Leonard Baskin's Four Sons

First, let’s get out of the way the little problem of there being Four Sons in the Passover haggadah instead of Four Children or–God forbid–Four Daughters.  Let’s just say I’m going to make an editorial decision and use “sons” as interchangeable with “children,” and including “daughters,” in this post.

The Four Sons of the Pesach seder are archetypal figures representing various levels of Jewish identity.  In the haggadah, they are meant to represent differing degrees of affiliation with the Jewish community.  But I think it’s instructive to alter the perspective a bit and use the sons as paradigms for varying Jewish approaches to the Israeli-Arab conflict.

I wrote here last week about the scurrilous attack on Judge Richard Goldstone by a South African Orthodox rabbi who essentially labeled him the Wicked Son.  He did this because the chair of the UN human rights panel on Operation Cast Lead allegedly deserted his people by accusing the IDF of possible war crimes.  But Rabbi Perez got mixed up.  Judge Goldstone isn’t the Wicked Son.  He’s the Good Son.  Why?  Because the good son is the one who wants to understand the Israeli-Arab conflict not on a superficial level, but seeks to plumb its depths through its root causes.  This Son is one who asks probing questions.  In fact, Pesach is meant to be a night of questions (witness, the Four Questions).  A good son asks good questions and isn’t afraid of the answers.  Nor is he (or she) afraid to criticize his (or her) own people when it does wrong; and s/he isn’t satisfied with pat answers.

And since we’re talking about the Wicked Son, who is he or she?  The Wicked Son is David Wilder and every settler who differentiates between good and bad Jews, between Jews who are allies and Jews who are the enemy.  The Son who seeks to impose his narrow-minded racist notions upon not just the State of Israel, but the entire Jewish people.  The Wicked Son is a know-it-all.  He never doubts.  He is always right.  And his enemies, including fellow Jews, are not just wrong, but they are evil.  An evil that must be eradicated from Israel’s midst.  This son is wicked not just because of his bigoted views, but because his certainty, his smugness, his hate endanger his own people and the State of Israel.

David Moss haggadah, Four Sons

Just as the haggadah says the Wicked Son would not have been redeemed had he been a Jewish slave in Egypt, so today’s wicked son, the one who believes he knows the path to Jewish redemption lies through conquest of land; this Son is dooming himself and his people to oblivion.  A State of Israel that becomes a settler state or makes such alliances with the settlers that it becomes little more than an extension of them, is one that will fail, that will be washed from the pages of Jewish history as a failed experiment.

The haggadah notes two other types of Sons: one who is simple and one who “doesn’t even know how to ask.”  These also correspond to Jewish types regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict.  There are those who simply don’t understand it, who see it as an unending Hatfield-McCoy range war.  The question of the simple son is: “why should I care?”  I have to confess I’m not as good at dealing with these people as I am with people who have a pronounced point of view regarding the conflict.  It requires enormous patience not just to explain it in simple terms to such people, but to do so in ways that will persuade an uninformed Jew that the outcome of this conflict matters to them and to all Jews.

The vast majority of Jews, I’d say, are in the latter two categories.  They are either simple/innocent or can’t even begin to understand what’s going on.  Reaching them is enormously important if we are to find a way to peace.

I’ve written some worthwhile posts for Passovers past which you might find of interest.  I translated a Sholem Aleichem Passover story from Yiddish.  And I wrote a long meditation on the figure of Moses as an allegory for Jewish existence.

Richard Goldstone: the Haggadah's 'Wicked Son'

Last year, Judge Richard Goldstone revealed that he would not attend his grandson’s South African bar mitzvah because pro-Israel community leaders had let it be known that they would picket the synagogue during the celebration and generally make his life miserable.  There was a general uproar over this threatening behavior with a number of South African Jews (though not the community’s top leaders) criticizing it in the media including the New York Times.  A short time later, Goldstone announced that he would attend the festivities after all and it appeared that the community had backed down and that the judge’s honor had been vindicated.

What we didn’t realize, and which The Forward recently reported, is that there seems to have been a secret quid pro quo by which the community demanded that it meet with Goldstone privately as the price for quiet during the bar mitzvah celebration.  Judge Goldstone attended a community pow-wow with rabbis and the communal political leadership.  Until now, no one knew what was discussed and what was said to Goldstone.  Now, I can report on at least one of the speeches he was forced to endure.  It is a masterpiece of Jewish guilt.  Baruch Spinoza was subjected to no less during the proceedings of the Amsterdam Jewish community which led to his excommunication (herem).  In fact, the source who provided it to me called it a piece psychological manipulation, in other words part of a communal propaganda offensive designed to intimidate Goldstone into the position he recently adopted in his Washington Post op-ed, in which he uncharacteristically withdrew several key claims of the UN report which he helped author.  The performance in that piece was dreary beyond belief and has to be a low in an otherwise distinguished legal career.

Perhaps the most radical philosophical turnaround in the op-ed is that before, he emphatically rejected the notion that the IDF and State could adequately and fairly investigate their own possible misdeeds.  Now, he claims that Israel has done precisely that.  And makes this claim in the face of evidence which shows that the investigations have been half-hearted and resulted in no significant meting out of punishment or even discipline.

No one can say whether there was an explicit quid pro quo involved in his penning this column.  But it can be no accident that Israel’s Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, has invited Goldstone for a triumphal return to Israel and that the latter has accepted.  It may also not be an accident that he published his apologia in one of Israel’s favorite American newspapers, one which consistently, forcefully advocates Israel’s interests in its editorial pages.

Here is the address of a South African Sephardic rabbi, Laurence (Doron) Perez, to Goldstone during the May, 2010 meeting:

Justice Goldstone -

I am sure that you have had the opportunity many times both as a father and grandfather to be present with your family at the Pesach Seder. I am also sure that you are familiar with the basic narrative of the Haggadah which, as we know, describes the story of Jewish slavery, freedom and redemption. I would like to draw your attention to the famous paragraph about the four sons – the wise one, the wayward [ed. a deliberate distortion of the Hebrew, in which he is called "the wicked son"] one, the simple one and the one who does not know how to ask.  I would like to reflect for a moment on the narrative regarding the wayward son which I believe to be relevant to our discussion today.

The Haggadah states as follows

“The wayward son asks – What is this service to you? (Exodus 12;26). By saying “you” he excludes himself. And since he excludes himself from the peoplehood of Israel (KIal Yisrael), he has denied a fundamental principle of our faith (Kofer be-Ikar). You in turn should blunt his teeth (give a sharp and blunt answer) and say to him – because of what Hashem did for me when I left Egypt, I do this  (Exodus 13;8) – implying for me but not for him.  If he (the wayward son) had been there (in Egypt), he would not have been redeemed?”

This paragraph is most telling as to who the wayward Jewish son is and, further, what our response to him should be. The Haggadah describes the wayward son as the one who sets himself apart from Jewish peoplehood and places himself outside the mainstream Jewish community. His question “what is this service to you” implies that the service does not obligate him in any way. Issues of Jewish identity: – our collective fate, destiny and responsibilities are seen as something which have no bearing on his world view. So much so, that the Haggadah uses the sharp terminology since he has excluded himself from the Jewish people, he has denied a fundamental tenet of Jewish faith.

Again, as I wrote above, the rabbi is essentially warning Goldstone that his participation in the Gaza war investigation and the findings he endorsed in it, have caused him to be driven him from the Tabernacle, leaving him to wander in the desert bereft of his fellow Jews.  They in turn told him that due to his abandonment of them, they have ostracized him.

The rabbi continues in a vein that accuses Goldstone of concern only for the suffering of the Palestinian people and of his disregard for the suffering of Israelis that led up to Operation Cast Lead.  Perez tells Goldstone that when Jewish suffering conflicts with Palestinian suffering there is only ONE legitimate choice:

Remarkably, what emanates so succinctly from the Haggadah is the supreme importance of Jewish peoplehood. The community ethic is a core component of Jewish identity. One cannot call oneself a good Jew if one distances oneself from the lot of one’s People and community.

This explains a bewildering question regarding the wayward son – why is he at the Pesach table in the first place? After all, if he is so wicked, why does he want to be part of the Jewish experience? The answer is clear – he does want to have a connection to his Judaism – but he wants this to be without any commitment to and embracing of a collective Jewish fate and destiny. But the Haggadah teaches us that he cannot claim to be a good Jew, whilst at the same time separating himself from the pain and suffering of his own People. Of course, every good Jew must be sensitive to the suffering of all human beings. All are created in the image of G-d. This is without question a core Jewish value. But how can this possibly override the suffering of his own family, community and People? Kindness and charity must never end in the home, but they must most certainly begin there! Indeed, this is a fundamental principle of Jewish faith – the inextricable link between Jewish faith and the People of Israel.

…The answer given to the wayward son in the Haggadah is also most telling. We blunt his sharp criticism by highlighting the following important point – “Had you been in Egypt you would not have been redeemed” i.e. the wayward son needs to decide what side of Jewish History he is on. If his worldview does not contain this deep sense of Jewish peoplehood, then he has missed the point of Jewish identity. Our Sages tell us that many Jews chose not to leave Egypt but rather lost themselves during the plague of darkness. These individual Jews could not come to terms with Moses’ vision of redemption from Egyptian society: to journey to the homeland of their forefathers and to exercise their divine, religious, historical and moral right to self-determination in their G-d given Land. Those who left Egypt committed to this vision of Jewish destiny. Those who chose to rather stay behind in Egypt did not accept this narrative of Jewish history.

In the following passage, Rabbi Perez goes even farther and accuses Goldstone of being almost a traitor to his race by siding with the Palestinians.  Goldstone has, in effect, turned his back on a millennium of Jewish suffering through his advocacy of the UN human rights report.  He sentences Goldstone to oblivion for his actions:

Remaining behind in Egypt and perhaps even prioritizing the suffering of the Egyptians over the tears and pain of over 100 years of slavery and death of their own People at the hand of the Egyptians sidelined them from future Jewish destiny. Instead of becoming influential protagonists of Jewish history, they became a peripheral footnote.

Below, Perez commits a major bit of intellectual mendacity by claiming that Jewish interests and universal justice are consonant when everything he has said above denies it.  Unless of course the rabbi is arguing that the rights of Palestinians, such as they are, are not covered by the terms universal justice or human rights.

In conclusion – there need not be any contradiction between striving for human rights and universal justice and at the same time being loyal to one’s Faith, People and Land. One can be a champion of human rights and at the same time believe in the unbreakable link between the Jewish faith, Land and People of Israel.

Our Rabbis taught us never to give up on any fellow Jew – even when misguided.  After all, it is his actions we assess and never the person himself. We hope and pray that you undo the unfortunate and enormous damage that your report has done to the Jewish people in general and to the State of Israel and her heroic and moral defenders in particular.

Justice Goldstone – the simple question that we all need to ask ourselves is; which side of Jewish history are we on?

What is truly tragic about Judge Goldstone’s turnaround is that he has now embraced his people, but turned his back on an entire career of advocacy on behalf of peoples afflicted by genocide and egregious violations of human and national rights.  Unlike Rabbi Perez and Judge Goldstone, I do believe that universal human rights and Jewish values are not antithetical.  And unlike them, I do not believe that Israel’s behavior in maintaining the Occupation meets standards of Jewish or universal human rights.  You can have it both ways, but only if you understand that Israeli values are not necessarily kosher Jewish values in this case.

Many of us Jews who have political, philosophical or ethical beliefs that diverge from the so-called consensus have experienced this sort of herem.  I call it the Spinoza Society to denote those honored Jews who break from the pack to stand for values that should the mainstream but often aren’t.  Unfortunately, Judge Goldstone craves the acceptance of the Jewish greybeards and mandarins.  Others of us have known what it is like to have to endure this sort of treatment in order to uphold our own Jewish values.  Thankfully, many of us haven’t felt the need to cave to the pressure.  Perhaps we have less at stake than he does.  But I’d like to think that a man as eminent as Judge Goldstone should’ve done a better job of upholding these values, even in the face of the relentless pressure he undoubtedly faced.

Elijah's Cup (Arthur Syzk)

Elijah at the checkpoint (Al Jazeera)

Elijah the Prophet traditionally visits every Passover seder to partake of a sip of a special wine cup reserved for his enjoyment. During the telling of the story of the Exodus, Jews open their door and invite Elijah to join them. Such an invitation is a symbol of Jewish hospitality and an acknowledgment of Elijah’s role as a harbinger of redemption.

When we open the door to him, we sing:

Elijah the Prophet
Elijah the Tishbite [from the village of Tishbe]
Elijah the Giladi

Quickly and in our day
He will come to us
With the messiah son of David

For all the above reasons, this dark Passover joke circulated by anti-Occupation activists among Israelis is especially telling. A note of explanation: Gilead in ancient times was approximately where the northern West Bank is currently located:

ישראלים, אם אליהו הנביא לא בא אל שולחן הסדר שלכם, זה אולי בגלל שצה”ל מנע ממנו לעבור את המחסום
Israelis: if Elijah the Prophet didn’t come to your Passover table it may be because the IDF prevented him from crossing the checkpoint.

H/t  Ali Abunimah, Sol Salbe

Related articles by Zemanta

• Happy Passover, Palestine! (mondoweiss.net)

Next year in Jerusalem, capital of Palestine...and Israel (Gerard Horton)

The closing invocation of the traditional seder is l’shana ha-ba’ah b’Yerushalayim (“Next year in Jerusalem”).  It’s sung to a rousing melody and can be quite moving and liberating especially after a long seder narrative.  Barack Obama plans a White House seder tomorrow with his Jewish and African-American staff.  I’d suggest a slogan that most of us can get behind: “Next year in a shared Jerusalem” (…Yerushalayim meshutefet).

Bibi’s seder is going to hear something quite different: “Next year in Sheikh Jarrah, next year in Ramat Shlomo, next year in a rebuilt Temple.”  That tells you all you need to know about the difference between the kind of Jew Bibi is and the kind of Jew I am.

Our ancestors were slaves in Egypt who threw off the yoke of bondage through violent resistance to oppression.  Their resistance earned them liberation, freedom and the right to live as free men and women in their own land.  Their leader was an angry man who himself killed an Egyptian taskmaster, no doubt transforming him into a terrorist in his day in the eyes of the Egyptian Pharoah.  Remind you of anyone?  Not many Israelis are going to be thinking of this as they celebrate Passover seder.  Not many Israelis ever think much about the Palestinians unless they’re forced to do so.  And it’s a shame really.

Back in the day when this blog was young and no one read it, I wrote a long essay, The Life of Moses as an Allegory of Jewish Existence, about the character of Moses and his relationship to contemporary issues of Jewish identity.  It makes good Passover reading.  I’ve also written numerous Passover-themed posts to which I’ve devoted much thought and attention.  You can recollect them in tranquility here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Next Year/This Year in Jerusalem (rabbibrian.wordpress.com)
• Passover Readings (peacenow.org)
• A New Tradition at the White House: the Seder (nytimes.com)
• Happy Passover from Gaza (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)

The Ma Nishtanah page from the Sarajevo Haggadah (source: Talmud.de)

To all my Jewish readers I wish a zis’n Peysach (” a sweet Passover”). I hope you enjoyed wonderful seders tonight and the same for tomorrow for those of you who do second seders.

Today, April 20th at 7PM Pacific time, KBCS will rebroadcast a one hour radio program I produced last year of Passover music (the program script and mp3s available here). The music covers the Jewish waterfront from Israel to North Africa, to the U.S.; from Ashkenazi to Sephardic; from contemporary to ancient. You can listen to the show Sunday live on radio (91.3 in Seattle), via audio stream, or listen here to the full hour program any time you like.

For those who would like to ponder deeper Passover themes, I wrote an essay some time ago exploring Moses’ identity and paralleling it with thorny issues of contemporary Jewish identity, Life of Moses as Allegory of Jewish Existence. I offer it to you for your contemplation.

Passover has always been one of my favorite Jewish holidays. I’ve found the seder to be one of the most accessible Jewish rituals for non-Jews. And further, the seder is full of wonderful, joyful music, good food and talk of liberation and social justice. Who could ask for anything more?

This link offers a sampling of past Passover themed posts I’ve written.

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.

During the height of the Lebanon war, I was grasping for ways one might formulate an alternate, and more peaceful perspective on the conflict. I thought: “why not put together a radio show of Israeli and Lebanese peace music?” I got in touch with Richard Isaac, who’d produced an Israeli pop music show for KBCS’ The Old Country. He liked my idea and we presented it to Peter Graff and Barbie-Danielle DeCarlo who also liked the idea.

The producers recording their show at the KBCS studio (credit: J. Todd Settle)

Richard and I have been mulling over our set list, collecting music, and soliciting ideas from Lebanese familiar with their nation’s musical traditions for some weeks. We’re about to go into the studio to record our program which will air on KBCS (91.3) on Sunday, September 10th at 7 PM. For those who don’t live in Seattle, you have the opportunity to listen to the live audio stream of the program at that time. I will try to upload the file to this site sometime after the program airs. [UPDATE: Here's the audiostream}

Following you'll find our very provisional set list and song introductions:

Bereshit: Hadag Nachash

The popular hip-hop group from Jerusalem, Hadag Nachash ("Snakefish"), weaves together the big political picture and the intimate personal perspective in the song Bereshit ("In the Beginning"). It's unclear whether the group is talking about the past or the present, Arab or Jew, and that's just the point. As the refrain says, "Ashes to ashes, the circle returns to the same place."

The lyrics read, in part:

In Palestine the Land of Israel
at the beginning of the century
several tribes lived on the same land
they differed from each other in religion and language
they accused each other of causing all the trouble
they suspected each other and argued over borders
they cried many tears in a sea of victims
they learned nothing, nothing changed

In Palestine the Land of Israel
at the beginning of the century
it seemed that at any moment it would happen
and in seconds it was changing a door of unlimited possibilities
opened an atmosphere of hope and renewal
replaced desperation, for a short time

In Palestine the Land of Israel
at the beginning of the century
a man steps out of his house into his yard
sits under his fig tree
and thinks to himself how he loves his wife
how his eldest son reminds him of himself
how he's sick of complaining all day
and how much he wants everything to work out

Peace in the Middle East: Subliminal/Shai 360/Ilan Babilon/Sivan/Gabriel Butler H

Israeli hip-hop superstar Subliminal collaborates with Israeli artists Shai 360, Ilan Babilon, Sivan and Gabriel Butler in this English,
French and Hebrew plea for peace and coexistence. The lyrics speak of the senseless wars, the suffering of mothers and children, and impatience and frustration with waiting for peace and coexistence between Jews and Muslims.

We need peace in the Middle East to stop this holy war
It's a sin to kill in God's name
So tell me what are we dying for?

Prachim BaKaneh: Subliminal/HaTzel/Sivan/Itzik Shamli/Gabriel Butler H

Israeli hip-hop superstar Subliminal teams up with HaTzel, Sivan, Itzik Shamli and Gabriel Butler in this updated version of Prachim BaKaneh ("Flowers in the Gun Barrel"), an Israeli peace song from the 1960s. The new lyrics speak of long struggles and painful losses, but also a determination not to relinquish the dream that one day there will be:

liberation for two nations from slavery to freedom
girls in the watchtower instead of soldiers
flowers in the gun barrels instead of artillery shells."

Shalom/Salaam/Peace: Hadag Nachash

Hadag Nachash (returns with an) upbeat song in Hebrew and Arabic, "Shalom/Salaam/Peace," describing how a peaceful country looks: the discos are full because everyone's happy, people are doing tai-chi instead of waiting for a call-up from the army.

They say:

It's possible here, too, not just in Paris or Nice or Addis (Ababa) or Amsterdam or Boston.

The lyrics borrow from a famous peace anthem of the 1960s: "Don't say the day will come, bring the day, and in all the public squares, shout for peace!"

The song ends with a story told both in Arabic and Hebrew, about how happy people are in Australia among the kangaroos and koalas, how every peaceful place is great and how those places without peace are "crap." "We should act like human beings, not like animals and show a little human kindness.

Shir LaShalom: HaBreira HaTiv'it/David D'or

The veteran group HaBreira HaTiv'it teams up with pop singer David D'or in this rousing, Eastern-flavored remake of a classic 1970 peace anthem Shir LaShalom ("Sing for Peace"). The song, which gained even more popularity for having been sung by Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin at the massive peace rally at which he was assassinated in 1995, exhorts listeners "not to whisper a prayer but to sing for peace in a great shout... "

Let the sun rise
To light up the morning
The purest of prayers will not bring us back
He whose candle was snuffed out
and was buried in the dust
bitter crying won't wake him up
and won't bring him back
Nobody will bring us back
from a dead and darkened pit
here neither the victory cheer nor songs of praise will help

So just sing a song for peace
don't whisper a prayer
Just sing a song for peace
in a loud shout
Allow the sun to penetrate
through the flowers
don't look back
let go of those departed
Lift your eyes with hope
not through the rifles' sights
sing a song for love and not for wars

Don't say the day will come
bring on that day
because it is not a dream
and in all the city squares
cheer only for peace!

Beyrouth Ecoeuree:

Clotaire K's songs transcend traditional religious and cultural boundaries and address the current Lebanese political climate. Taken from his stunning debut album Lebanese, this track, Beyrouth Ecoeuree, speaks about the war-torn heart of Beirut: 'You have destroyed me, torn out my heart during the night / Under fire and hail of bullets, I survived this rain.' Clotaire, who grew up in France, has created a unique blend of hip-hop and taarab (the Arabic music of ecstasy), incorporating oriental instruments such as the nay (Arabic flute), qanun, and oud, with programmed beats and rich Arabic vocals.

Lubnan: Clotaire K.

Lebanese hip-hop artist Clotaire K brings us a post-civil war lament in Lubnan ("Lebanon"), the title song of his hit album. Sung in English and Arabic, the song fairly bristles with anger at those who have brought destruction, sorrow and religious war to Lebanon and its people. The Arabic lyrics read, in part:

Those who brought destruction [like those throwing stones while living in glass houses] destroyed themselves with the war
The war that took thousands of children away
Perhaps the cycle is broken now…
My country, feverish, has endured people killing people
and people being killed
Yet, people are constantly coming and going and trampling through,
people who couldn’t care less…
What a waste they’ve made of Lebanon, what a waste…

Chad Gadya (hear “One Kid”):

Chava Albertstein is perhaps Israel’s greatest female vocalist in the tradition of the European chanteuse. In Chad Gadya, she takes a traditional children’s song sung around the Passover seder table and slyly turns a sacred song extolling God’s omnipotence and turns it into an indictment of the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian territories:

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.

B’Libi (hear “In My Heart”)

Israeli pop star David Broza and Palestinian, Wisam Murad, who founded the Palestinian contemporary music ensemble, Sabreen, collaborated on B’Libi. It is perhaps the first Israeli-Palestinian songwriting collaboration. The song is a meditation on the elemental values of land, blood, heart and spirit which both Israelis and Palestinians share no matter how fierce the violence and hatred between them. Though everything about this song speaks to a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you will not see the word “peace” even once in the lyrics:

Adam ["a man"] is a man
Time is a mere moment
[In which] he builds his world
And it blooms in his garden
In my heart
In my body
In my spirit
In my breast
Is our land
Our blood
Our soul
Our lives.

Imagine (hear it)

John Lennon’s Imagine has been thoroughly reimagined by Algerian rai star, Khaled and Israel’s Noa as a song that comments profoundly on the Israeli-Arab conflict. Noa wrote this new verse specifically with this conflict in mind:

Imagine a world without fear
A world without hate
In which we can live together
A world of love
We’ll build a future for the two of us
In the same place

Lennon must certainly be smiling wherever he is to hear these new lyrics which so perfectly match the spirit of his own. Khaled gives the song a distinctive Middle Eastern air with his trilling Arabic vocal style and stringed orchestra with a distinctive oud arrangement. In his verse, he sings Lennon’s “imagine there’s no country…no religion too” and points to religion and nationalism as two of the most divisive forces in the region.

The Returnee (The Bridge- 1983)

The song is performed a capella by Oumaima Khalil, whose voice beautifully adorns this sad song. The music is by Marcel Khalife, one of Lebanon’s most distinguished composers and musicians. The lyrics are by a Lebanese poet from south Lebanon named Mousa Shaib. This poem is his reflection on his destroyed home village upon his return to it after the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Credits

The producers would like to thank the following for their advice, encouragement and support in the making of this program:

Mustafa Habib
Rabih AbouJaoudé
Barbie-Danielle DeCarlo

Chava Alberstein is one Israel’s greatest musical performers whose career has spanned 40 years and more. She written and recorded some of the finest popular music to come out of Israel. She is a chanteuse in the finest sense of that European tradition–a woman of her time, keenly aware of the the human condition. In 1989, she released Chad Gadya (hear it), a modern reworking of the traditional Passover song. The original is a song meant for children but which recounts the cycle of suffering endured by living things. At the end, it provides comfort that God can smite even the all-powerful Angel of Death.

In that context, Albertstein decided to use the song to make a powerful attack on the Israeli response to the first Palestinian intifada. The majority of the song is a simple Hebrew rendition of the original Aramaic. But when she arrives at the following verse her voice rises to a fierce dramatic intensity as if to better convey her rage at the injustice committed by the Israelis on the Palestinians:

Why suddenly do you sing Chad Gadya
When spring hasn’t yet arrived and Passover hasn’t come?
How have you changed, how are you different?
I changed this year.

That 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.

translation: Richard Silverstein

Today, Israel fights an even more devestating war against Hezbollah. Though the scale is larger, the principle invoked by Alberstein in this song remain the same. “How long will the cycle of violence continue…when will the madness end?”

Please Note: This mp3 blog showcases my love for traditional music. Come, listen, enjoy, and follow the links to buy the music. Such good deeds reward the artists I feature here and allow me to cover a small portion of the expense involved in maintaining this blog.