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Singing the Land: Hebrew Music and Early Zionism in America. Eli Sperling. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 2024.
Reviewed by Inbar Shifrin
To a Jewish American, which anthem would hold greater importance: “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “HaTikvah?” According to Eli Sperling’s book Singing the Land: Hebrew Music and Early Zionism in America, the answer is both. One anthem affirms American patriotism, while the other represents a connection to Israel. This complex example illustrates the central question Sperling seeks to answer in his book: How did Hebrew songs play a role in fostering Zionism and a yearning for the land of Israel within American Jews without encouraging immigration to physically build Israel?
Read the rest of this entry »Kabbalachia by Basya Schechter and Shaul Magid (2024)
Album review by Gabby Cameron
As the sun sets on a Friday evening over Fire Island, congregants gather at the Fire Island Synagogue to welcome Shabbat, donning their kippahs and tallit with shorts and sandals. What type of music might one hear in such a setting? Together, Cantor Basya Schechter and Rabbi Shaul Magid developed a localized musical tradition of setting Kabbalat Shabbat texts to Appalachian old-time music. Over the course of a decade, Kabbalachia was born.
Read the rest of this entry »Sonic Ruins of Modernity: Judeo-Spanish Folksongs Today. Edwin Seroussi. London: Routledge. 2023.
Reviewed by Lori Sen
A minority within the Jewish people, Sephardim are a triple diasporic population, who carried with them their culture, traditions, language (Judeo-Spanish), and oral literature. Judeo-Spanish folksongs are among the Sephardim’s oral literature and reflect the diverse influences of the many cultures they encountered throughout their five-hundred-year-long journey from medieval Iberia to all over the modern world. With Sonic Ruins of Modernity, musicologist Edwin Seroussi introduces the contemporary concept of folksong (in the post-tradition era) as a sonic ruin, regularly visited by tourists interested in exploring the history of other cultures.
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Musica Judaica Online Reviews 