Secular music

Prayers to the tune of La Marseillaise!

The Jewish liturgy is full of surprises! In 1993, while I was coordinating the activities of the Yuval Association for the preservation of Jewish musical traditions, under the direction of …

Jerusalem of gold, a song by Naomi Shemer

Jerusalem of gold (in Hebrew : ירושלים של זהב – Yerushalayim shel zahav) is the name of a popular Israeli song written by Naomi Shemer in 1967. It was first …

The hora

A dance from the pioneers, which is today emblematic of bar-mitsvas, weddings and other Jewish celebrations of the diaspora. Originally, the hora was a slow dance often practiced in Romania, by Jews and non-Jews. At the start of the 20th century, it arrived in Palestine where it was transformed into a collective and joyous circle dance, quickly becoming the emblematic dance of the first kibbutzniks. …

The BUND and Yiddish revolutionary songs

The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, generally called The Bund, was a secular Jewish socialist party in the Russian Empire, active between 1897 and 1920 …

Baroque Jewish Music

Unlike various popular beliefs, Jews from Italy, Provence or even Amsterdam had a perfect knowledge concerning Art Music in the Christian world. Young Italian Jews in the 15th century went …

Klezmer music: from the past to the present

Klezmer is an instrumental music for celebrations which was once performed in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe at weddings or joyous religious celebrations, such as Purim, Simhat Torah, or …

Songs of Sefardi Jews

An introductive article about the singing of Sefardi Jews …

Music in Israel

Article written by Michèle Tauber, teacher of modern Hebrew, modern and contemporary literature in University Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle …

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Histoires de voix hébraïques

Following his first book, Voix hébraïques - Voyage dans la musique juive d'Occident, published in 2020, Hector Sabo offers in…

The songbooks of Jewish youth movements

The European Institute of Jewish Music has collected a number of songbooks from Jewish youth movements (EEIF, Histadrut, Youth and…

The Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) collection

In December 2023, the Library of the Alliance Israélite Universelle donated a number of musical documents (records, scores, books, archives,…

Piano Music by Jewish Composers

This collection of scores, compiled by Bella and Semjon Kalinowsky, includes little-known works by Louis Lewandowski, Joseph Sulzer, Salomon Jadassohn…
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