terms

[Judith R Cohen <judithc...>]

I think just about everything everyone's written on this in today's
digest is right, even when (especially when?!) they disagree with each
other   :)   .

For example, clearly one can't lump together Luso-Hispanic-derived
Sephardic traditions with Iraqi or Uzbeki, etc.

But then you have things like the "Communauté Sépharade du Québec",
which calmly auto-defines itself to include them all, and Ethiopia and
Yemen to boot. And many other associaitions and societies in various
countries do the same. 

It's kind of like the term "medieval", which as a medievalist, I've been
grappling with while studying music in festivals in Spain, originally
because of their use of Sephardic music as if it were "medieval" - it
seems that word slike "medieval" and "Sephardic" take on folk meanings
of their own, which have little if anything to do with any of their
"official" or historical meanings, and these defintions end up in
different worlds, so that many people really don't CARE whether
"Sephardic" or "medieval" or whatever "really" mean what they use it to
mean and it isn't always out of ignorance.

But that doesn't help a library archivist, obviously; so I guess you
should go back to messages like MArsha's and other sensible ones, which
I'm sure will show up. Hey Joel, I expected to see one from you first
off! ....   Judith

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