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Re: Jewish Music Definition

>Some (or many) prayers are sung to "traditional" melodies that have been
>identified as coming from non-Jewish sources.  I guess that after a
>generation or two, they have become "Jewish."


In this context, the (deceptively?) simple definition of Jewish music by the 
late Richard Neuman (once music educator at the Board of Jewish Education in 
NYC and, as it happens, my synagogue music teacher as a boy) is helpful, I 
think:  "the music of Jews at a given time and place."  I.e., what we sing 
(at a given time and place) is (perhaps) our music, whatever its origins.

Certainly this definition fits, and applies to, very well the examples I 
gave in a previous posting of incontrovertibly Jewish music derived, 
ultimately, from Christian sources:  "Ma'oz Tsur," the High Holidays 
Bor'chu"--and did I include another?

--Robert Cohen

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