Re: The Greek-Jewish Theater in Judeo-Spanish

[Sandra Layman <sandralayman...>]

This sounds fascinating.

And it brings me to ask something I've been wondering about for quite some 
time: is there any evidence that the "Karaghiozis" shadow-puppet theater of 
Greece (and/or Turkey) was adapted and used by Jews at all? If so, was the 
music used (for example, the "Karaghiozis" hasaposerviko tune) also used?

Thanks,
Sandra

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Eva Broman 
  To: World music from a Jewish slant 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 7:15 AM
  Subject: The Greek-Jewish Theater in Judeo-Spanish


  Hi everyone,

  While looking for some other info, I came across an interesting article about 
the Greek-Jewish theater in Judeo-Spanish. 

  The title is "The Greek-Jewish Theater in Judeo-Spanish, ca. 1880-1940", it's 
written by Yitzchak Kerem and it was published in: Journal of Modern Greek 
Studies 14.1 (1996) 31-45 

  The article is too long to send to the list, but if I manage to copy/download 
it, I could sent it to anyone interested. The following is an excerpt that ties 
in nicely with the Jewish musical/Purim thread:

  Theatrical activity in Thessaloniki became intense in the 1920s and the 
1930s. 3 In 1932, the musical Ester was performed on Purim in Judeo-Spanish at 
the Winter Theater on Megalou Alexandrou by members of the religious Zionist 
movement BPnai Mizrahi. The play was written by the Betar activist Shlomo 
Reuvain. Isaac Sion composed the music, and an orchestra accompanied the 
production. Reuvain based his adaptation on the dialogue between Esther and 
King Ahasuerus in the play Esther by Jean Racine, the seventeenth-century 
French playwright, in which Racine has Esther reveal her Jewish identity to the 
king (Alexander and Weich-Shahak 1993:46). The folklorist Tamar Alexander notes 
that the Esther story is a classical Jewish folk tale in which there is a 
confrontation between a good Jew, representing the Jewish community, and a 
wicked Gentile. The king sides with the Jews. Most of these tales end with the 
words, "The Jews had light and happiness," evoking another Jewish archetype, 
"the miraculous rescue of the persecuted Jewish community" (Alexander and 
Weich-Shahak 1993:43). 

  All the best, Eva