Music was one component of the cultural continuum that developed in the contiguous civilizations of the ancient Near East and of Greece and Rome. This book covers the range and gamut of this symbiosis, as well as scrutinizes archeological findings, texts, and iconographical materials in specific geographical areas along this continuum. The book, volume VIII of Yuval - Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre at the Hebrew University, provides an updated scholarly assessment of the rich soundscapes of ancient civilizations.

1) explores Judeo-Spanish folksong repertoire in a group of case studies, 2) surveys the basics of Judeo-Spanish (Sephardic) history and culture, the historiography of the folksong in Ladino 3) illustrates a methodology of combining archival research and ethnography and assembling the information bits to constitute the song's "sonic ruin"

A unique Israeli national culture--indeed, the very nature of "Israeliness"--remains a matter of debate, a struggle to blend vying memories and backgrounds, ideologies and wills. Identifying popular music as an important site in this wider cultural endeavor, this book focuses on the three major popular music cultures that are proving instrumental in attempts to invent Israeliness: the invented folk song repertoire known as Shirei Eretz Israel; the contemporary, global-cosmopolitan Israeli rock; and the ethnic-oriental musica mizrahit. The result is the first ever comprehensive study of popular music in Israel.
Motti Regev, a sociologist, and Edwin Seroussi, an ethnomusicologist, approach their subject from alternative perspectives, producing a truly interdisciplinary, sociocultural account of music as a feature and a force in the shaping of Israeliness. A major ethnographic undertaking, describing and analyzing the particular history, characteristics, and practices of each music culture, "Popular Music and National Culture in Israel "maps not only the complex field of Israeli popular music but also Israeli culture in general.