Music, Piyyut, and Song

Piyyut. A piyyut is a Hebrew liturgical poem, sung before or within the prayers. Piyyutim were written across the Jewish world, from Spain to Iraq and from Lithuania to Azerbaijan, and one poem may be sung to dozens of melodies. The great poets of medieval Spain, such as Solomon ibn Gabirol, Yehuda Halevi, and Abraham ibn Ezra, wrote poems that are still sung today. “Lekha Eli Teshukati,” usually attributed to Ibn Ezra, opens the Yom Kippur prayers in most Sephardic communities.

Bakkashot. In Aleppo, Morocco, and later Jerusalem, worshippers gathered in synagogue in the small hours of winter Sabbath mornings, roughly from Sukkot to Passover depending on the community, to sing bakkashot (“petitions”) until morning prayers. The custom most likely took its present form among the kabbalists of Safed in the 1500s. Moroccan communities sing from Shir Yedidot (1921), a collection of about 550 poems set to melodies of the Arab Andalusian tradition.

The maqam. In 1587 the poet Israel Najara arranged his poems by the maqamat of Ottoman music. Today, Syrian Jews choose a different maqam for prayer each Sabbath.

How the weekly maqam works

A maqam is a musical mode: a set of notes with its own mood and melodic habits. In Syrian synagogues, the cantor matches the week's maqam to the Torah reading:

• Rast, considered the first maqam (its name is linked to the Arabic word for “head”), is used for the opening reading of the first four books of the Torah.
• Hijaz is used for readings that tell of the deaths of biblical figures.

Syrian pizmonim, Hebrew hymns sung at celebrations, often draw on Arabic classical music. Scholar Mark Kligman shows how the pizmon “Bo'i be‑Rinah” follows the Arabic song “Hawwid Min Hina.”

Syria: pizmonim

Aleppo's Jews are known for keeping the Arabic maqam at the heart of their prayers, including in Brooklyn. Composers such as Raphael Tabbush and Moses Ashear wrote pizmonim for weddings, prayers, and other occasions. The Sephardic Pizmonim Project catalogs them by maqam, with recordings.

The Ottoman world: Ladino song

Ladino song was mainly a women's repertoire. Romansas are narrative ballads, not love songs, with roots in medieval Spain, often sung alone during household work. Women led wedding songs, sang laments called endechas, and played the tambourine (pandero). Rhymed koplas retold holiday stories such as Purim.

Morocco: Andalusian song and women's voices

Moroccan synagogue song draws on Arab Andalusian music. In matrouz (“embroidered”), poets wove Hebrew and Arabic together in alternating verses. Zohra El Fassia (1905 to 1994, though some sources say 1912) recorded from the 1930s, sang on Radio Maroc and for Mohammed V, and moved to Israel in the 1960s. Her recording of the henna song “Abyadi Ana” can still be heard online.

Iraq: the chalghi and the al Kuwaity brothers

Baghdad's classical ensemble, the chalghi (oud, fiddle, qanun, drum, and singer), was largely made up of Jewish musicians, who played at weddings, in coffee houses, and on radio. The brothers Saleh (violin) and Daoud (oud) al Kuwaity were celebrated stars in Iraq; Saleh led the Iraqi state radio ensemble. After they left for Israel in 1951, their names were removed from their recordings in Iraq.

Egypt and North Africa: stars of radio, records, and film

Leila Murad (1918 to 1995), born to a Jewish family in Egypt, became a star of Egyptian film and song; she converted to Islam in 1946. In Algiers, Lili Boniche (born 1921) studied the oud with a master of Andalusian music and created a French and Arabic blend he called “Francarabe.” Historian Christopher Silver traces the Jewish and Muslim artists who shaped North Africa's early recording industry.

Iran: masters of Persian music

Among the great masters of Persian classical music was Morteza Neydavud (1900 to 1990), born in Tehran to a Jewish family of musicians. He played the tar (a long necked lute), worked for Radio Tehran, and recorded 297 melodies of the Persian system. He moved to the United States in 1980 and died in San Francisco.

Yemen: the diwan

Yemenite men sang poems from the diwan, a collection in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. About half its poems are by Shalom Shabazi, a seventeenth century poet of Ta'izz whose tomb was honored by Jews and Muslims alike. Ofra Haza (1957 to 2000) brought Yemenite songs to the world with Yemenite Songs (1984).

Israel: musika mizrahit and revival

Immigrants brought these sounds to Israel. Cassette tapes helped spread musika mizrahit, and Zohar Argov (1955 to 1987) became one of its best known stars. Today the sisters of A‑WA sing in Yemenite Judeo Arabic, Neta Elkayam sings Moroccan Jewish songs, and piyyut singing circles bring people together.

Two paths of memory. Scholar Vanessa Paloma Elbaz describes Sephardic memory as traveling along two paths: a “tree” of texts and melodies passed down in synagogues and study halls, and a “web” of songs and sayings shared in homes and among women. Her recordings of Moroccan Jewish women's songs, including lullabies, songs for baking Purim treats, and songs of the courtyards, preserve voices that might otherwise be lost.

Loss and return. As Jews left the Middle East and North Africa in the mid twentieth century, some musicians lost their audiences. In Israel, the al Kuwaity brothers played in the Arabic orchestra of the national radio, Kol Yisrael. A generation later, grandchildren revived the music: in 2011, Daoud's grandson, rock musician Dudu Tassa, released new versions of their songs, and in 2016 A‑WA's “Habib Galbi” became the first Arabic language song to top the Israeli charts.

Common misconceptions

• “Ladino songs are medieval.” Romansas have medieval roots, but many popular Ladino songs date from the 1800s or later.
• “Romansas are love songs.” They are narrative ballads that tell stories.
• “Jewish music and Arab music were separate.” Jewish musicians played major roles in Arabic music in Iraq and North Africa, and much synagogue song shares its modes.
• “Sephardic music is one style.” Syrian, Moroccan, Ottoman, Iraqi, Persian, and Yemenite traditions each sound different.

In the public school classroom

• Treat songs as cultural exchange: compare a Syrian pizmon with the Arabic song it follows, and discuss what is shared and what changes.
• Listening activity: play recordings of “Lekha Eli Teshukati” from Morocco, Tunisia, and Thessaloniki on the National Library of Israel site. How do the melodies differ?
• Explore instruments such as the oud, qanun, and tar, and compare them with instruments students know.
• Study sacred songs as poetry and history. Students listen and analyze; they do not sing liturgical texts as worship.

In Jewish schools and communities

• Choose a pizmon for the week's maqam, or host a bakkashot evening with a local paytan.
• Read the poems of Ibn Gabirol and Halevi alongside Sarah Sassoon's essay in Distinctions.
• Invite grandparents to teach a song from home.
• Use the Sephardi & Mizrahi Education Toolkit to weave music through the school year.

At home and with family

• Ask elders which songs they remember from childhood, and record them singing.
• Build a family playlist of songs from your community, and learn the story behind each one.
• Read The Key from Spain with young children.
• Share your family's songs and memories with JIMENA's oral history project.

Watch and listen

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From Distinctions, JIMENA's journal

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