RE: Oriental Jewish Music

[medelman <medelman...>]

You definitely cannot use the word "Sephardi" to categorize all
non-Ashkenazim.  From a cultural perspective, this term refers to the
Spanish-Portugese experience.  The problem comes with those communities that
emerged following the expulsions of 1492-97, where there were mergers
between the local traditions and those of the new immigrants from Sepharad.
The biggest "problem" is thus in Morocco, where Spanish, Berber and other
traditions have mingled.  Turkey presents another problem, as do the
traditions of the Jews of India.  Yemenite, Persian and Iraqi communities
are purely Oriental (although there are those who would argue that Yemen
should be in a category all its own - but that's much too "nit-picky" for
your purposes).  The Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian traditions, which are
numerically much smaller, also fall into the Oriental category, but these
days are often referred to as part of a "pan-Sephardic bloc."  Indeed, the
existence of a cantorial school in Tel Aviv which attempts to find common
ground for training hazzanim to serve any of these communities (or mergers
between them) supports the sociological wisdom of this thinking, but this
would be better called "Mizrachi" (Eastern) as opposed to Sephardic.  (After
all, the term "Sepharad" refers to the classical Hebrew word for Spain, NOT
the Middle East).

I hope this has been somewhat helpful to you.  It is not an easy question to
answer, and I'm sure you'll get many more opinions on the subject.  (Just
don't start asking "who is a Jew"!)

Marsha Bryan Edelman

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
[mailto:owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org]On Behalf Of Bronia Kornhauser
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 1:09 AM
To: World music from a Jewish slant
Subject: Oriental Jewish Music


I have come across some problems in my work as archivist for our Jewish
Music Archive and am seeking help from this wonderful list.
I am trying to categorise our material into Ashkenazi, Sephardi and
Oriental Jewish music and would like your opinions on the following:
When one is referring to the music of Oriental Jews, which
geographical/cultural/stylistic groups does this cover?
And would you use the term Sephardi interchangeably with Oriental for
some (all?) of those groups?
Many thanks in anticipation
Bronia




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