Re: tables

[Sam Weiss <SamWeiss...>]

At 02:13 PM 11/30/03, Judith R Cohen wrote:
>someone asked me the other day whether when singing niggunim around
>the table, whether women sang or not, do/did they mark rhythms on the
>table, or only men?

That's a very wide open question, since you don't specify where, when, and 
in what circles.  By the past tense ("sang ") I guess you don't mean late 
2003. If you mean in Brooklyn in the 1950-60s in my house, the answer is 
yes, they sang.  Beyond that I would only say that practice would have been 
=highly= variable, depending on the proclivities of a particular family, 
and I'll venture a guess that if they weren't singing along with the men, 
they were probably not marking rhythms either.  Whether, in such 
environments, there was similar singing of nigunim among the women, is a 
question worth pursuing.

_____________________________________________________________
Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ


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