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In the Hebrew Bible and stories loyal to it, Goliath is the
stereotypical giant of folklore: big, brash, violent, and
dimwitted. Goliath as Gentle Giant sets out to rehabilite the
giant's image by exploring the origins of the biblical behemoth,
the limitations of the "underdog" metaphor, and the few sympathetic
treatments of Goliath in popular media. What insights emerge when
we imagine things from Goliath's point of view? How might this
affect our reading of the biblical account or its many retellings
and interpretations? What sort of man was Goliath really? The
nuanced portraits analyzed in this book function as a catalyst to
challenge readers to question stereotypes, reexamine old
assumptions, and humanize the "other."
Social Functions of Synagogue Song: A Durkheimian Approach by
Jonathan L. Friedmann paints a detailed picture of the important
role sacred music plays in Jewish religious communities. This study
explores one possible way to approach the subject of music s
intimate connection with public worship: applying sociologist Emile
Durkeim s understanding of ceremonial ritual to synagogue music.
Durkheim observed that religious ceremonies serve disciplinary,
cohesive, revitalizing, and euphoric functions within religious
communities. Drawing upon musical examples from different
composers, regions, periods, rites, and services, Friedmann
demonstrates how Jewish sacred music performs these functions.
Emotions in Jewish Music is an insider's view of music's impact on
Jewish devotion and identity. Written by cantors who have devoted
themselves to the study and execution of Jewish music, the book's
six chapters explore a wide range of musical contexts and
encounters. Topics include the spiritual influence of secular
Israeli tunes, the use and meaning of traditional synagogue modes,
and the changing nature of Jewish worship. The approaches are both
personal and scholarly, describing the experiential side of Jewish
music in both practical and philosophical terms. Emotions in Jewish
Music reveals much about the emotional aspects of Jewish musical
expression.
We are in something of a golden age of music research.
Technological advances have merged with philosophical interests to
produce an array of distinct yet converging studies illuminating
the musical nature of our species. Virtually every day, a new brick
is added to the wall of interdisciplinary information, drawn from
psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, ethology,
anthropology, ethnomusicology and more. This book develops,
supports, challenges, and diverges from this enormity of material,
which is flourishing at such rapid speed that it is nearly
impossible to keep up. It adds a unique and compelling voice to
this body of literature, which is ever growing in sophistication
and popularity. This multi-disciplinary examination addresses key
issues in the field, such as the difficulty of writing about music,
the formation of musical preferences, the emotional impact of
musical sounds, the comparison of music and language, the impulse
for making music, and the connection between music and
spirituality.
Music in the Hebrew Bible investigates musical citations in the
Hebrew Bible and their relevance for our times. Most biblical
musical references are addressed, either alone or as a grouping,
and each is considered from a modern perspective. The book consists
of one hundred brief essays divided into four parts. Part one
offers general overviews of musical contexts, recurring
musical-biblical themes and discussions of basic attitudes and
tendencies of the biblical authors and their society. Part two
presents essays uncovering what the Torah (Pentateuch) has to say
about music, both literally and allegorically. The third part
includes studies on music's place in Nevi'im (Prophets) and the
perceived link between musical expression and human-divine contact.
Part four is comprised of essays on musical subjects derived from
the disparate texts of Ketuvim (Writings).
Quotations on Jewish Sacred Music is a collection of over 700
quotations culled from an array of sources, including rabbinic and
theological texts, sociological and anthropological studies, and
historical and musicological examinations. The book is divided into
five chapters: What Is Jewish Music?; Spirituality and Prayer;
Hazzan-Cantor; Cantillation-Biblical Chant; and Nusach
ha-Tefillah-Liturgical Chant. Taken as a whole, these quotations
demonstrate both the centrality of music in Jewish religious life
and the diversity of thought on the subject. They can be used with
profit in sermons, speeches, and papers, and may be read in order
or selectively. This is a valuable and easy-to-use reference book
for scholars, musicians, synagogue staff, and anyone else seeking
concise thoughts on major aspects of Jewish sacred music.
Perspectives on Jewish Music presents five unique and engaging
explorations of Jewish music. Areas covered include self-expression
in contemporary Jewish secular music, the rise of popular music in
the American synagogue, the theological requirements of the cantor,
the role of women in Sephardic music and society, and the personal
reflections of a leading figure in American synagogue music. Its
wide-ranging topics and disciplinary approaches give evidence for
the centrality of music in Jewish religious and secular life, and
demonstrate that Jewish music is as diverse as the Jews themselves.
From these studies, readers will gain an appreciation of both what
Jewish music is and what it does. This book will be useful for
students, practitioners, and scholars of Jewish secular and
religious music and Jewish cultural studies, as well as
ethnomusicologists specializing in Jewish or religious music.
Throughout history, music has remained a fixture of Jewish
religious life. Musical references appear in biblical accounts of
the Red Sea crossing and King Solomon's coronation, and music
continues to play a central role in virtually every Jewish
occasion. Through 100 brief, self-contained chapters, this volume
considers the theoretical approaches to the study of Jewish sacred
music and explores the central functions and properties of Jewish
prayer song. Major topics include the diversity of Jewish music,
the interaction of music and identity, the emotional and spiritual
impact of worship music, the text-tone relationship, the musical
component of Jewish holidays, and the varied ways prayer-songs are
performed. These digestible distillations of complex topics invite
a fuller appreciation of the fertile field of synagogue song and an
understanding of the underlying rationale for the ubiquitous
presence of musical tones in Jewish worship.
William Sharlin (1920-2012) was a cantor, synagogue composer,
teacher and musicologist. Raised in an Orthodox household, he
turned toward Universalism and the liberal Reform movement. A
member of the first graduating class of the first cantorial school
in America, he was a founding member of the American Conference of
Cantors and is recognized as the first to play a guitar in the
synagogue. Sharlin developed the Department of Sacred Music at HUC
in Los Angeles, where he taught for 40 years, trained women to be
cantors before they were allowed in the seminary, and spent nearly
four decades at Leo Baeck Temple. Drawing on interviews conducted
with Sharlin late in life, the author chronicles the career of one
of the most inventive and creative figures in the history of the
cantorate.
Since the early 1950s, local and regional historical societies have
been an important part of the American Jewish landscape, providing
community outreach, housing archives, fostering research, and
publishing historical studies. This book charts the development,
undertakings, successes, shortcomings, and possible future of local
and regional Jewish historical societies in the United States. The
lead chapter, by Joel Gereboff, explores the challenges of
constructing and presenting Jewish history and what disparities
exist between amateur historians and professionals in regards to
standards, tools, methods, analysis, and contextualization.
Following an overview of key players, major themes, representative
organizations, and recurring critiques, the chapter proposes ways
to address the essential question: Can Jewish history on the local
and regional levels be more inclusive, better integrated with
broader trends of Jewish and general history, and improved
according to scholarly norms and expectations of social history?
Following this are six chapters by leaders of local and regional
Jewish historical societies: George M. Goodwin of the Rhode
Island Jewish Historical Association; Jonathan L. Friedmann
of the Western States Jewish History Association; Mark K.
Bauman of the Southern Jewish Historical Society; Catherine Cangany
of the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan; Jeanne Abrams of the
Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society; and Lawrence Bell of the
Arizona Jewish Historical Society. The selected societies cover
major regions of the country—Northeast, Midwest, South,
Southwest, and West—and, as such, are representative of the
broader phenomenon of American Jewish historical societies. These
chapters are followed by a chronologically arranged appendix
listing American Jewish historical societies, their mission
statements, and their publications. Historical grounding is
imperative for an understanding of community and self. Equally
essential is the type of information that makes up that history, as
well as how that information is recounted and interpreted. No
individual or community exists in isolation; human history is
complex, multilayered, and interwoven. While all history may be
local, it does not exist in a vacuum—this volume illuminates that
concept and situates it within the Jewish historical
landscape.Â
Music and Jewish Religious Experience offers six studies on
specific aspects and functions of Jewish sacred music, both social
and theological. Rather than following a single theme or building
on a sustained thesis, this book covers a variety of subjects,
ranging from music and prophecy to social uses of synagogue song.
Each chapter can be read on its own, and is intended to stimulate
thought-and hopefully further research-on its particular topic.
Taken as a whole, these independent studies reveal the complexity
and diversity of types, contexts, and uses of Jewish sacred music.
The central aim of this volume is to provide the reader with fresh
insights into specialized areas of Jewish musical investigation,
and to demonstrate the broader meanings and value of music in
Jewish religious life.
Songs of Sonderling is the story of Jacob Sonderling's unique
contributions to Jewish liturgical music. Rabbi Sonderling was many
things: a descendant of Chassidic rebbes, a rationalist, a Reform
rabbi, a Zionist, an army chaplain, a celebrated orator, an
artistic soul. From his early career at the Hamburg Temple and
German Army service in World War I, to his wandering years in the
Eastern United States and founding of the Society for Jewish
Culture–Fairfax Temple in Los Angeles, Sonderling cultivated a
unique aesthetic vision of Judaism, a "five-sense appeal." Jonathan
L. Friedmann and John F. Guest document and analyze Sonderling's
experience and expression of Judaism through music. Rabbi
Sonderling's vision yielded liturgical commissions from exiled
Viennese Jewish composers who arrived in Los Angeles in the 1930s
and 1940s. Through these musical settings, activities at the
Fairfax Temple, and involvement with the Los Angeles campus of the
Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Sonderling
made an indelible mark on the city's Jewish community and the wider
musical world. Songs of Sonderling focuses on the commissions
Sonderling made from 1938 to 1945: Ernst Toch's Cantata of the
Bitter Herbs, Arnold Schoenberg's Kol Nidre, Erich Wolfgang
Korngold's A Passover Psalm and Prayer, and Eric Zeisl's Requiem
Ebraico. Through musical analyses and an examination of
Sonderling's career in Los Angeles, Friedmann and Guest contribute
to the study of Jewish liturgical music, to Jewish history in the
American West, to Jewish identity in the twentieth century, and to
Jewish diaspora writ large.
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