Tag Archives: Jewish Music

MBS a talk with a generous disseminator, Joel Bresler, and the quest for the multiples branches of an artistic seed

4th December 2020 – Shabbat is almost here 

And I am pleased to share a little conversation with another disseminator whose work has fed mine in several ocassions: Joel Bresler. And we’ll listen Ruth Yaakov’s Majo, Majo i Majo and discover how a song can produce many branches. 

Hello, how are you? I hope well. You know how I love old music. But from time to time I like to talk with people that are alive, because they can answer. I would love to make questions to Moishe Oysher or to Bienvenida Aguado but for now I just can dialogue with them in my fantasy. So on this occasion, I will be exchanging ideas with another disseminator whose work is exceptional: Joel Bresler, creator of SephardicMusic.org. He is also very fond of old music and not only old. He is, in his own words, an “obsessed” collector and discographer.

On this enlightening report, “The Music of the Sephardim” in Early Music America magazine, he and Judith Cohen (with whom I will talk soon) explain what is the Sephardic music and they mention several artists that have striven for authenticity and Ruth Yaakov is one of them. Find the video with her music at the bottom.

– And, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom – ?

Hannukah is coming soon and the last Hannukah is when this Music Before Shabbat initiative was born. Celebrate this birthday with me ?. All I want as a birthday present is to welcome more people here. Share this with your friends and with anybody who can enjoy it. Thank you in advance.
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Joel Bresler’s SephardicMusic.org

The website SephardicMusic.org has been a source of information for me in several occasions, specially related to the oldest recordings. For it didn’t seem to be supported by any organization, so I got curious to learn who was behind this jewel. And it was not difficult: Joel Bresler is the author and here below you have a little conversation in which he explains some interesting facts. I am really thanksful to him for his dedication! In the picture you see Joel with Mrs. Sylvia Cohen, who donated 78-rpm recordings for his project ?

Araceli Tzigane: As a disseminator of Jewish music, and moreover being a Spanish person, your website is a treasure for me. I feel I can understand what forces drives you to disseminate this music you love. Because I think this is not a business, despite you may earn some income from the sales from Amazon done through the website. These kinds of initiatives come from some transcendental need. Which is yours?

Joel Bresler: So glad you enjoy the website – that means a lot to me! I have never earned any money from the amazon links, so that wasn’t a motivation. I went from devotee to collector to discographer. Enjoyed the music, then started collecting it, then attempting to collect every recording ever made with at least one song in ladino. And by then, since I had built a “want list” of recordings that weren’t in my collection I turned it into a discography. First for LPs, cassettes and CDs. And then a separate effort for 78s. 

AT: In the website, in the About, you explain that you were transfixed by Sephardic music when you first heard it thirty years ago (now it must be around forty years ago, right?).

JB: Yes. 

AT: But what happened, why did you get transfixed? What was the specific song or recording? Was it just because of the music or also because you realized there were Jews who spoke Spanish out of Spain for 5 centuries or anything else?

JB: I love Renaissance music and also listened to a lot of Spanish Renaissance music. So my first Sephardic recording was the Hesperion XX double LP of Jewish and Christian music. They performed Sephardic music as Renaissance music which is actually not that authentic, but it was my start. 

AT: I’d like to highlight that you have another career, you are currently the Director of Technology Ventures at Northeastern University. It sounds very cutting edge. You are not the first Jewish person who I have met that works in something very technological and at the same time has an initiative related to the dissemination of Jewish culture, like a festival of live music or your website. Are you also a musician yourself? Do you have any other initiative, apart from your work and the website of SephardicMusic.org?

JB: I fell deeply for the American folk song Follow The Drinking Gourd and wrote a cultural history of it at www.followthedrinkinggourd.org . I have also prepared political parodies the last three us presidential elections, see:

2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD-vY5WIZdw
2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM_9CltI4G8&feature=youtu.be 
2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWs7TXCy7uI&t=5s  

AT: What are the origins of your family? I believe Bresler comes from Breslau/Wrocław, the city that is currently in the South West of Poland, doesn’t it? Can you explain to me the background of your ancestors from both sides? Bresle is the Yiddish for Wroclaw. I believe you may not have Sephardic ancestors, do you? (according to your answer I might have to ask you something more).

JB: Hi, you have all this exactly right. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Karo, which as you may was the name of a very well-known and influential Sephardic rabbi. There were Sephardim who made it as far as Poland, so it’s possible even if not likely. Since it is such an influential name, it could be my ancestors adopted it for the prestige. We may never know. I’ll probably get a genetics test some day!

Related to Joseph Karo, Joel provided several links:

This is a picture of the Market Square in Breslau, between 1890-1900 at the time when it was Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) ca. View from the East. This is in Wikipedia and is of public domain. Might be one of these people any ancestor of Joel Bresler?

AT: So one side of your family comes from Poland. And the other side too? Your grandparents from your father and also from your mother, were from Poland? And do you know when did your ancestors arrive to the USA?

JB: Yes, all four grandparents from Poland (though one was US-born.) And perhaps some ancestors from Spain (much earlier!!. Key word here is “perhaps”!) On my maternal side, approx. 1920 or so. On my paternal side, my grandfather was here at roughly the same time; my grandmother was US born and so her parents like arrived late 19th century??

AT: In your website I found a link to the work of 2009 The Music of the Sephardim, by you and Judith Cohen. There you mention that: “But some musicians constantly invoke a mythological exoticism and the supposed antiquity of Sephardic song as an excuse to make of it what they will and justify it in the name of “creativity.””. I have to say that I totally agree and that the same happens with traditional music from Spain (not Sephardic, but rural traditional). The invocation of its antiquity, or of its coming from the tradition, is used to legitimate also mediocre works. Don’t you think it may happen the same in many other traditions? Doesn’t it happen with Askenazi or Yemenite Jewish music?

JB: I believe that after World War II, once musicians hear a song they can take it and perform it however they might wish to. It used to be difficult to find repertory – there were actually song-sharing groups active in the folk community in the 1960s. Now, with Itunes, Spotify, digitized field recording, Youtube, etc. It’s quite easy.

AT: Are you interested in receiving new recordings of Sephardic songs that are done nowadays? If so, how shall the people send them to you?

JB: My public account is joelbresler@gmail.org. I am always interested in new recordings. Although i am not doing a comprehensive discography of electronic recordings – a job for the next generation. 

AT: In this edition I will accompany your interview with a recording by Ruth Yaakov: “Majo, majo y majo” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty-7V-MZfFo She is one of the singers you and Judith Cohen (old friend of mine, with whom I will talk here soon) mention that have striven for authenticity. She is really outstanding, one of those singers that are quite impossible to imitate. Do you want to share any insight about this recording or about the song or about Ruth Yaakov?

JB: Aside from deep admiration for her work and artistry, I don’t have too much to add. As opposed to scholars like Judith, I am “just” an obsessed collector and discographer! 

 

The Jews in Wrocław

So the origin of Joel Bresler’s surname and at least of some of his ancestors is Breslau, currently Wrocław in Polish. After the II World War and the Potsdam Agreement (August 1945) the city became part of Poland. I would have been in Wrocław last June, for a concert by Gulaza. It is one of the losses caused by the pandemic. Nevertheless, the city is still there, waiting for me…. 

According to JGuideEurope, the oldest Jewish tombstone found in Wrocław (Breslau) dates back to 1203, indicating that by then Wrocław was home to a permanent Jewish community. In 1290, Wrocław had the second largest Jewish community in East Central Europe, after Prague. Click the link to learn more about the history of Jews in this city, that was a referential point in several moments.

This is the White Stork synagogue in 1979, by Stiopa in Wikipedia ?

The website of the Jewish Community of Wrocław explains that:

“The resurgence of the Jewish community in Wrocław took place after 1989. Scientific conferences, exhibitions and cultural events dedicated to Jewish issues began to be organised in the city. Scientific research on fascism and the Holocaust in Silesia was developed, as well as on the history of the Jews of Lower Silesia after the Second World War. In 1993, the Centre for the Study of the Culture and Languages of Polish Jews was established at the University of Wrocław, transformed in 2003 into the Study of Jewish Culture and Languages.

Until 2006, there was an independent Jewish religious community at Wrocław, which was then incorporated into the structure of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in the Republic of Poland and transformed into a branch of the ZGWŻ at Wrocław. The branch has its own rabbi: since 2013 it has been Tyson Herberger, who is the Chief Rabbi of Wrocław and Silesia. TSKŻ still operates in the city, as well as several organizations dealing with Jewish culture and education, including the Bente Kahan Foundation and the GESHER Foundation for Jewish Culture and Education. Aleksander Gleichgewicht has been the president since 2012.”

This is the White Stork synagogue nowadays in Google Maps Street View:
For further information, visit the mentioned links and the page about Wrocław in Sztetl.org.pl
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Listen to Majo, Majo i Majo by Ruth Yaakov

As Ruth Yaakov (born in 1960 in Israel) is one of the artists that, according to the article “The Music of the Sephardim“, have striven for authenticity, I have chosen a piece of her work. From the album Shaatnez (Piranha Records, 1998), by Ruth Yaakob Ensemble, I have chosen Majo, majo y majo, with a part of the lyrics of the piece El mancebo enamorado (The young man in love), that shares part of the lyrics with the story of the but also of the song of the Ciego raptor (The blind raptor). Under the picture you’ll find the lyrics that Ruth Yaakov sings in this recording. But before, let’s go deeper into this piece.

In the popular anonymous pieces that have been transmitted orally it is very normal that versions and divergences arise. This is a case in point. I have located several references and recordings that exemplifly it well.

The Maale Adumim Institute for the Documentation of the Jewish-Spanish (Ladino) Language and Culture has several versions, published in their El Trezoro de Kantes de Sefarad (Sefarad Song Treasure). There are many other recordings named El mancebo enamorado, but I have selected the ones that have at least one stanza similar to what Ruth Yaakov sings. The stanza of majo, majo i majo is present in many occasions between any other lyrics, usually related to love, but in some ocassions it is sang together with the lullaby “nani, nani”.

  • This one from the Bulgarian tradition, sang by M. Tiferet, recorded in Yafo in 1978
  • This one from the Turkish tradition, sang by Kobi Zarko, recorded in Jerusalem in 1989
  • This one from the Greek tradition, sang by Dasa Liza (date and place of the recorded not indicated)
  • This one, that includes just one of the stanzas, from the Turkish tradition, sang by Ilter Yitshak, recorded in Bat Yam in 1978
  • This one, from the Turkish tradition, sang by Politi Mazal, recorded in Jerusalem in 1979 (the first part is another piece)
  • This one (tradition not mentioned but I feel it sounds Turkish), sang by Karavani Hanna, recorded in Jerusalem in 1984 (just the first stanza is shared with the other versions)
  • This one from the Turkish tradition, sang by Levy Ventura, recorded in Jerusalem in 1985 (this includes the stanza of majo, majo i majo between many other stanzas)
  • This one from the Turkish tradition, sang by Mizrahi Rivka, recorded in Jerusalem in 1979 (this includes the stanza of majo, majo i majo after other two)
  • This one from the Turkish tradition, sang by Zevulun Estrea, recorded in Beer-Sheva in 1978 (this includes the stanza of “akodravos dama” (remember, lady) at the beginning and the one of “los males son kurados” (ailments are cured) that is also present in other versions)
  • This one (tradition not indicated), sang by Vardi Zaavi, date and place not indicated. This includes the stanza of majo, majo i majo in the middle.

Some of the stanzas and ideas of the lyrics of this piece are shared with another piece, with very different meaning: the blind raptor. I found the lyrics at the website of Pan-Hispanic Ballad Project. This song registered by David Romey in Seattle between 1948 and 1950 starts like the other and the last stanza is also shared, but the story is quite different. In this, the foreigner pretends to be blind to beg at the house of the girl he loves and kidnaps her. His mother wonders where his Flor (flower, used as the girl’s name) is.

So far I am sure you want to listen to the announced recording by Ruth Yaakov, so here you are!

Click the picture to listen to the recording:

 

Lyrics

Majo i majo i majo
Agua en el mortero
No ay ken s’adjideye
De este forastero
No ay ken s’adjideye
De este forastero.

Akodravos damma
De akel pan i sal
Ke durmimos djuntos
En un kavesal
Ke durmimos djuntos
En un kavesal

I dezir ansí
yo ya me cansí;
Ke de vuestro fuego
yo ya me cansí.
Ke de vuestro fuego
yo ya me cansí.

Majo i majo i majo
Agua en el mortero
No ay ken s’adjideye
De este forastero
No ay ken s’adjideye
De este forastero

 I mash, mash and mash
water in the mortar.
No one take pity
on this foreigner.
No one take pity
on this foreigner.

Remember, lady,
that bread and salt
we ate together
on a pillow.
We ate together
on a pillow.

And to say so
I got tired.
I got tired
of your fire.
I got tired
of your fire.

I mash, mash and mash
water in the mortar.
No one take pity
on this foreigner.
No one take pity
on this foreigner.
I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
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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:
Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

MBS with cantor Israel Shorr, the brilliant composer who left too soon

27th November 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And we’ll listen to a cantor that is also the author of some of the most celebrated pieces of cantorial repertoire: Israel Schorr, born in 1886 at the Polish Galicia.

Hello, how are you? I hope well. Today it is the black Friday, isn’t it? Well!!! I have a super offer for you: your subscription to Music Before Shabbat, now, half price! ? Guaranteed.

I am having a super demanding week and I must say I am exhausted but when I start to delve in the thrilling Jewish music and history my strengths are renovated.

This week many people have seen the “secret” Hassidic wedding with 7 thousand guests in New York. If you haven’t seen it yet, check this. I hope the time to celebrate with massive amounts of people together will come back soon…  In the meantime, I was thinking what are the usual insights of the population about the Hassidic Jews. Our protagonist of today, Israel Shorr, was from a Hassidic family so I will dedicate a part of this MBS to the Hassidism.

? And remember, there are previous editions of MBS about wonderful hazzanim from the Golden Age: Pierre Pinchik, Yossele Rosenblatt, Gershon Sirota and Moishe Oysher.
– And, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom – ?
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The cantor and composer that left too early

The life of Israel Schorr, as of many great cantors, is reasonably well documented. But Schorr is not as famous as others, because he died quite young at the very early age of 49 on April 9th 1935. This way, he was not a witness of the horror that would trap his mother land.

He was born in 1886 in Khyriv, or Chyrov, that was at that time in the Polish Galicia that was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and that now is Ukraine. But other sources say that he was born in Rymanów, two hours to the West from Khyriv, that is currently Poland.

He started singing as a boy soprano and became the official cantor in L’vov in 1904. He succeed his distant relative, the Hazzan Boruch Schorr, who was very appreciated because of his improvisations and his innovative compositions. There is some nice information about Boruch in this book, Discovering Jewish Music, by Marsha Bryan Edelman.

He served also in Brno, Kraków, Piestany and Zurich before emigrating to the USA in 1924, thanks to a visa for artist that he got with the help of Solomon Bloom. This man deserves attention too, his life is absolutely fascinating. You can start with this.

There at the USA, Schorr served in synagogues in Chicago and New York. Shorr was a composer as well as a cantor himself and one of the most famous pieces for hazzanut art, Sheyibone Beit Hamikdash, has done by him. You can find many renditions of this piece in Youtube. But my favourite is the one by the aforementioned Moishe Oysher, of whom I talked in this previous edition. Israel Shorr died at his 49 years old, because of a heart condition.

Sources for Schorr’s bio (check them to learn more):

Poland at the Google Maps Street View is always sunny. This is Rymanów nowadays (Khyriv is not streetviewed yet):
 

Hassidism in (very) brief 

Do you remember the edition about John Zorn and the piece Sippur? Find it here. In that edition I already talked about the founder of Hassidism, Baal Shem Tov, who made many sippurim, many tales, to teach in an easy and appealing way the ethics and practices of this new line of Judaism. It you are not familiar with it, this video is very nice. Maybe I am a little childish? ? The fact is that it is very nice!

The happy way of approaching the religious celebration that you can see in this wedding in New York is explained in the way Hassidism understands life and the relationship with the divinity.

Listen to Av Horachamim by Israel Schorr

Listen to the rendition by Israel Schorr of this Shabbos prayer, Av Horachamim, written in memory of the communities that were wiped out during the Crusades. This brief explaination is from this work by Rabbi Y. Friedman on the web Chareidi and there you can find also a part of the poem: “In his tremendous mercy may [our] merciful Father […] recall in mercy the holy kehillos that gave up their lives in sanctification of [His] Name […]”. The kehillos are the congregations. For the full lyrics in English, check this web page.

There is more information about the use of the poem in Shabbat, on this site of the Ortodox Union.

I found a brief historical explanation about the destruction of the Jewish communities in Germany by the Crusaders in XI century and the use of this poem on this page of the St John’s Wood and The Saatchi Synagogues:

“Its origins lie in the wake of the First Crusade. Many Jewish communities in Germany were decimated as mobs found an outlet for their religious zeal in killing Jews before making their way to the Holy Land to wrest it from the Muslims. Thousands of men, women and children lost their lives in the communities of the Rhineland. Mainz, Worms, Speyer were ravaged over the course of a few weeks as the Crusaders made their way down Europe. […] As the black plague swept across Europe during the mid-fourteenth century, annihilating nearly half the population, Jews were taken as the scapegoat and were accused of having brought about the plague and were persecuted and killed.”

Click the picture to listen to the recording:

 

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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:
Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

MBS with Salim Halali and two thrilling tales. Believe or not, it is up to you

November 20th, 2020. Shabbat is almost here 

And we’ll learn about an artist in whose biography myth blends with facts. Born in Algeria in 1920, settled in Paris during the occupation of the nazis, he would later be called the “King of Shaabi”: he is Salim (Simon) Halali.

Hello! How are you? I hope well. In this occasion I want to say thanks to Patricia Álvarez. She is a friend of mine from Madrid, a wonderful dancer and a culture enthusiast, especially from the Mediterranean basin, the Balkans and the Middle East. She introduced me to the work of Salim Halali. So, thank you, Patricia! 

In this bio of Salim (super large, and I still would have been able to follow many more threads) there are facts and tales, that you can believe or not. I will explain the sources and you can judge by yourself but… do you know? The stories are worth of it. I hope you’ll like them.

? And remember, there are previous editions of MBS about Algerian Jews: Reinette L’Oranaise, Saoud L’Oranaise and Cheik Zouzou.

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The Algerian Jewish boy who wanted to be a flamenco singer

Shlomo or Simon Halali was born in Bône, currently Annaba, in 1920, from a family from Souk-Ahras. His father was a Turkish and his mother was a Berber-Jew. He left the country very soon, at his just 14 years old, searching for a career in music (even when he didn’t have any education in music). He wanted to be a flamenco singer.

So in 1934 he got to travel to Marseille, as a stowaway on a ship. Some time after, he went to Paris, where the International Expo would take place in 1937, with the hope to get a job at the Algerian pavilion. There, he found some compatriots, like Mahieddine Bachtarzi, who was the director of the first Andalusian music association of the Maghreb: El Moutribia.

? Listen to Mr. Bachtarzi, here.
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Simon would later be renamed as Salim and he would reach high recognition.

Continue below, under this picture of the Hôtel de Ville of Bône:
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About Souk-Akhras, in ancient time it was Thagaste, a very important Roman city, the birthland of Saint Augustine.

According to the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World edited by Norman A. Stillman, the modern town began in the 1850s as a French military post, and by 1856 it had a permanent Jewish settlement. Some of the Jewish inhabitants were Baḥuṣim, semi-nomadic Jews from the surrounding region who adopted a sedentary lifestyle in the new town. Others were Jews of Livornese descent (from the city of Livorno, in the North coast of Italy to the Tyrrhenian sea).

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And this is the Hôtel de Ville of Souk-Akhras (picture kindly released for public domain by the author, Abdallahdjabi):

But let’s stop and hear a story. Believe it or not. You decide.

Sources for Salim‘s bio: 

The story of a forbidden love

The first tale

I found this story in the comments of the video in Youtube that you have at the bottom. And the same is in the facebook page La Page Thagastoise. Believe it or not. Salim has openly gay. But during his life he loved a woman. I believe it, as many years ago I was loved by a man who was gay some time after and now he is married with another man.

The story is translated and a little summarized by me, from the original from that mentioned page. The story is about the forbidden love between a Jewish boy and a Muslim girl from a large family of Souk-Ahras: Salim Halali (Simon at the beginning) and Ryma (that is how he nicknamed her, and sometimes he called her Fettouma too).

Simon and Ryma were neighbors and also distant cousins ​​through the Ryma’s paternal grandmother. Indeed, the father of Ryma, a notable of Souk-Ahras was the son of a Jewish lady, converted to Islam, from the very old family of Ouled Kakou, from Souk-Ahras. These two children grew up together. They were inseparable like a brother and sister.

A few years later, having become a very beautiful and young woman, Ryma was forbidden by her father to see Simon again, who had also become a tall and charming boy. But they found a way to meet again discreetly at Ryma’s paternal great-aunt, Rimoun Kakou, who unlike her sister (the grandmother of Ryma) remained of the Jewish faith.

Made aware of this secret relationship, the father of Ryma, furious and with a great anger, hits Simon and outright forbids his daughter to go to her aunt Rimoun.

< The Great Synagogue of Marseille. The newspapers said in 2016 that it had been was sold to an Islamic cultural organization and it would become a mosque. But nowadays it is still a Synagogue and was renamed in 2018 as Breteuil-Beth Yossef, honoring the ex Great Rabbi of Marseille, Joseph Haïm Sitruk. It can be visited and it is a very recognized treasure for its historic relevance.

Far from Ryma, sad and unemployed, Simon leaved Souk-Ahras at the age of 15 (the biographies use to say at 14) and went to Marseille to look for work. Back in Souk-Ahras, two years later, and with a little money, he asks her father for Ryma’s hand, who categorically refuses to marry his daughter to a Jew. Indeed, Ryma’s father had already promised his daughter to a rich and very famous man from Souk-Ahras who ended up marrying her.

Unhappy, Simon leaved Souk-Ahras permanently at the age of 17 for Paris. And he would come back just once, in 1958.

Ryma’s husband died two years after her marriage in a traffic accident. Widowed, Ryma was forced by her father to marry a cousin of his, 25 years older than her. She moved with him to Annaba and later to Tunis. They had two daughters. Upon the death of her second husband, Ryma left Tunis and moved with these two girls to Bordeaux where they successfully completed their brilliant medical studies. In Tunis she got closer to her great-uncle Joseph Kakou, who was a soldier.

In the meantime, Simon moved to Paris, where he sang in cabarets. France was under the colaborationist Vichy government. Fleeing the pro-Nazi French police, Simon took refuge in the great Mosque of Paris for several months. At this time, his name would be changed for Salim. Learn more on the next story, below.

And still in love with Ryma, Simon only sang her name. He dedicated his first and famous song, “Mahani Ezinne” to her, but also “Rimoun Rmetni”, “Fettouma taaz alaya” and many other hits.

In 1958, Salim returned to Souk-Ahras where he gave a concert in Thagaste Square. There he was finally given news of his beloved. He followed her footsteps to Tunis where he learns from Joseph Kakou that she has gone to Bordeaux. He immediately left for Bordeaux to find her but she had left with her eldest daughter for the United States after her marriage to a wealthy American.

Casablanca. Spanish post office and the German consulate in the medina. Date unknown.
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In 1982 Salim installed in Casablanca in Morocco. There he finally had news of his beloved Ryma by a Souk-Ahrassien (Ex Minister and ex Ambassador) married with his young daughter. Note that Salim was already 62 years old and they hadn’t meet each other since he was 17. The daughter organized a meeting between Salim and Ryma in Paris in a famous restaurant. The reunion between the two old lovebirds of Souk-Ahras was sad and very moving.

Salim had improvised while weeping a song for Ryma who was also very moved, the famous Alach Ya Ghzali. He learnt from Ryma that she knew everything about him and his singing career: she listened to him every day and she knew all his songs by heart.

Ryma died in Bordeaux in 1986 at the age of 66, where she is buried. Salim travelled from Morocco especially to attend her funeral where it seems he had read aloud the Fatiha (the first chapter, or sura, of the Quran) in her memory.

The sources mentioned by this person, who doesn’t identify his/herself are:

  • Kamel M
  • Brahim Merakta from Casablanca, close friend of Salim
  • Ryma’s little daughter (now in Bordeaux)
  • Old testimony from one of the sisters of Ryma’s first husband
  • Joseph Kakou’s daughter (Cannes)

 

The Jews and the Great Mosque of Paris at the Vichy period

About this story there is some controversy. Some state that the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris saved thousands of Jews, providing them documents with Muslim identities. Others say they might be around 100.

This wonderful picture of the Great Mosque at a time when Salim could be there is from the website of FranceCulture.fr:
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On the occasion of the release in 2012 of the film Les Hommes Libres by Ismaël Ferroukh, the newspaper Haaretz made a interesting review of the available positions and evidences. Find it complete, here. And I summarice here below. But, before, I quote a paragraph that is specially meaningful:

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“Posing as Muslims would presumably have been technically possible for some of the North African Jews living in France. The Jewish men, like the Muslim ones, were circumcised. Jews and Arabs had shared surnames. Their outward appearance and knowledge of Arabic also helped an unknown number of Jews assimilate into the Muslim community. But the Germans did not easily give up on their demand that someone suspected of being a Jew prove his origins. That was the context for their turning to the Great Mosque of Paris with requests that it rule whether a particular person was Jewish or Muslim.”
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  • Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy: “uncovered the most important written evidence to date relating to the subject: a note from a bureaucrat in the French foreign affairs ministry to the foreign minister, dated September 24, 1940, which describes the Germans’ activity against the mosque, that says “The occupation authorities suspect the personnel of the Mosque of Paris of fraudulently delivering to individuals of the Jewish race certificates attesting that the interested persons are of the Muslim confession. The imam was summoned, in a threatening manner, to put an end to all such practices. It seems, in effect, that a number of Jews resorted to all sorts of maneuvers of this kind to conceal their identity.”
  • Albert Assouline, North African Jew who fled from Germany to France and found shelter in the Great Mosque: “no fewer than 1,732 Resistance fighters found refuge in the cellars of the mosque”.
  • Dalil Boubakeur, head of the Mosque in 2012, estimated that the Mosque supported around 100 Jews, supplied them with Muslim identity certificates that enabled them to survive.
  • Dr. Simcha Epstein, a Paris-born historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who studies anti-Semitism and the Holocaust: “The doubt is not about whether the mosque aided or did not aid Jews, but rather regarding the number of Jews the mosque helped.”
  • Prof. Renee Poznanski,of Ben-Gurion University, specialist on French Jewry during the German occupation: “I have not come across any such thing in the documentation and testimonies. If it indeed happened, we are talking about a historically minor phenomenon, of very small dimensions, but important of course.”
  • Yad Vashem: “Yad Vashem made a supreme effort to locate survivors who Benghabrit saved at the time of the Holocaust, and went to great lengths to gather archive material pertaining to the rescue operation at the Mosque of Paris, including applying to the mosque’s archive. Every effort was in vain. No testimonies from survivors or relevant documents were found.”

I strongly recommend you to check the complete report in Hareetz, that has much more interesting facts about the mentioned film and other relevant issues.

 

What is the relationship between Salim and the Great Mosque of Paris?

The second tale

Salim Halali is one of the characters in the film Les Hommes Libres. Remember he set in Paris in 1937. There, he performed at the Maure café of the Great Mosque of Paris. Kaddour Benghabrit, the founder and first rector of the Mosque, who was a musician himself, became friend of Salim and, during the German occupation, would help to hide his Jewish origins by providing him with a false Muslim certificate and engraving the name of his late father on an anonymous grave of the Muslem cemetery of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis).

At this moment I would like to introduce the other tale. It is also from the Facebook page The Page Thagastoise.

In 1942, an Algerian young man from Oran, Younès, came to Paris to earn money to send back to Algeria. He decided to make the black market. One day, he was arrested by the French police. The intelligence officers then proposed to him to cooperate: they will allow his illegal trade but in exchange, he must go to the Paris Great Mosque to spy on the rector, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, and report to them.

The French police collaborator of the Nazis though the rector was providing counterfeit papers to the Jews and to the resistance. Younès accepts the deal. But very quickly, he got deeply in love with a singer from Souk Ahras, a certain Salim Halali, who had found refuge at the Grand Mosque in Paris and had to pass for a Muslim. To remove any doubts, Salim prayed five times. Younès believed that Salim was not a Jew.

The rector had give Salim counterfeit identity documents, changing his name from Simon to Salim, saving him from a certain death. He would keep that new name until his last day.

 

What happened with Salim after the World War II?

According to the Institut Européen des Musiques Juives, his music became quite popular. In 1947 and in 1948 he set two entertainment venues (cabaret).

In 1949, Salim moved to Morocco and bought an old café in the mellah* of Casablanca, which he transformed into a prestigious cabaret: “Le Coq d’Or”. This venue was visited by the rich families of the country and celebrities. But the cabaret was destroyed in a fire and Salim then returned to France at the beginning of the 1960s. He was known for his extravagant parties, in which he even took elephants (and he had two tigers as pets) to the garden in his villa, as well as for his artistic work.

He stopped singing in 1993 (but made one occasional concert in 1994) and left for a retirement home in Vallauris. He died on June 25, 2005 in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes) and his ashes are scattered in Nice in a garden.

According to the same story as before, from The Page Thagastoise:

Salim confided in this doctor, Dr. Abdallah Khémis, that he had given all his copyrights to the disabled of Algeria and offered to the Algerian embassy in Paris a “great value” carpet, according to his own terms. This physician, who practiced at Larcher Hospital in Nice, confirmed that Salim Halali had never forgotten Souk Ahras and that he had dedicated to the city his celebratory songs El Forga Morra and Ya Ghorbati.

* The mellah is the Jewish quarter of the cities in Morocco, usually surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway.

Mellah of Casablanca at the beginning of XX century.
Picture of public domain available in Wikipedia. Find more here.

 

Listen to Ya Qalbi Khali Hal by Salim Halili

Listen to the rendition by Salim Halali of this poem, Ya qalbi khali hal, in an Arabo-Andalusi style. Lyrics in English, below.

Click the picture to listen to the recording:

LYRICS:

Oh, my heart, let the situation continue on its way.
Leave all the words and listen carefully to what they say.
Slow down, don’t hurry, the one who waits wins.
Deliverance comes in its own time, from the lord to his creature.
Sadness as well as comfort, all come from God.
Be patient during the tests, until God delivers you.
Judgements are established in advance, God’s verdict is inevitable.
Be patience with me, sorrow is never eternal.
Such is this earthly life, it raises some people and sets others down.

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.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música 

To know more about our artists, click here.

 

MBS with the crystallisation of a song and the Diwan of Yemenite Jews

November 13th, 2020. Shabbat is almost here 

And we’ll listen again the poem Im Nin’Alu, this time by Shalom Keisar and the Kiryat Ono voice ensemble, recorded in 1977. How does this evolved from just a poem, sang with a big part of improvisation, to a recognizable hit in the world of pop music? 

Hello, how are you? I hope well.

Today this email reaches you a bit later. Until this morning I hadn’t decide which would be the focus of this email. I woke up later than I should, because I was dreaming about this song, Im Nin’Alu. I was dreaming and I didn’t want to wake up…

I dreamt a dream that is impossible to make real in the current circumstances: I was part of the cast for a theatre play based on this song. I would have to sing it in the play. All the actors were together around a table, with food and with the scripts, to organice the rehearsals.

Anyway, these guys from the video at the bottom sing better than me. I had this piece in mind since the edition about Suliman the Great, who sang some of this in his medley of Yemenite songs. If you didn’t read that one, click in the link. That recording is enchanting and their story is very interesting.

– And, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom –
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The Diwan of the Jews From Central Yemen

What does diwan mean? In Arabic and in Persian cultures, a diwan (dīwān) is a collection of poems.

According to a text by Gregor Schoeler, the Dīwāns  redactors made the colletions “arranged by them according to theme exhibit categories which correspond to a large extent to the Western concept of genres. Suchlike Dīwāns do not arise until the emergence of Abbasid poetry with its relative wealth of genres.” The Abbasid Caliphate was an Islamic empire that existed from 750 to 1258 C.E. as it was centered in Baghdad and included much of the Middle East. You can learn more about this topic, here.

The piece at the bottom is part of an album with a compilation of recordings made by Naomi Bahat-Ratzon and her husband Avner Bahat, in the 1970s. This one is dated in January 1977.

The whole album is a wonder and you can listen to it complete here. And to learn more, you have many comments about the album and the songs, here. It was released in 2006 by the Jewish Music Research Centre, in 2 CDs and a long booklet. It is not available in Amazon but it seems to be in the website of the Centre.

The enchanting performance by Shalom Keisar and ensemble from Kiryat Ono

The piece I have chosen is sang by Shalom Keisar (voice and drum) with the male vocal ensemble Kiryat Ono.

Kiryat Ono is a city in the district of Tel Aviv, that arised with that name in 1954 (and would be considered a city in 1992). Before that, there was a ma’abara there, a temporary settlement. You may know that the Operation Magic Carpet had been done in 1949 and 1950 and it transported 49 thousand Yemenite Jews to Israel. The amount of people that arrived to Israel in short time was huge. I have tried to see if Kiryat Ono was one of the first locations for Yemenite emigrants but I haven’t found any data to prove it, apart from the existance nowadays of The return to Zion Association of Yemenite immigrants.

And the crystallisation of a song

About this recording, the website of the Jewish Music Research Centre explains some facts. I will add comments here. In italics, their original texts: 

“Im nin’alu daltei nedivim is a shira by Shalem Shabazi, signed Alshabazi. This poem is one of the most popular and widely known among the Yemenite Jews. It is sung on many different occasions, at weddings and other celebrations, to many melodies.”  

Im nin’alu daltei n’divim daltei marom lo nin’alu means Even if the gates of the rich are closed, the gates of heaven will never be closed. If you understand Hebrew, check this page of the National Library of Israel. If you don’t understand Hebrew, anyway you can listen to many other recordings of this poem.

Shalem Shabazi (you can find it written as Shalom too) was a Yemenite Jewish poet from 17th century, of whom there are around 550 poems. He was a weaver as his main profession and he is though to be quite poor. He wrote in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. He has a reputation of a heroe and his tomb in Ta’izz, in the Southwest of Yemen, attracted pilgrims all year long and specially aroubd Shavout. After the Operation Magic Carpet there were no Jews left in the city. The exact place of the tomb has been lost. You can read more about him in this site of Diarna.

This is Ta’izz, in a picture by Rod Waddington for Wikipedia. As it may be still quite complicated to travel to Yemen in a near future, you can also check the wonderful pictures of the city that are available in google maps.

 

“Alternate stanzas are written in Hebrew and Arabic. The poem speaks of angels on high, exile and redemption, exhortation to the soul. The meter is a variant of the so’er (rajaz): -˘˘- -˘˘- – / -˘˘- -˘˘-.” 
To understand this part I had to find more about rajaz. In the book A Cultural History of the Arabic Language, by Sharron Gu, 2013, she explains that: “Most historians agree that there were distinct forms of music in the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula that played an important part in the formation of Arabic poetry. Arabic poetry, unlike the literary poetry of many European languages that is written by literary writers, the Arabic poetry was invented originally by Arab soothsayers (kahins). They used incantations of a rhythmic form of rhymed prose known as saj’ and a poetic meter called rajaz. Arab soothsayers were also enchanters and prophets. It was believed that the jinn (supernatural creatures) prompted the verses of the poet and the melodies of the musician and connected music, poetry, and magic.
[…]
Pre-Islamic music derived from the rhythm of the spoken language and it was little more than unpretentious psalming, varied and embroidered by the singer, male or female, according to the taste, emotion, or effect desired. The oldest form of poetical speech was rhyme without meter, saj’, which was defined later as rhymed prose. Out of saj’ evolved the most ancient of the Arabian meters, known as rajaz meter, a measure which is believed to come from the rhythm of everyday desert life in particular, the beat of the steps of a walking camel. The rajaz meter was an irregular iambic cadence usually consisting of four or six beats.”
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“This song, as performed by Bracha Zefira, who sang a setting of one of the melodies by Paul Ben Haim, has been widely known to the Israeli public since the thirties.” 
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Do you want to listen to this mentioned version by Bracha Zefira? Click here: https://soundcloud.com/nationallibrary-of-israel/yfdolmpbdmvm And this lady on the right is Bracha in the 1940s. She will be our protagonist in a future edition.
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 “Joseph Tal and Oedoen Partos also arranged it for choir.”
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Do you want to listen to a choral version? Click here:
https://israel-music-institute.bandcamp.com/track/oedoen-partos-im-ninalu

If i didn’t tell you they are the same song, would you have noticed? I wouldn’t. This violinist is Oedoen, or Ödön, Pártos..

The album includes several versions of the poem, by different artists, and they comment:

“Each performer chooses which stanzas of the complete song suit him or his tradition, and the occasion on which it is performed. He also chooses which melodies to sing, for the sake of variety.”

I want to highlight this part, because it is something similar to what happens in many traditions, including mine, the popular music from Spain, in many of its shapes: there is the concept of styles, that means that the performer has a frame of work, composed by a corpus of melodies (that are just the base and he or she can change, can include other melismata, adapts to the tonality, adapt to the lyrics to say the words in a meaningful way…) and a corpus of stanzas (in the tradition of Spain there are many anonymous stanzas or couplets, that can be chosen according to the will of the performer (who can also create new ones).

With this piece, Im’nin alu, we see how, from the versions from the people, very different between them (you will note this specifically if you listen to the several versions in the album, don’t miss it) performed just for fun or to celebrate, in which the personal will and the circumstances of the moment made each performance different (also the different performances by the same artist), in which the song didn’t have a closed number of stanzas, in which the role of improvisation was high, goes on crystallising in the form of a song. This example is specially interesting because it has produced so many versions and with the time all are much more recognizable as the same song as in the recordings of the album we are talking about. Check more versions:

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Listen to Im Nin’Alu by Shalom Keisar and ensemble from Kiryat Ono 

The notes of the song in the website explain some interesting facts. I explain the words in bold, under the notes:

“Shalom Keisar (NSA studio, 27.1.77; YC 1181), accompanying himself on a drum, with the Kiryat Ono male voice ensemble, sing the first and last stanzas accompanied by hand clapping. The singer opens with the song’s most widely known melody, which was popularized by Bracha Zefira among the Jewish community of Palestine. It is sung in a responsorial manner: the soloist sings the opening hemistich and the choir the closing hemistich. The tawshihִ is sung to another, faster melody. It is usually sung in a responsorial manner, as follows: the soloist sings the first verse, and the choir the second, the soloist sings the second verse and the choir the third. At the end of the song the singers sing a third, slower melody, and a coda-like passage, and then repeat the last two verses at a faster tempo, followed by the blessing Vekulkhem berukhim (You all are blessed).”

The hemistich is a half-line of verse. This term applies to poetic meter with long verses. Between the hemistichs there is a caesura. Remember the schema we have also above: -˘˘- -˘˘- – / -˘˘- -˘˘- There you see the caesura between the hemistichs.

And the tawshih is a type of vocal suite, religious, in Yemeni tradition, related to the qawma (according to the The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: The Middle East). And what is qawma? This looks like a gymkhana… According to Mahmud Guettat, the qawma from Yemen would be the fasil in Turkey, the wasla in Egypt, the maqam in Irak, el sawt from the countries of the Gulf. So, these are a system of melodic modes. I found Guettat’s explanation mentioned in a work by Sergi Sancho Fibla (Arrels mediterrànies de la música canareva: Reconstrucció de possibles vestigis ancestrals en les cançons populars d’Alcanar).

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Click the picture to listen to the recording:

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.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música 

To know more about our artists, click here.

MBS with Victoria Hazan, the Sephardic Anatolian voice of fire ?

November 6th, 2020. Shabbat is almost here

And our star today is Victoria Hazan, an extraordinary Anatolian singer who moved to the USA in 1920 and recorded an album, Todas mis esperansas (all my hopes), that is a wonderful legacy. 

Hello! How are you? I hope well. A few days ago there was an earthquake that has been specially destructive in Smyrna. Just by chance I had been listening to Victoria Hazan around that time. She was born very near Smyrna, in Salihli, and settled in Smyrna before moving to the USA. Somehow I found her mentioned while wandering at the Internet.

So, let’s learn more and enjoy the outstanding performance by Victoria Hazan. She has several songs about that kind of passion that drives you crazy and in this one she uses the metaphor of the passion as a fire: I have chosen Me kemi y me enflami and you’ll find the lyrics at the bottom, under the video.

– And, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom –
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Victoria Hazan, the voice of fire

The main facts of the life of Victoria Hazan are quite well know. She was alive until 1995, until she was 99 years old, and there are many pictures of her in different moments of her life, thanks to Maurice Ninio, who I think that was her brother, but I am not sure. In the website SephardicMusic.org there are many pictures, like this one on the left and there is even one of her grave. I have chosen this one, a portrait with a direct and defiant look, by this elegant lady of the sweet and melismatic voice.

She was a singer and a composer and she also played oud. She was born as Victoria Ninio in April 15, 1896, in Salihli, in the province of Manisa, in Anatolia. It is one hour to the East of Smyrna.

In Salihli there is the Sardes Synagogue. According to eSefarad it is “the third oldest Jewish temple known after the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and the mudbrick in Babylon.” Learn more in this article about five synagogues in Turkey.

This is the recent status of the synagogue of Sardes. I hope it hasn’t suffered much after the latest earthquake. The picture is by Carole Raddato in Wikipedia:

Victoria’s family’s tradition was to be cantors. She married to a hazan, Israel Hazan, from a family of cantors too, and she adopted her husband’s surname and kept is even during her second marriage. In 1915 she moved from Salihli to Smyrna and in 1920, to New York. The marriage with Israel was already there, in 1925. After he died, Victoria married again, with Joe Rosa in 1936.

She became president of the United Sisterhood Benevolent Society in Bronx. She gave concerts in the synagogue, singing and playing lute, singing her songs, with compositions of her own, in Turkish, Ladino, French, Hebrew, Greek and Armenian. We have her recordings thanks to the insistence of the community: for many years after her arrival to the New World, she rejected to record, arguing that she had no money. But she finally accepted and recorded several pieces, that would be released by Kaliphon Records and Metropolitan Records (below you’ll find more information about the record labels).

The selected song, Me Kemi y me Enflami, is dated on 1942. The specific dates of the different recordings are available here. In 2001, Global Village released Todas mis esperansas, with 24 pieces.

I have chosen Me kemi i me enflami, but all the pieces are amazing. You can listen to many others in the blog by Panos Savvopoulos, where these pictures above are from.
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A relevant source for Victoria’s bio has been also: https://www.wikiwand.com/tr/Victoria_Hazan

About the Jewish community of Manisa province

Being the synagogue of Sardes so old, I wondered what was the history of the Jews in that land, in the province of Manisa. According to Mathilde Tagger in this article for SephardicStudies.org: 

Manisa, formerly known as Magnasia or Magnésie, is situated in the North East of Izmir (38°36N 27°26E). A Jewish ‘romaniote’ community existed there from the Byzantine period, praying in the Etz Ha-Hayim Synagogue. After 1492, Jews expelled from Spain settled there, joining a hundred or so romaniote families. These newcomers founded two synagogues: Lorca and Toledo.

Lorca and Toledo are two cities of my country, Spain. Lorca is in the SouthEast, in Murcia region, and Toledo is the city where my company, Mapamundi Cultural SL, is settled. So these stories are very moving for me. It seems there are not Jews nowadays in the province.

About the record labels Metropolitan and Kaliphon

Me-Re record company was created in the early 1940s by Aydin (or Ajdin) Asllan (a poly-lingual Albanian) and the violinist, Nick Doneff. Soon they splittled the company. Aydin made Balkan and Doneff made Kaliphon.
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An aside: If you like old recordings, don’t miss to check the Bandcamp of Canary Records
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Canary Records are nowadays releasing much material from that time and they explain here that Doneff was a Bulgarian violinist. They explain that Ajdin Asllan was born in Leskovik near the present-day southern border of Albania on 1895. He arrived in New York in 1926 and made made a record label called Mi-Re in 1937. After 5 releases he stopped, until 1942, when he joined the Bulgarian violinist born in 1981 Nicola, or Nick, Doneff (he is the violinist in the recording of Victoria Hazan’s song and the picture on the left is he) and relaunched it as Me Re. They stayed together very shortly and, as mentioned, Asllan would make Balkan and Doneff would make Kaliphon, that would be provider of recordings for Balkan. Canary mention that a third label appeared, Metropolitan, but it is not clear who was in charge. If you want to learn more about this, don’t miss this article. The picture is from Discog.

Doneff played with other artists, like, for instance, the singer and oudist Armenian born in Smyrna Marko Melkon Alemserian, who you will enjoy too if you like rebetiko. Here you have an example of their work together. They both played in Victoria Hazan’s album.

Listen to Victoria Hazan in Me Kemi y Me Enflami 

This piece was recorded in 1942. The singer is Victoria Hazan and the musicians are the already mentioned Nick Doneff on violin, Melko Melkon on oud and Garbis Bakirgian on the kanun. Find the lyrics in Ladino and in English below.

 
Click the picture to listen to the recording:

 

Me kemi y me enflami
cuando te vide yo a ti.
En sentirte a ti cantar
me pareses un bilbil.

Ven a mi lado, ven ke te rogo,
ven mas presto tu, biju,
ke vo salir loco.

Ven a mi lado, ven ke te rogo,
ven mas presto tu, ????,
ke vo salir loco.

Tus ojos ke me miran,
el corason me keman.
Con estas miradas tuyas
cuantas almas kemaran?

Ven a mi lado, ven ke te rogo,
ven mas presto tu ????,
ke vo salir loco.

Ven a mi lado, ven ke te rogo,
ven mas presto tu, biju,
ke vo salir loco.

 I burned and became inflamed
when I saw you.
In feeling you sing
you look like a nightingale to me.

Come to my side, come I beg you,
come more quickly, you, jewel,
that I will go crazy.

Come to my side, come on, I’m begging you
come more quickly, you, ????,
that I will go crazy.

Your eyes look at me,
they burn my heart.
With these looks of yours
how many souls will they burn?

Come to my side, come I beg you,
come more quickly, you, ????,
that I will go crazy.

Come to my side, come I beg you,
come more quickly you, jewel,
that I will go crazy.

 

 

The translation into English is mine.

There is a word that I don’t catch and in the original booklet it is not written. It is just written “biju”, from the French “bijou”, but I listen a variation in her singing, that’s why I put the question marks.

 

 

 

 

 

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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.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

 To know more about our artists, click here.

Music Before Shabbat with the Romanian Gypsy “Paganini” who kept Jewish tunes alive

October 23th, 2020. Shabbat is almost here

And a virtuoso Gypsy musician brings us the Jewish tunes of another time from Maramureș: Ion Covaci 

Hello! How are you? At this moment I should be in Budapest. As a manager and booker of world music artists that I am (this is my company), I should be attending WOMEX fair now. It is itinerant and this year it is taking place, but online, in Budapest.

October is the month with more professional events for world music. I want to recover our lifes… In the meantime, there are still some online events that can be inspiring.

I come back to Maramureș region, in the North of Romania, following two previous editions: the one about the zemirot with melody from Sighet and the one about the recovery of Jewish music from Hungary.

The lady in the picture is Peninah Zilberman. I met her thanks to the edition dedicated to the zemirot Asader L’Seudasa with a melody from Sighet, in the North of Romania. Peninah is part of the team of Tarbut Foundation Sighet (FTS) and she answered my email thanking them for their website with the wonderfiul pictures. And we have been in touch since them. I decided to dedicate this edition to the Jewish music of Maramureș when she told me she is will offer an online conference next Sunday. Learn more below.

And, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom. 
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Little by little this bunch of friends is growing. If you like this, share it with your friends, they are more than welcome. Thank you in advance.
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Our keeper of the beauty, Ion Covaci, or Ionu lu’ Grigore, aka “Paganini”

Ionu lu’ Grigore was born in Săliștea de Sus in 1939. He knew the Romanian, Jewish and Ukranian repertoires for weddings, as he used to sing at them since we was a child. He became known as Paganani because of his skills with the violin: like the Genoese violinist of the first half of XIX century, Ionu played a complete concert despite the break of two of the four strings. Depending on where you read the anecdote, they say Paganini’s violin got two or three strings during that concert. Who cares?

What we know for certain is that Ionu has been one of the pillars in which the recovery of Jewish music from Maramureș has been built. Ion Covavi played in some occasions with the folkloric band Grupul Iza, lead by Ioan Pop, with whon he travelled to play in abroad (here they are in France).

Despite all this, he is not on the list of local personalities in Wikipedia. This is the world we are building… I have just added his name in the Romanian version and it has been removed after a few minutes.

This picture is from the blog by Bob Cohen. Thanks to him and to his partners there are unpayable videos like this. And here you can read more about Ion Covaci.

I wondered why is that in Romania the Jewish tunes are kept by the Gypsies, while in Poland they are the Poles not Gypsy the ones who have been the source for the recovery of that legacy? You will understand this question much better if you check this edition about the Jewish music in Poland on the work Kolberg po żydowsku by Andrzej Bieńkowski and his Foundation Muzyka Odnaleziona, and also this edition about the recovery of Hungarian Jewish music by Bob Cohen. Bob and his partners learnt much about the old style of Jewish music from the Romanian Gypsies. In fact, our protagonist of today is mentioned there in that edition.

So, why this difference between Poland and Hungary and Romania, in terms of who has kept the memory of the Jewish tunes? Because of the different role of the local governments in relationship with the nazis. In Poland, that was directly administrated by them, the Gypsies were sistematically murdered and after the II WW there were almost none. In Romania and Hungary, the destruction of Gypsies was in the plan of the nazis but it was not developed in such a sistematic way as with the Jews and the Roma population remained almost the same.

Ion Covaci died in September 2009. There is a very moving obituary in this newspaper, where it is described his funeral.

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Fancy a trip to Săliștea de Sus? Click the picture, there are some streets you can walk in Google Maps street view:
If you are interested on this kind of music, apart from its relationship with Jewish culture, check these channels in Youtube: Fiddle Music of Transylvania, Altmaer, Dumneazu.

About Peninah Zilberman and the event of next Sunday

According to her bio in the website of Tarbut Foundation Sighet, Peninah is Founder & CEO, BA Jewish History, Judaic Teacher (United synagogue of America), Principal of Hebrew After School (Conservative), Director of Holocaust Museum in Toronto, Organizer of National Professional conferences across Canada; Served as Sisterhood President-Adath Israel Synagogue, IGS past Chair Modiin Chapter, Israel.

Peninah is the daughter of Romanian Holocaust survivors. Her mother Sary Walter Z”L was originally from Sighet and her late father from Bucharest.

She was born in Israel and she travels to Sighet often. Her work is motivated by the memory of the Walter family, who lived in Sighet for nearly 200 years before they, along with the vast majority of the Jews of Maramures, were deported to and then murdered in the Auschwitz extermination camp.

Peninah will offer the online conference “Jewish Romania: A century of upheaval and resurgence” next Sunday. Check the details, get your ticket and learn more about her bio, here.

This is the synagogue of Sighet:
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Enjoy the Gypsy Romanian “Paganini”, unexpected heir of the Jewish musical legacy of Maramureș, Mr. Ion Covaci

Click the picture to listen to the recording:

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.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música 

To know more about our artists, click here.

Music Before Shabbat and before Simchat Torah, with Belf’s Romanian Orchestra: put on your dancing shoes ?

October 9th, 2020. Shabbat (and Simchat Torah) is almost here

Put on your dancing shoes and get ready for Belf’s Romanian Orchestra and travel back in time more than one century

Hello! How are you? You see, there are many recordings of pieces of Simchat Torah but in Music Before Shabbat there are no concessions! The older the better. I have to confess that the first time I listened to any Simchat Torah piece it was by the Klezmatics and I had no idea about what those words meant.

 And another confession: at the bottom ? you’ll find not only one, but two videos, and the second is a concession… Check it, it is lovely too and it will introduce you in the mood of dancing. 

Just one more thing: to ask you to share this is because the only thing I got from these weekly email, apart of an immense pleasure and much learning, is the joy of more people enjoying it. Thank you in advance.

 

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What is Simchat Torah

I know some of the subscribers may not know all the Jewish celebrations. Simchat Torah means the joy the with the Torah and the ritual consist on getting the Torah rolls out of the ark and dancing with it. Why? Because the reading of the Torah is going to be completed. A new cycle of reading will start.
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Dancing with the Torah?¿?¿? ?
Yes, literally. You can see it here, for instance. And here, you can see it too and women dance too, of course!
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? The picture is Jew with Torah, by Marc Chagall, from 1925. I found it very appropiate for this occasion.

Who were those “Belf’s Romanian Orchestra”? 

I was expecting to find the bio of Mr. Belf… Hehe, no way. At the website of the Audio Portal of Community Radios, accredited to the “Radaktion Jiddische Kultur – Dr. Juliane Lensch und Clemens Riesser, Radio RUM-90,1”, I found this: 

“Belf’s Romanian Orchestra – Rumynski Orkestr Belfa, an early document of historical recordings of klezmer kapelies from Eastern Europe. Not much is known about this band. Neither the line-up nor where the klezmorim performed. Not even the first name of the leader of the “Belf’s Romanian Orchestra” V. Belf is known. But it is certain that these are very early recordings from Eastern Europe. These recordings were made between 1908 and 1914, i.e. before the First World War, and are probably the first recordings that are still known to us today.”

Despite that, there are a lot of recordings by this orchestra and it is very influential on the current klezmer artists. According to Kurt Bjorling on Musiker.org: 

“The ‘Belf’s Romanian Orchestra’ is a quartet consisting of clarinet, two violins, and piano. They recorded at least 60 pieces for the Syrena record company from 1912-14. Syrena was a Russian-owned record company operating in Warsaw before the First World War. These records are rare today, but they were highly influential, in both America and Europe, at the time they were made and distributed. These same recordings have also been highly influential in the ‘klezmer revival’ of today. The Belf Orchestra recorded at least 28 pieces for two other record companies, Amur and Extraphon, but none of these are yet known to exist in any collection.”

Do you want to learn more about Sirena record company?
Check this page at Belfology.

This is nowadays 33 Piękna street in Warsaw, where Sirena Records settled their first pressing plant ?

In The Fiddle Handbook, by Chris Haigh, he say:“Belf was actually from the Ukraine; the use of the word Romanian was probably more of a marketing ploy than anything else. […] These recordings offer one of the chief surviving insights into the repertoire and style of Old World klezmorim.”The author refers to the work by Jeffrey Wollock: “European Recordings of Jewish Instrumental Folk Music, 1911-14” in the ARSC Journal, volume XXVIII / i 1997. (Association for Recorded Sound Collections)

Do you want to listen to more pieces by the Belf’s Romanian Orchestra? Check this page at the Internet Archive.

In the Bandcamp of Bivolița Klezmer, band from Connecticut, they mention that: 

“Romanian apparently signaled “Jewish” in the record market at the time, and also the more elaborate, developed music of the klezmer “south.” Many of the 42 Belf sides are of the slow dance form khosidl—which is almost unknown in the American discography and represents a large shift in the musical tastes of immigrant Jewish communities. These pieces show the introspective side of the khosidl genre, which developed as way for secular, Misnagdic Jews to incorporate an element of Hasidic spirituality into what became a highly individual, expressive dance form.”

What is that of “Misnagdic”? Misnagdic are considered the oposition to Hasidism. Learn more on this page of the University of Calgary.

If you play yourself, there are many transcriptions of the recordings by the Orchestra, at the page Belfology, by Alan Fendler and Roger Reid. This is the transcription of our today’s selection.

I found this picture at the website of JewishBoston. The artist is Chana Helen Rosenberg, born in 1946 in UK and settled in the historic city of Be’er Sheva (Israel). It represents the celebration of Simchat Torah.

 

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Simkhes Toyre, by Belf’s Romanian Orchestra

Click the picture to listen to the recording:
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Simkhes Toyre, by Zibrok Trio

Zibrok Trio is composed by Boris Winter on violin, Laurent Derache on accordion and Youen Cadiou on double bass. The lady on the film is an actress, Maud Gentien, no a musician from the trio. As far as I know they don’t have much recorded production neither a special relationship with Jewish music but this piece is quite enjoyable and… it is time to dance!

Click the picture to watch the video:
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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.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música 

To know more about our artists, click here.

MBS before Rosh Hashanah with Keter Musaf by Rabbi Hagay Batzri

Shabbat is almost here. Rosh Hashanah is almost here

May you be inscribed in the Book of Life. Let’s begin this time of reflection with a contemporary chazzan of outstanding artistry, Rabbi Hagay Batzri

Hello! How are you? This is the first Rosh Hashanah of Music Before Shabbat and I am thrilled for sharing with you this moment, that is full of meaning. I think you can take advantage of this time to reflect, whether you are religious or not. To find yourself and to consider your contribution to the world. Have a prosperous, a sweet year. Shanah Tovah. 

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.

“Music crosses all boundaries and unifies us”. The voice of Rabbi Hagay Batzri

I love the old recordings. In previous editions we have listened to Sephardic chazzanim, like İsak Maçoro (don’t miss to listen to his Avinu Malkeinu, in this previous edition) and İzak Algazi (listen him in a love song, here). It is not that easy to find currently alive singers who get close to them and that haven’t tended to a commercial sound. Even so, some are really enchanting, like David Kadosh (listen to him in this edition) and our protagonist of today: Rabbi Hagay Batzri.

According to his Facebook Page (from where I got the portrait), “Rabbi Hagay Batzri was born in Jerusalem into a family of rabbis and cantors. He is descended from the Ben Ish Chai and from Rabbi Yehuda Ftaya, and his father heads the supreme rabbinical court of Israel. In 1997 he received his rabbinical smicha from Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi for the State of Israel.”

Who was the Ben Ish Chai? According to Chabad.org, “Chacham Yosef Chaim (1832-1909), known as the Ben Ish Chai, was a highly-revered Torah scholar and master of Kabbalah. Based in Baghdad, Iraq, he was recognized by the Sephardic community both locally and abroad as an eminent Halachic authority.”

And Rabbi Yehuda Ftaya? According to JewishIdeas.org, Hakham Yehudah Moshe Yeshua Fetaya (in the picture, from Wikipedia, was born in Baghdad in 1860 and was disciple of the Ben Ish Chai.

What is chacham? According to Jewish-Languajes.org, khokhem, chocham, chochem, hacham, haham, chuchum, chochem, means wise, genious and for Sephardic, it is the same as rabbi.

“Rabbi Batzri enjoys teaching what he calls practical kabbalah, the kabbalistic reasons and explanations behind Jewish laws, concepts, and practices. He balances his study of Jewish mysticism and his rabbinical duties with concert performances in the United States, Israel, and other countries. […] He has performed, among other venues, at UCLA with the world-renowned Yuval Ron Ensemble. His musical philosophy is simple and beautiful: “Music crosses all boundaries and unifies us.” For Rabbi Batzri, creating music is a way of expressing gratitude and appreciation for all we have. When we make music, we embrace life and all living creatures.”
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Keter Musaf by Rabbi Hagay Batzri

What is Keter Musaf? Keter means crown and has a special meaning in Kabbalah. You can learn more, here. Musaf is an additional offering or prayer, for holy days like Shabbat, Shavuot, Pessach or Rosh Hashanah. It is an aditional religious service for those days, added to the usual Amidah. Musaf would be a fourth Amidah (the usual days they are three Amidah).

Keter is part of the Kedushah. Kedushah means holiness and it is the sanctification of God’s name during the Amidah prayer. What is Amidah? According to MyJewishLearning, “the Amidah is the core of every Jewish worship service, and is therefore also referred to as HaTefillah, or “The prayer.” Amidah, which literally means, “standing,” refers to a series of blessings recited while standing.” The part of Keter in the Musaf prayer recited on Shabbat is sang only by Sepharadim, not by Askhenazim.

According to DailyHalacha.com, “The recitation of “Keter” at Musaf thus marks a very significant and sacred moment, when we join together with the heavenly angels for the purpose of declaring Hashem’s sanctity.”

About Musaf, there is much more information in the JewishEncyclopedia.

Click the picture to listen to the recording:
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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.

May you be inscribed in the book of life.

Shanah Tovah

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música 

To know more about our artists, click here.

MBS with the sanctum sanctorum of hazzanuz and the Jewish Caruso

4th September 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And Warsaw and its History of hazzanut at the Great Synagogue will guide us to a vanished time, through the voice of Gershon Yitzchok Sirota

Hello! How are you? Yes, I am a bit delayed today!!! But this is still before Shabbat! I have had very busy days and here I am again.

In this occasion, we follow the thread of Thomas La-Rue, the black cantor’s story, who performed in Warsaw at a time where the Great Synagogue at Tłomackie Street was the landmark of hazzanut. La-Rue didn’t perform there, but many other cantors did, like our protagonist of today, Gershon Sirota, whose life is connected, for better and for worse, with the city.

I won’t hide that I have a special love for Poland, that country in which, according to my dear Janusz Prusinowski, there is still the feeling of something that is lacking: it is the presence of Jews. He also considers that “Polish and Jewish cultures have quite much in common, so I can understand better Polish culture thank to Jewish music/culture knowledge.” Read more about these reflexions by Janusz, here.

I invite you to listen to a recording that takes us back in time to the Wielka Synagoga w Warszawie, with the voice of the hazzan who was its Obercantor from 1907 until 1926.

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.
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The Great Synagogue in Warsaw

There isn’t any synagogue now in Tłomackie Street. According to Sztetl.org.pl “On 16 May 1943, explosives were set up around the site and the synagogue was blown up personally by General Stroop to mark the end of his mission to exterminate all Warsaw Jews”.

Nevertheless, f*** you, Stroop: the synagogue dissapeared but the headquarters of the Main Judaic Library and of the Institute for Judaic Studies, that are here in the picture on the left, are now the Jewish Historical Institute and the Jews were not erased from Polish land. This picture is from its website:

This is how it looks like today in Google Maps:
The cornerstone of the Great Synagogue was laid in a ceremony held on 14 May 1876. The architect was Leandro Marconi, who also built the Synagogue Nożyków, the only one that survived the World War II (more info, at the website of Jewish.org.pl). The grand opening and consecration of the synagogue took place on the day of Rosh Hashanah of the year 5639 (on 26 September 1878). Find much more information about the building and its history and the use by the community in Sztetl, a website by POLIN Museum. 

Let’s visit the Great Synagogue

Arik Boas Animation made a few years ago this animation you have below, for The Museum of the Jewish People (Beit Hatfutsot).

Pay attention to the face of the chazzan! Doesn’t he look like Gershon Yitzchok Sirota? In fact he does, but note that the singer in this animation is accredited to be another superb cantor, also born in Ukraine, but about whom I haven’t found references of his presence in Warsaw at the Great Synagogue: Yossele Rosenblatt, who will be our star in a future MBS –>

Anyway, immerse yourself in the Great Synagogue! 

The great chazzan at the most prestigious position in the cantorial world

Gershon Sirota became the Obercantor in the Great Synagogue in 1907. The World War II brought the end of the Synagogue and also of Sirota.

According to Rabbi Geoffrey Shisler, “Not without good reason was Gershon Sirota spoken of as the ‘Jewish Caruso.’ Even with the poor quality recordings that we have of him today, it’s quite clear that he had a most extraordinary voice and since he was a contemporary of Caruso (1873 – 1938), the comparison was bound to be made. An apocryphal story has it that Caruso would come to hear Sirota sing or conduct a service whenever they were in the same town at the same time.”

Gershon was born in Podolia in 1874. His father was a cantor in the local synagogue and, already as a child, Gershon helped his father in the services. The family moved to Odessa, where he would be cantor in Shalashner Shul. Later he gave service at the Shtat Synagogue of Vilna. His performances granted him more and more popularity and was called to make special concerts in many cities around, first in Russia and Poland, and later much further. He was the first cantor to record his voice on phonograph records and he became world famous thanks to this. 

Between 1912 and 1927 he toured in many ocassions at the USA. It made him lose his position in the Great Synagogue, because he was absent too much time, specially in the High Holy Days. No problem. He was already a very demanded star.

He toured at the USA for his last time in 1938. It is sad that he didn’t decide to stay there. He had to return to Warsaw because his wife was very ill. The start of the war found him there. The family was imprisoned in the Guetto, where he would conduct the High Holy Day services in 1941.

In the first months of 1943, a strong resistence arised in the Guetto of Warsaw and an uprising started on April 19. The bombing of our Synagogue, that was out of the Guetto, was the symbol of the end of that uprising. Sirota was murdered with his family in the last day of Pessah, during the destruction of the Guetto.

The sources for this brief bio have been: Jewish Music Research Center, Music and the Holocaust.

The voice of the “Jewish Caruso”

I have chosen his rendition of Avinu Maikenu. Check also the version of İsak Maçoro in this previous edition of Music Before Shabbat.
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Click the picture to listen to the recording:

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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:
Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

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.

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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