Are hasapika Jewish?

[Paul M. Gifford <PGIFFORD...>]

Why do some Greek hasapika (I think that's plural for "hasapiko") and 
hasaposervika sound Jewish? Are there particular examples that are
definitely so, or is it just a convergence of something?

I happened to be at a little Macedonian-American gathering last 
weekend for which I loaned a couple of records of a some '60s Detroit 
Macedonian-American wedding bands. When I heard the hasapiko, I
thought it really was a klezmer tune. The recording of the other,
related, group (which often played Romanian gatherings and whose
personnel went back to Simion "Sammy" Duka, an ethnic Romanian who 
came from Iacobeni, Bucovina, to Cleveland, in the late 1880s) 
includes a "Polka din Bucovina" which definitely is a common klezmer 
tune, so the source for this group's hasapiko could be Jewish. I 
talked to Duka's son once, and he said that in the '40s, his group
played for a lot of Jewish weddings in Detroit, as well as a lot of
"mixed" weddings of different nationalities, not just Romanian. 
Apparently these groups are part of a tradition established by this 
Romanian Duka group and of Mato, a Bulgarian Gypsy clarinetist.

Anyway, is there any reason to suggest an Ashkenazic influence in
some of these Greek dance tunes, especially in Greece?

Paul Gifford

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