La source de vie : Portuguese heritage

FRANCE 2 TELEVISION - 2004

A TV program by Josy Eisenberg, directed by Pascale Kenigsberg-Cahen, on the occasion of the concert of the 120th birthday of the synagogue of Bordeaux, with the participation of the Consistoire Central, the Fondation du Judaïsme Français and the Marlène Grebler Foundation. With Hervé Roten.

At the end of the 19th century, the music performed in the Portuguese synagogues of Bordeaux, Bayonne or Paris, was particularly impressive. The cantor recited the liturgy, most often supported by the organ and the singing of a choir of about twenty men and children dressed in specific clothing. This ostentation, visual and auditory, contributed to giving the worship a great solemnity. Following the Second World War and the demographic upheavals of the 20th century, this practice has completely disappeared.

On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the construction of the great Synagogue of Bordeaux was born the desire to revive these music, the time of an evening. On the advice of the musicologist Hervé Roten, a choir of men and children, directed by Françoise Richard and accompanied on the piano by Mag Tayar was reconstituted. Adolphe Attia, Malkiel Benamara, Léon Cohen and Didier Kassabi, four singers who know the Portuguese rite, have agreed to lend their voices to this exceptional concert which took place in the Synagogue of Bordeaux, on October 14, 2002, under the auspices of the Grand Rabbi Claude Maman, Rabbi Didier Kassabi and Erick Aouizerate, President of the Jewish community of Bordeaux.

Look at the book : Les traditions musicales judéo-portugaises en France, by Hervé Roten

Read the feature article : The Judeo-Portuguese rites in France

Purchase the CD Musiques de la synagogue de Bordeaux

Watch other videos of La source de vie

Watch excerpts from this show

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