origin terms.  Less happily, all Jewish
languages (Modern Hebrew not excepted) share a common vulnerability --
gradual extinction through assimilation or acculturation of one kind
or another.

One of the most fragile linguistic treasures of the Jewish people is
Juhuri (also known as Judeo-Tat), an Iranian language of Azerbaijan
which has fused elements from Azeri, Turkish and Hebrew, and which until
1929 used the Hebrew alphabet.  Nine years later the Latin alphabet was
adopted, soon to be succeeded by a Cyrillic-based alphabet.  Piris
Eliyahu, an Israeli musicologist of Juhuri origin, has now given us a
splendid study of Juhuri music.  He tells us that "During the last
decades of the nineteenth century, following the Russian conquest of
Daghestan, Jewish and non-Jewish researchers began to express interest
in the folklore and language of the Mountain Jews.  Songs, folk tales
and linguistic studies were published during this period in Russian ....
Periodicals and journals in Juhuri which began to appear in the
twentieth century included folkloric materials.  During the first
decades of the Soviet period, the scholarly interest in the Mountain
Jews slowly declined.  The journal _Vatan Sovetimu_, edited by, among
others, the writer Hizghil Avshalumov and published since 1960, is the
only modern publication in Juhuri."(p. 18)

A single extant publication!  Yiddish, fortunately, is in a considerably
more favorable position.  (Digitalization and the internet will preserve
and make available more and more Yiddish texts.)  Publication of the
attractively produced and scholarly _The Music of the Mountain Jews_
could give Juhuri music a boost -- the book includes numerous scores.
Will it in some way strengthen Juhuri language maintenance?  I do not
believe that the marvelous-in-itself klezmer craze has substantially
strengthened Yiddish-language interest per se, but interest from any
corner is, of course, to be welcomed.

The song texts in the anthology fall into two main groups:  anonymous
folk songs and contemporary songs by twentieth-century Juhuri poets.  A
radio program in Juhuri (c. 1960) encouraged composition of new songs
which became very popular.  The interaction of Jewish and Muslim
performers forged links to non-Jewish music:  "The singers among the
Mountain Jews wrote down the texts of their songs in booklets called
_talmud_.  This term was also adopted by the Muslim population for their
song collections.  This influence stems from the contacts between Jews
and Muslims, often occurring at joint performances of Jewish and
non-Jewish musicians....  The close relations between Jews and Muslims
throughout eastern and northern Caucasus during the past 500 years are
reflected in their musical culture.  Jews and Muslims share repertoires,
musical instruments, musical genres and even musical performances.  In
mixed villages it was customary for Muslims and Jews to invite each
other to their festivities, and, from Baku to Nalchik, for Muslims to
engage Jewish musicians at their celebrations.  Indeed, instrumental
performance was a typical Jewish profession in the eastern Caucasus.
This phenomenon is common in other Islamic countries, such as Persia and
Morocco.  Any separation between Jewish and Muslim repertoires was due
to two factors:  the language and social context of the performance
(i.e.  Jewish events, such as weddings, bar-mitzvahs etc.)."  (p. 19)

The editor develops further this theme of a common musical culture
shared by Jews and Muslims:  "Numerous musical genres represented in
this anthology are shared by Jews and non-Jews:  sections of the Mugham
repertoire (the improvised Mugham, the Rdng and the Tasni]), the
Tdrdkamd dance in Azerbaijan and southern Daghestan, and the Qafa,
Lezginka and Lyr from northern Daghestan and other areas of northern
Caucasus ....  In the twentieth century Jewish musicians adopted
Armenian popular songs and dances from commercial records....  The
central role which Jews played in the musical life of this area is also
reflected in the writings of Muslim writers such as A.M.  Umakhanova
(1991:44).  This close relationship which developed between Jewish and
non-Jewish cultures in the Caucasus is due to their shared geopolitical
and socio-economic heritage...."  A simple explanation such as "because
they lived and worked together" would have sufficed.

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