New York Folklore: Volume 14, No.3-4: Yiddish Music in Old World and New

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NEW YORK FOLKLORE
Vol. 14, Nos. 3-4, 1988
Folk and Traditional Music in New York State
Ray Allen and Nancy Groce, Guest Editors

FROM EASTERN EUROPE TO EAST BROADWAY: YIDDISH MUSIC IN THHE OLD WORLD AND NEW
by Henry Sapoznik

During the Middle Ages, small communities of Jews from southern Europe settled along the Rhine River. Their language, Yiddish, evolved from High German dialects with Hebrew-Aramaic and Romance fragments during the 14th century, and their culture, Ashkenaz, developed and spread from the Rhine Valley to other European Jewish communities. By the end of the 18th century, Yiddish language and culture formed the common bond among Jewish communities throughout Europe. Yiddish music in its myriad forms, from folk songs to fiddle tunes, religious music to lullabies, reflects the richness of this culture.

The most influential musical form within the Ashkenazic Jewish community was the singing of religious prayers by the khazn (cantor). No aspect of Jewish sacred or secular music was unaffected by the style and textual content of the khazn’s performance. Because religious leaders had banned instrumental music from Jewish ceremonies after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (70 C.E.), only a cappella renditions of prayers were officially sanctioned during worship. The khazn assisted the rabbi who led Jewish services, and although the singers were supposed to emphasize the Hebrew prayer texts rather than indulge in musical pyrotechnics, there are many examples of rabbinical reprimands against cantors, often claiming that the beauty of the cantors’ voices was distracting the congregants from the piety of their prayers.

The cantor, in addition to his role as a leader of community prayer, was also responsible for the training of future khazonim. The apprentices (meshoyr’rim) learned the rudiments of the special prayer modes used to accompany the cantor, and some later became cantors themselves. Religious music also thrived in the kheyder and yeshive (primary and secondary schools) where Talmudic law and Jewish traditions were taught to students with the help of specific accompanying mnemonic melodies.

Also influential were the myriad forms of unaccompanied folksongs which reflected the broad diversity of East European Jewish life. These included songs of love and marriage, lullabies and children’s songs, work songs, and ballads detailing natural and national disasters....

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