Mira Award and Noa (photo Ronen Ackerman)

Noa is about to represent Israel along with Israeli Arab performer, Mira Awad, in the Eurovision song contest. Until recently, the Israeli Sephardic vocalist had an impeccable musical and political reputation both within Israel and abroad.  Among other things, she’d performed a stirring collaboration with Cheb Khaled covering John Lennon’s Imagine.

But more recently, she made extremely controversial remarks attacking Hamas, accusing it of mass rape, and blaming it for the Gaza war.  After that outburst, she was forced to cancel a Tel Aviv concert appearance with Awad because she stirred up great animosity among progressive Jews and Arabs.

Subsequently, she modified her remarks and apologized for their harshness.  But Mary Rizzo brings word that Noa’s apology was neither sincere nor lasting.  She’s back on the warpath and what she says isn’t pretty:

A few words about the Israeli elections and where things stand now, from my point of view:

Though i voted left, as always, I am not surprised by the results of the Israeli elections.

I am proud to live in a democratic country which has given voice to the people, even when i am unhappy with the result. I am proud to say that the ONLY party that was ever deemed illegal in Israel was KACH, lead by Kahana, the fanatic Jewish right wing party. Raam and Tal , two Arab parties who support Iran and refuse to recognize Israel as a homeland for the Jews, who don’t even make their party’s declaration of principles available in Hebrew, are kept in the Knesset. They are PROTECTED by the Israeli supreme court.

The Israeli election results, however saddening, were obvious, amongst other things, in the face of the INCREDIBLE propaganda spread around the world by the ENORMOUS amount of Anti-Semites and Jew- haters who are bent on destroying Israel. When the Israeli population sees the lies spread around, the hypocrisy of the world who sees Israel as the aggressor rather than a country acting in self defence, a world whose eyes are blind to the killing and the massacres by the MUSLIM fanatics of the Palestinian people, of Fatah, of women who dare to raise their head, of ANYONE who does not agree with them, when the Israeli people who number 7 million, 1.5 million of them Arabs, see around them 1.5 BILLION Arabs, with hardly ONE voice raised in peace, compared to the ENDLESS Israeli and Jewish voices raised in peace, then it is clear that the elections will go right.

…Meretz, a very sane and liberal left wing organization who supports 2 states for 2 people, has supported both of Israel’s operations, in Lebanon and Gaza. Of course they have, because Meretz know very well that Israel was acting in self defence against fanatic, cruel, Nazi-like organizations, the Hamas and Hezbollah, who are holding innocent people captive, Arabs and Jews as one, and using them as human shields in their death-loving Jihad.

…Both sides have failed to make peace, and now both sides have become more extreme, especially the Muslim side. Fortunately, Lieberman and his friends, which i care nothing for, can never compete with the death loving fanatics on the other side.

All the best

Noa

I’m sorry to say that Noa has done a “Benny Morris” on us. Like that New Historian and former progressive who turned against his former liberal beliefs to become as anti-Arab as the most noxious of Israeli politicians, Noa has taken leave of her intellect and her senses.  To call Hamas “Nazi-like” is truly worthy of Morris or other rightist ideologues like Daniel Pipes or Bibi Netanyahu.  Yet she trumpets her “leftist” credentials as if this excuses her Islamophobia.

Further, Hamas is a “death-loving fanatic” while Lieberman is–what?  A minor irritation and annoyance?  This is beyond pathetic.  Why is it that someone who claims she is a fearless champion of peace is so incredibly defensive and protective of her own nation as if the world was composed of enemies besetting it on all sides?  Why is it that the blame falls on the other side and never on hers?  Why is it that Muslims are at fault and Jews never?  Why do Muslims “love death” while Jews love life?

I’ve got news for Noa: you can’t detest a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and claim in the same breath that you’re all for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.  What you really mean is that you’re all for peace as long as the Palestinians put forward leaders you like.  If not, then what are you for?  Meaningless platitudes of the type she spouts here.

I’m also sorry to say that she doesn’t seem to have the courage of her convictions either.  It appears she removed this post from her site sometime after Mary Rizzo quoted it.  I wonder what made Noa do that?  If anyone can find this post on her site please post me the link.

She only proves the unfortunate principle that many entertainers would be better off sticking to what they know and leaving to their audience’s imagination what their personal or political beliefs might be.  Sometimes a brilliant performer hides some pretty nasty views and vices.

Noa’s are so puerile, so noxious that I can never write another positive word about her again. I feel deeply sorry for Mira Awad, a perfectly lovely Arab musician and actress who will perform with Noa. This could be a big break for her musical career and she can’t possibly say anything truthful about what she feels about Noa’s anti-Hamas bellowing. Personally, I wish Awad would cancel her participation in the project. But it’s not my career that would suffer so it’s hard to be as judgmental as some on the far-left might be.

I’m sorry to say that voting for Noa in the Eurovision is rewarding her horrible attitudes.  Don’t do it.  As with Waltz With Bashir, I’d prefer she didn’t win despite the fact that she might conceivably have some beneficial impact on peaceful attitudes among both peoples.  Whatever small impact that might be doesn’t warrant endorsing rants like the one above by voting for her.

H/t to Peter Drubetskoy.

Haaretz just featured a profile of Mira Awad, an Israeli Arab Christian who appears in a new hit TV comedy called Arab Labor. Awad began as a professionally trained musician and recorded demos which no Israeli record company wanted to touch with a 10 foot pole because they are petrified of Arab music. Not necessarily petrified in an overtly racist way. Just petrified of its supposed ‘alienness’ from Israeli pop culture and of their inability to market it to the public:

In guitarist Amos Hadani’s small studio in downtown Tel Aviv she is completing the recording of her debut album, which will comprise songs whose lyrics and music she has written herself, mostly in Arabic.

The long road she has traveled until arriving at the final stages of the album began during her days as a student at the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in Ramat Hasharon. “Eight years ago I already had demos ready and I tried to interest several people in them. But it didn’t really work out, and at a certain stage I got tired of trying and abandoned music for a number of years,” she recalls. “Arabic is apparently a language that still arouses fear and reservations in Israel. The fact is that no one jumped into the cold water, no one took a risk with me. Most of the reactions about the album had nothing to with the music or the production, and this began to affect me. My career in theater began to gain momentum and I said to myself, ‘Thank God, at least there is another place where I can express my creativity.’”

One warning: this is a woman who speaks her mind. Hearing Hatikvah doesn’t make her heart beat pit-a-pat. It makes her sad as one might expect coming from an Israeli Arab:

Mira Anuar-Awad was born in an Arab village in the northern part of Israel and has a full Israeli citizenship. She will sing Zman (Time) in the Kdam-Eurovision, combining Hebrew and Arabic. “There will probably be some people thinking I am not eligible to represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest because I am not Jewish, and I do feel, to some extent, that this country does not represent my true being” says Anuar-Awad. “When the Israeli national anthem is played I am usually sad and embarrassed cause it doesn’t stand for anyone of my national symbols” Mira adds. These statements by the star of the musical My Fair Lady have caused quite a commotion in Israel, just 5 days before the contest.

In certain Israeli nationalist circles, they can’t understand why Israeli Arabs don’t just shut up and get down on their knees and thank Jews for putting up with their endless whining and carping about discrimination and inequality.

I was listening to a music program of Middle Eastern music on KEXP the other day when this incredibly jaunty, joyful song aired. You don’t hear Hebrew too much on the public airwaves so I was immediately struck by this lovely Israeli song. After calling the DJ, I discovered that it was Mosh Ben Ari’s Im Rak Na’iz (hear it) from the new Putumayo Presents Israel collection. The song originally appeared on Ben Ari’s album, Derech (“Path”).

One thing that immediately struck me about the lyrics was that they were overtly political though not stridently so. And I always enjoy hearing popular music which addresses the Israeli-Arab conflict in a constructive way. The song is infectious with the repeating phrase “If We Only Dare” setting the tone of courage and hope.

OySongs provides this background on the performer:

Mosh Ben-Ari was born in Israel in 1970 from a Yemenite and Iraqi background. He first discovered music at the age of 16 through the traditional Jewish and ethnic chants that were part of his everyday life.

He studied music in many countries including India, the Sahara, and Sinai, learning string instruments such as acoustic & classic guitar, Indian sarod, Persian tar, Turkish jumbush, Moroccan ginberi, and bass. In 1997 he founded the world music ensemble Sheva, which has released 4 albums and continues to tour the world, playing the most prestigious festivals & events.

In 2001 Mosh’s debut album Ad Elay was released and followed by 2004’s Israeli Gold Album Derech. In 2006, Mosh’s third album Masa Umatan was released and was a great success.

Mosh’s music is a celebration of groove and spirit, blending rock, soul, reggae, and world music together with his rich, unique voice.

Here’s my rough translation of the lyrics (Hebrew lyrics):

O how we look and look again
The day flows by like yesterday and the day before
This is the same blue, the same bird in the sky
The same olive leaf which tomorrow may fall.

Come solve, rend the illusion of borders
That prevent the eyes from touching, from seeing
That finally the path flows to the same sea
And what is here between us is one great God.

If we only dare to look well into the eyes
To the place [from which] The One speaks
If we only dare to understand that in the meanwhile
To cry about it all
To laugh about it all…

When I hear such music I remain hopeful that peace can come despite all the bloodshed, despite all the hate.

Thanks for Richard Isaac’s translation and lyrics-finding help in preparing this post.

It’s been a busy week for Daniel Barenboim, internationally-renowned conductor and champion of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Yesterday, the UN Secretary designated him among a distinguished group of world citizens as a UN peace envoy. Today, he received the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in music, the Praemium Imperiale:

Daniel Barenboim, the conductor, pianist, author and activist, has been named the winner of the Praemium Imperiale for music. The Japan Art Association, which administers the awards, announced the news yesterday in Tokyo.

Created in 1989 and carrying a prize of 15 million yen (currently about US $129,000) each, the five Praemium Imperiale awards are given annually for outstanding achievement in five fields not covered by the Nobel Prizes: music, painting, sculpture, architecture and theater/film.

…The Praemium award citation cites in particular Barenboim’s well-known campaign against the taboo on performing Wagner in Israel, his activism on behalf of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble of young Arab and Israeli musicians which Barenboim founded in 1999 with his great friend and co-author, the Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said.

Bravo, maestro! The Amazon book link is to the Said-Barenboim literary collaboration, Parallels and Paradoxes.

Boy, is this gonna make the Edward Said haters out there hoppin’ mad!

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim, alongside a Jordanian princess, a Brazilian writer and a Japanese-American violinist, as UN peace envoys.

The new Messengers of Peace Barenboim, equestrian expert Princess Haya, author Paulo Coelho, and violinist Midori Goto – will be honored at a ceremony on Friday, the International Day of Peace.

They will join four other messengers of peace, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel, actor Michael Douglas, primate expert Jane Goodall, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma…

Barenboim, a world renowned conductor and pianist who was born in Argentina and is an Israeli citizen, co-founded an orchestra that brings young musicians from Israel and Arab countries together. He recently initiated a music education project in the Palestinian territories.

Barenboim was a dear friend and colleague of Edward Said and the two of them came up with the idea for the West-Eastern Divan together. Barenboim has carried it on in memory of his friend. I have written several posts about the Orchestra in my blog and admire its work and Barenboim’s dedication to the project in the face of great controversy and enmity from some who unfortunately deeply mistrust his motives.

Here is what Barenboim has written about the Divan:

The orchestra is a humanitarian idea. It became the most important thing in Edward Said’s life, as it still is in mine, and through it his ideals will always live on.

Our project may not change the world, but it is a step forward. It is an ongoing dialogue, where the universal, metaphysical language of music links with the continuous dialogue that we have with young people, and that young people have with each other.

We don’t see ourselves as a political project, but rather as a forum where young people from Israel and all the Arab countries can express themselves freely and openly whilst at the same time hearing the narrative of the other. It is not necessarily a question of accepting the narrative of the other, let alone agreeing with it, but rather the indispensable need to accept its legitimacy. We believe in only two absolutely necessary political ideas:

- There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

- The destinies of the Israeli and Palestinian people are inextricably linked and the land that some call Greater Israel and others Palestine is a land for two people.

Music makes the West-Eastern Divan possible because it does not contain limited associations as words do. Music teaches us that there is nothing that does not include its parallel or opposite as the case may be; therefore no element is entirely independent because it is by definition in a relationship of inter-dependence. It is my belief that although music cannot solve any problems, since it is as Busoni said “sonorous air”, it can teach us to think in a way that is a school for life. In music we know and accept the hierarchy of a main subject, we accept the permanent presence of an opposite, and sometimes even of subversive accompanying rhythms.

This year, our project is very much in opposition to the cruelty and savagery that denies so many innocent civilians the possibility to continue living, fulfilling their ideas and dreams. It also shows me that so many lessons of the past have either been forgotten or never understood. Time not only helps define content, but influences it directly. How long will it take for people in the region to accept this and remember that the past is but a transition to the present and the present a transition to the future? Therefore, a violent and cruel present will inevitably lead to an even more cruel and violent future.

Every member of this orchestra, regardless of their origin, shows a remarkable amount of courage, understanding and vision by coming here. I would like to think of them as pioneers in a new way of thinking for the Middle East. We will try as we travel throughout the month of August to give interested readers and listeners something close to an online diary. I hope our audience will find it interesting, sometimes even amusing, but in any case stimulating.

Among the ideas that he has also championed is that Israeli audiences deserve the right to hear the music of Wagner. This has won him enemies who feel that sensitivities related to the Holocaust should trump any musical considerations regarding this issue.

See also:

Barenboim: Music as Healing Force for Peace in Mideast
Barenboim Wins Israel’s Wolf Price Over Objections from Israeli Rightists

I was listening to KBCS a few days ago and the DJ played a song that knocked me out. Being Jewish, having a strong interest in Israel, and knowing Hebrew, whenever I hear Hebrew anywhere my ears perk up. But this song didn’t start out in Hebrew. It started out in an African language I didn’t recognize (which later turned out to be Amharic) with a performer calmly speaking lyrics. Only later did the song switch to Hebrew lyrics and the melody and lyrics took on tremendous urgency and passion.

I was listening to Bo’i (“Come”–hear it in AAC format) a huge Israeli hit by the Idan Raichel Project. And the Amharic comes by way of Israel’s large Ethiopian community which immigrated during Operation Moses in 1984. The Ethiopians have found it hard to integrate into Israel since it is a largely ethnically fragmented society. The power of music is that it can acknowledge these tensions and overcome them by integrating the sounds of diverse cultures into a single song.

What impresses me about Raichel’s music is that he is attempting in musical terms to create an amalgam of all of the cultural and ethnic strands that constitute Israeli culture. He is doing this much more boldly than most other Israeli performers who are content to perform in a conventional and largely derivative western idiom. Raichel is searching for something more. He recognizes that Israel is not in Europe or Brazil, but rather smack in the middle of the Middle East. To achieve a genuine Israeli sound that recognizes and embraces this fact is a great achievement. What is also remarkable is that Raichel is of Ashkenazi ethnic background. He does not come naturally by way of embracing Israel’s eastern roots. So in a sense his is a rebellion on many fronts against normative culture.

Here is what Raichel’s biography says at his website about his family background:

Idan Raichel, the architect of this unique recording project, is a 29-year old keyboardist, producer and composer from Kfar Saba. Idan was born in 1977 to a family with Eastern European roots, and although music was an important part of his upbringing, his parents did not place much emphasis on performing music from his particular cultural background. “I think the fact that I didn’t have strong family musical roots is what made me be very open to music from all over the world,” says Idan. Idan started playing the accordion when he was 9 years old, and even at this young age was attracted to the exotic sounds of Gypsy music and tango.

Here is some background of how he came to his interest in Ethiopian music:

After he was discharged [from the IDF] Idan starting working as a counselor at a boarding school for immigrants and troubled youth. Notably, the school was filled with young people from Ethiopia who were part of Israel’s growing community of Ethiopian Jews. It was here that Idan first started getting familiar with Ethiopian folk and pop music. While most of the young people in the school rejected their own cultural traditions in an effort to assimilate into mainstream Israeli society, a small core of Ethiopian teenagers remained fans of Ethiopian music. They passed around cassettes of songs from artists like Mahmoud Ahmed, Aster Aweke, Gigi and others, and the exotic, otherworldly melodies piqued Idan’s curiosity. “I started to hear lots of cassettes from Addis Ababa. Village music, like Ethiopian pop and reggae, or the native village songs,” says Raichel. “I noticed that immigrants from the Ethiopian community changed their names when they got to Israel. They try to assimilate into Western culture and don’t keep their roots.” He wanted these kids to “remember that they like hip-hop but they are not from Harlem, they like reggae but they are not Bob Marley. The Ethiopians have a great culture that should be cherished.”

Idan started going to Ethiopian bars and clubs in downtown Tel Aviv. It was like entering another world, a country within a country that remains a secret from most Israelis. As his connections to the community deepened, Idan began attending Ethiopian synagogues, weddings and other ceremonies, and he began to learn more about Ethiopian music and culture.

And this provides a pretty good summary of Raichel’s musical mission:

Idan was a unique talent that offered a new vision for how Israelis, their neighbors in this volatile region, and people all over the world, can cherish their own cultural traditions, celebrate their differences and through respectful collaboration create new and inspiring expressions.

While this may sound quite prosaic to a westerner steeped in multiculturalism, to know Israeli society is to understand how radical such an all-embracing view is. Israel is a country that devours cultural difference and subsumes it into an artificial “Israeliness.” Ethnicity is frowned upon. When you become an oleh chadash (new immigrant) you tend to flee your past adopting a Hebrew name and even a new Hebrew surname to eliminate your Diaspora past. So what Raichel is doing is quite radical and refreshing.

But hey, none of this cultural-social analysis would matter worth a damn if the music didn’t groove and it does.

The World’s Marco Werman interviewed Raichel for the radio program. It’s a short, breezy interview but worth a listen.

Thanks to Richard Isaac for providing me the mp3.

Well, not so fast with the cheering. The only reason I’m a JIB finalist is that I was nominated for Best Jewish Music Post and there weren’t enough nominees to have a first round vote. So I get to call myself a bona fide finalist. The post nominated is the one I wrote based on the Israeli-Lebanese peace music show I broadcast on KBCS-FM during the Lebanon war. The post (and show) feature Israeli and Lebanese music that speak of the potential for peace in spite of the devastation of war that confronted both sides last summer. You can also listen to the entire radio show. Now, go cast thy bread (and votes) upon the waters.

My friends at Jewschool and Muzzlewatch are also nominated in several categories and worthy of consideration.

UPDATE: KBCS will rebroadcast this show this Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 7PM.  To listen live to the audio stream, click link in paragraph below.  A zis’n Peysach!

On Sunday, April 1st at 7 PM PDT, I’ll be hosting The Old Country, KBCS’ world music program. The theme will be Passover music since it will air the night before the first seder. Below, is the script I wrote for the show with links to most of the mp3 versions of the songs. Hope you can listen to the show and tell your friends to as well. KBCS is 91.3 FM and you can also listen live to the audio stream. You can also listen to the full hour show here.

A special thanks to Barbie-Danielle DeCarlo, producer of The Old Country for inviting me to do the show. If you like what you read or hear please consider buying a CD using the Amazon links I provide or making a donation to support my work through the Paypal link in my sidebar.

Introduction

Chag Sameach or Gut Yontof! That’s ‘Happy Holiday’ in Hebrew and Yiddish!

Passover or Pesach is one of the most important of the Jewish holidays. To my mind, it is among the most joyous of our celebrations. Other holidays are filled with mirth like Purim and Simchat Torah, but Passover is a festival of joy recollected in tranquility. It is the ultimate holiday of freedom marking the struggle of the enslaved Jews of Egypt to free themselves from bondage and found an independent nation in the Promised Land.

The festivals of the Jewish year revolve around an ancient agricultural calendar followed when Jews lived as farming tribes in the land of Israel. Passover, coming as it does in spring, was considered the New Year festival well before there was such a thing as Rosh Hashanah (which comes in the fall). Because of its association with spring, the holiday has always been connected to Song of Songs, the Biblical book of love, desire and devotion. We’ll be featuring the lyrics of Song of Songs in some of our music tonight.

“Passover” comes from the Hebrew word pasach to ‘pass over,’ which refers to the last of the ten plagues in which the Angel of Death “passed over” the homes of Jews which were smeared with the blood of the Paschal lamb sacrifice.

Passover is an eight day festival. On the first night we celebrate a seder (or ‘order’) by reading a book called the Haggadah (literally, “the telling”). The two most important elements of the seder are the Story and the Meal. The Haggadah is the Story. It recounts the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. It is filled with wise and wonderful sayings and prayers. A good number of them have been put to music. Music plays an important role in any good seder and we’ll be showcasing some of the most memorable songs here tonight. Finally, a seder concludes with a bountiful repast. Any gathering of Jews worthy of the name provides for a meal at which guests can commune, sing, gossip and worship together.

Music:

1. The traditional songs coming up were recorded by Yasmine, a group I co-founded with my brother in the 1980s. The suite includes Baruch HaMakom (“Blessed is the Place”– that is, God), Dayeinu, expressing gratitude to God for the wonderful gifts he bestowed on the Jewish people (“If He had only given us the Torah that would have been enough”), and Avadim Hayinu, a passage from the Passover Haggadah (“We were slaves in Egypt and now we are free”). We’ll be hearing Pesach Suite (hear it) from Yasmine.

Yasmine
Jewish Songs of Celebration & Struggle
Pesach Suite (4:41):
Baruch HaMakom
Dayeinu
Avadim Hayinu

2. Next, we’ll hear from Yehoram Gaon, a golden-voiced Israeli popular singer who’s recorded several collections of music in Ladino. Ladino is a language that integrates Hebrew and Spanish and has been spoken by the Jews of the Mediterranean region (North Africa, Spain, Turkey, etc) for hundreds of years. I’ve included a good number of Sephardic tunes in this program because Seattle has the largest Sephardic Jewish community in the U.S. outside of Brooklyn. I’m featuring Gaon’s Un Cavritico (hear it).

Yehoram Gaon
Songs for Passover in the Sephardic Tradition
Sovre Una Cuanta Mas 1:23
Quen Supiense Y Entendiense 3:05
Un Cavritico 3:45
Shezufat Shemesh 2:24

3. The vocal sextet, The Western Wind, recorded this version of the beloved seder tune, Chad Gadyo (hear it), on their recording, The Passover Story:

Then came the Holy One, blessed be He, and slew the angel of death that killed the butcher that slaughtered the ox that drank the water that quenched the fire, that burned the stick that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the goat my father bought for two zuzim, Had Gadya (one goat)…

Chad Gadyo is a song in form much like The House That Jack Built or The Twelve Days of Christmas. It is first recorded in a Prague Haggadah from 1590. This version was composed by the famous Yiddish theater composer, Moishe Oysher

The Western Wind
The Passover Story
Chad Gadyo (4:18)
Western Wind Records

4. This 1950 recording of the Yiddish Swingtette is not terribly Yiddish or Jewish (except for the melody derived from the seder tune, Dayenu (hear it). But it shows how a traditional Jewish liturgical song can be refracted through a jazz idiom.

Dave Tarras
Yiddish-American Klezmer Music 1925-1956
Dayeynu (1:42)
Yazoo Records

5. Many listeners may know that Seattle has a large Sephardic community of 5,000 Jews. It’s reported to be the second largest in the country. There are two main synagogues serving the Sephardim. The emeritus cantor of Ezra Bessaroth, one of the two synagogues, Hazzan Issac Azoze, has a 2-CD set devoted to the liturgy of the congregation. He’s graciously provided me this mp3 file for tonight’s broadcast. It is the Ma Nishtanah (hear it) or Four Questions sung in the style of the Jews of Rhodes.

The Four Questions are usually sung by the youngest guest attending the seder. They are meant to teach children the basic rituals observed during the seder by comparing what we do at a normal meal and what we do at a seder:

“Why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either bread or matzoh, but on this night we eat only matzoh?”
“Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, but on this night we eat only bitter herbs?”
“Why is it that on all other nights we do not dip our herbs even once, but on this night we dip them twice?”
“Why is it that on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night we recline?”

Information about ordering the CD can be found at http://www.issacazoze.com/

Hazzan Issac Azoze
Liturgy of Ezra Bessaroth
Ma Nishtanah (1:49)

6. On Passover eve, April 19, 1943, German troops moved into the Warsaw ghetto to begin the final liquidation of the remaining ghetto inhabitants. They were met with fierce resistance by 750 Jews who decided to fight to the death rather than submit to the yoke of the tyrant. Max Helfman wrote Di Naye Hagode (“The New Haggadah”) as a requiem for the resistance fighters. It is meant as a “telling” of the tale of the uprising and as a lesson in the modern Jewish struggle for freedom.

It was one of Helfman’s signature compositions, based on a long poem written by the martyred Soviet Jewish poet (murdered by orders of Stalin), Itzik Feffer. Feffer and Helfman seize on the similarities between the plight of the Jewish slaves in Egypt and that of the doomed Jews of the Warsaw ghetto. Just as the former managed to liberate themselves from captivity, both poem and song envision the tragedy of the uprising leading to the overthrow of the cruel Nazi oppressor. I feature here Ma Nishtano (hear it) from Helfman’s composition.

Max Helfman
Di Naye Hagode
Ma Nishtano 5:06

7. Adir Hu (hear it) is traditionally sung as part of the Hallel prayer at the conclusion of the seder:

Mighty is He,
May He soon build His House,
Speedily, speedily in our days.

It anticipates the rebuilding of the Holy Temple and the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

This melody comes from the remarkable Hasidic musician and rebbe, Shlomo Carlebach. He was to Jewish music what Pete Seeger was to folk music: a fertile and fervent purveyor of spiritual Hasidism through music.

Andy Statman & David Grisman
Songs of Our Fathers
Adir Hu/Moshe Emes 4:14

8. In this recording of the seder song, Ki Lo No’e (hear it), we hear the remarkable Sephardic cantor Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi sing a version of another song written by the great Eastern European Jewish composer for Yiddish films, theater and synagogue, Moishe Oysher. While Oysher’s musical heritage derives from the Ashkenazim, Mizrahi makes a Jewish cross-cultural point by embracing this Ashkenazi rendition of the song.

Alberto Mizrahi
Chants Mystiques: Hidden Treasures of a Living Tradition
Ki Lo No’e (4:14)

9. Alain Scetbon’s Haggadah de Pessah is a recording of a traditional Tunisian seder. There are no liner notes accompanying the CD. The album narration is in French and pretty sparse and there’s no narration to Ya Ilana-Rabbi Nessim.
I surmise that Rabbi Nessim was a leading rabbi of 19th or early 20th century Tunisian Jewry and that the song praises him and his spiritual powers. Ilana is a woman’s name, but I have no idea what role, if any she plays in this song.

Prof. Edwin Seroussi, a musicologist and director of the Jewish Music Research Center at the Hebrew University has confirmed that the song is sung in Judeo-Arabic. The language is spoken by North African Jews. Its companion language, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) is spoken by Jews whose origins are in Spain, and the countries to which Spanish Jews fled after 1492.
Ya Ilana-Rabbi Nessim (hear it) is a spirited duet between adult and child male voices accompanied by the oud and rhythmic hand claps. The child’s voice in particular is utterly charming. The boy sings with great gusto and passion and the oud accompaniment ornaments and embellishes the singing beautifully. Perhaps one of our Sephardic listeners can tell me more about this song!
Alain Scetbon
Haggada de Pessah (Ness Music)
Ya Ilana-Rabbi Nessim (3:34)

10. Chava Albertstein is perhaps Israel’s greatest female vocalist in the European chanteuse tradition. In Chad Gadya (hear it), she slyly transforms a Passover children’s song extolling God’s omnipotence into an indictment of the Israeli occupation:

On all nights, all other nights I asked only Four Questions 
This night I have another question: 
“How long will the cycle of violence continue?” 
Chase and be chased, beat and be beaten, 
When will this madness end?
How have you changed, how are you different? 
I changed this year. 
I was once a sheep and a tranquil kid 
Today I’m a tiger and a ravening wolf 
I was once a dove and I was a deer. Today I don’t know who I am.

5:04 Chad Gadya
Chava Alberstein

11. The Ballad of Mauthausen was a book by Iacovos Kambanellis, a survivor of the concentration camp. He persuaded his friend, Mikis Theodorakis to write a musical suite of the same name and both works were published in 1965. They are both screams of protest against the evil of Nazi tyranny and loving memories of the victims in their suffering. Asma Asmaton (hear it), Greek for Song of Songs, is at once a composition of immense grace and pain. You can hear the both the pride and resistance in the Maria Farantouri’s powerful voice as she sings of the victims’ fate:

Beyond the bleak and frozen square / Above the yellow linen star / No heart will ever beat again / Because the beautiful have lost their way to paradise….

Mikis Theodorakis
Ballad of Mauthausen
Asma Asmaton (6:30Page 5 of 6)

Conclusion:

For those of our listeners used to thinking of Jews as only living in America or perhaps Israel, it may come as a surprise that there have been Jewish communities almost everywhere where there has been commerce including in North Africa, India, China, Latin America, Arabia and central Asia. I’ve tried my best to rustle up some music from these far away places to give you a taste of how Jewish music sounds there.

There is Jewish live and recorded music in Seattle though you may have to look hard to find it. You’ll find recordings at the Tree of Life Bookstore on 65th Avenue in Wedgwood). Wendy Marcus led a wonderful klezmer band called the Mazeltones whose records are still available online. She now leads a children’s klezmer band affiliated with Temple Beth Am called Klez Kids. And for Sephardic music and culture, there are Congregations Bikur Holim and Ezra Besoroth in Seward Park.

To find the original posts about these recordings published in this blog search on Passover Music.