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from yesterday's Yediot Ahronot

Ovadia Orders Shas Pupils to Study Arab Music

Acting under the express instructions of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia 
Yosef, teachers in Shas&#8217;s El Hamaayan schools have begun giving pupils 
lessons on the subject of Arab musicology. Ovadia Yosef is known to be an avid 
fan of Arabic music, and many prayers in Sephardi synagogues are sung in Arabic 
tunes. The change occurred in the wake of a report that appeared in the Shas 
newspaper, Yom Leyom, that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ruled: &#8220;One should give 
preference to Arab melodies over secular Israeli tunes... in the quiet Arab 
melodies, the soul sits better with the melody. That is not the case with the 
secular melodies and all the more so in the foreign material, where the rhythm 
and the tonal jumps are relatively wild.&#8221;

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