Re: Afghanistan

[Bob Wiener <wiener...>]

I did look throught the "In Israel Today" series, the "Mountain Jews" CD,
and the UNESCO Jewish Music LP before I posted -- no Afghanistan listing.  I
didn't read the liner notes of my recordings of Bukharan Jews, but defer to
Judith's expertise that it's close, but no cigar.  (Do people from
Afghanistan smoke cigars?  Probably not the women.)

In fact, I did come across one LP, "Die Musik der Bibel", with 3 selections.
But that's it so far.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith R Cohen" <judithc (at) YorkU(dot)CA>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 6:21 AM
Subject: Afghanistan


> hi, I 've never heard of any recordings of music of the Jews of
> Afghanistan, but there might I suppose be one.I don't remember what the
> "Queensistan" article said but really it was talking about the Jews of
> Uzbekistan, mostly Bukhara, and not about Afghanistan.  None of Deben
> Bhattacharya's recordings ("In Israel Today") mentioned in the last
> digest includes Afghanistan, though there are, as Lee says, a few tracks
> from Uzbekistan (incidentally, with very minimal background notes).
>
> In fact, there are not that many recordings of music from Afghanistan
> altogether. There's an old 3-volume LP set from UNESCO; don't know
> whether it's been re-released on CD. Also, my friend and colleague
> Veronica Doubleday just sent me her lovely recording of herself singing
> and playing (on frame drum) the women's wedding songs she learned during
> her long stay in Herat in the late 70's, while her husband,
> ethnomusicologist John Baily , was doing his PhD research with men's
> music of the area: he produced a cassette  called simply "Music of
> Afghanistan" through the World Music Institute in NYC, with Aziz Herawi.
> Veronica also has a great book about her life there, called "Three Women
> of Herat", 1989 I think.
> I also read, somewhere, that note Bob mentions about the 2 Jews left in
> Afghanistan; I seem to remember reading that they each occupy a
> different end of the abandoned synagogue and claim to be the guardian of
> the Torah, but can't remember where I read this and take it with a grain
> of salt.
>
> Judith
>
>

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