MBS with a suite of zemirot. Aren’t you hungry? ??

21th August 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And food will have a special attention today, with a zemirot set sang by a non-professional artist whose singing is delighting and deep: Gadi Erenberg

Hello, how are you? I hope well. The last days we are not having very good news in Sepharad about the pandemic. Things are getting more complicated and it is making me quite sad. I am used to work with much time in advance, to build plans involving travels and many people and now we don’t know if we will even be able to cross the border with another country next week.

In this context, we can find relief in music. And also in food and wine! Zemirot music pieces are sang around a table in Shabbat. I hope you’ll enjoy this edition of MBS 🙂

As usual, you have the video at the bottom. And if you like this, as usual, please: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance. 

What is a zemirot

I am subscribed to the emailing of My Jewish Learning and they dedicated recently a post about zemirot. It gave me the idea for this edition. I recommend you to take a look at their website.

According to Jewish Encyclopedia, the zemirot are the Hebrew hymns chanted in the domestic circle, particularly those which precede or follow the grace after the chief meal on the eve and the afternoon of the Sabbath.

There are zemirot for the dinner on Shabbat’s evening and different ones for the lunch of Sabbath day. Later, they appeared also some zemirot to sing at the end of Shabbat. Many of the melodies used in the zemirot are folk songs from the time they started to be sung. The lyrics are also not very old. There is one identified from the Middle Ages but most of the lyrics use to be from the time of the last payyeṭanim (authors of piyyutim). So, mainly from the XVII and XVIII centuries.


The zemirot Asader L’Seudasa by Gadi Erenberg

Somehow I reached the recording of a suite of zemirot at Youtube, by Gadi Erenberg. He is a not professional artist who sings wonderfully. In his channel Epes-A-Nigun, he shares prayers and songs from the Ashkenazi tradition that he sings as he heard from his ancestors and other sources.

Asader L’Seudasa means I will arrange a meal. It is the first melody of the suite in the recording by Gadi. He learnt it from his grandfather, who was from Poland but who settled in Jerusalem. You can find many awful versions in Youtube. If you are curious, check them. I wonder how such a beautiful melody can be arranged to become something so ugly.

In the comments of the video, the melody is mentioned to be from Sighet, in the North of Romania, in Maramures region. It was a prosperous city where Jewish, who were near half of the population in the decades of 1920 and 1930, lived in peace until the World War II. At the end of XIX century it was the printing center of Jewish books. In 1944 they were sent by train to Auschwitz. Around the 80% of the 10 thousand Jews from Sighet were killed.

The History of the Jewish people in Sighet is very nicely explained in the website of Foundation Tarbut Sighet. This picture is from that website and I really recommend to take a look:

Back to the song, if you speak Hebrew, the lyrics are available in the website of Zemirot Database. And if you don’t speak Hebrew, in Chabad.org you have the lyrics in English and the transliteration.

In Sefaria.org the lyrics are acredited to Yitzhak Luria, one of the most relevant disseminators of Kabbalah, born in Jerusalem in 1534 and active in the second half of XVI century. His grave in the cemetery of Safed is still a referential pilgrimage site. He is known also as The Arizal and I will come back to him in a near future.

Gadi sings for more than 20 minutes and he combines Asader L’Seudasa with some other zemirot. I just pay attention to this specific one that opens the recording but all of it is really moving.

Share this with a friend, right from here Share this with a friend, right from here

Clic the picture to listen to the zemirot set
by Gadi Erenberg:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música


And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.


These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Cantor Hans Bloemendal – Kaddish

3 April 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Get relief with Dr. Hans Bloemendal, chief cantor of the Main Synagogue in Amsterdam, born in 1923 in the German city of Fulda, sent by his father to Amsterdam after the rise of Nazi regime and settled there until the end of his life in 2015. Let’s listen to his Kaddish.

I have been discussing with myself between the idea of chosing something joyful to cheer up or something more introspective, for this occasion in this difficult time.

Today I complete 3 weeks of confinement. My father is at the hospital from the last night (I think and wish he will be well and at home before Pesaj) and many people have died. You are also confined and I hope you and all your people are well. The election of a Kaddish, in this amazing rendition, feels like optimal.

Dr. Hans Bloemendal was chazzan at the Main Synagogue in Amsterdam from 1949. During the war he went into hiding. His family was killed in Sobibor.

His contributions to the world were not only his art: he developed an initiative of books for kids and he was also a teacher and a researcher in biochemistry and molecular biology. This info is available in the bio here. I really recommend to read it. And the picture is from here.

The picture that illustrates the video below, with the recording, is of a grandfather with his blind granddaughter in Warsaw in 1938. The author is Roman Vishniac, who travelled across central and Eastern Europe, photographing the Jewish communities, both in the cities as well as in rural areas, before de II World War. If you didn´t know him (I confess I discovered him yesterday, thanks to this picture in the video, and I spent hours looking at his works), his bio is also worth of reading. It is curious that he was also a biologist.

One last thing. Next week this email won’t be sent before Shabbat, but before Pesaj.

Clic the picture to enjoy the recording of Dr. Hans Bloemendal:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending this link to sign up.

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música


And we share with you one hour of Jewish music for joy in this playlist.

To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path. 


These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Moshe Band – Klein un Grosser

21 February 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with Jewish music from Slovakia by Moshe Band (Mojše Band in Slovak).

Listen their piece Klein un Grosser, from the album Zipserim, and read these statements about the piece by the leader of the band, Michal Paľko.

CLIC THE PICTURE TO LISTEN THE SONG
“Klein un Grosser is not only the tittle of story about relationships between two members (one rich, one pure) of former Jewish comunity in small city in northern part of Autro-hungarian monarchy, for me its at first funny song about wisdom and satira.

Its very typical music for celebrating Purim because in fact Klein un Grosser story is former famous Purimspiel in ZIPS region. Also the stylisc and plystilistics feeling and sound of track its all that time oscilationg between Hungarian opereta, with deeply klezmer influancies and modern disco=pop=rock song. Enjoy!”

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us. It is as symple as sending us an email saying: sign me up for the Music Before Shabbat. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música


May you always find the light in your path.

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.