#Syrian Music

[cavedwellermusic]

Danûk - Mor​î​k (2023)

A stunning piece of world/folk music that transcends time

James looks at international Istanbul based world/contemporary folk act DANÛK's debut album Mor​î​k, released on Omni Sound on May 19th. The album was funded by the British Arts Council and was produced, recorded and mixed by Michael League of Snarky Puppy. Ethnographic recordings courtesy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

This isn't your run of the mill recording, this is a blend of history, tradition, culture, identity, musical innovation and deeper, more complex abstract concepts such as 'homeland' and 'exile'. It draws on archived phonograph recordings of Kurdish folklore and songs that have been preserved in wax cylinders since the beginning of 20th century. This stunning collection of varied tracks, both musically and thematically gives us a glimpse into another world, another culture, and another time.

Bandcamp proceeds will be donated to DOZ e. V. Germany to fundraise for victims of the 2023 Turkey-Syria Earthquakes.

[sonicandvisualsurprises]

1944

"Ya Habibi Taala Elhaani" is a captivating song performed by the renowned Syrian singer Asmahan.

Released during the mid-20th century, this song is a testament to the rich cultural heritage of Arabic music.

[vintageblackandwhiteportraits]

Asmahan

[egopathic]

had so many nice interactions on my walk to get cigarettes and the subsequent smoke afterwards

[majestativa]

لو تفضالك تنسى معاها الكون كلّه

If you can have it, you forget the whole universe in it.

[jarviskingston]

🏀⛹🏿⛹🏿‍♂️

[femininitysworld]

Sarah Kenefaty🎹

[mariacallous]

Opening a kosher restaurant in New York City wasn’t always in the cards for Raif Rashed, a Druze from the village of Usfiya in northern Israel.

But as Rashed, the owner of Taboonia — a new Druze restaurant in the Garment District that’s currently seeking kosher certification — will be the first to tell you, sometimes life can take an unexpected turn, especially after a tragedy.

An engineer by trade, Rashed, 40, moved to Hackensack, New Jersey, in 2019 to take a job at an Israeli manufacturing company. In October 2023, he was visiting family in Israel when he extended his trip to could help his brother, Radda — who had run a catering business and food stall there, also called Taboonia, for a decade — work a busy event.

Fatefully, that event was the Nova Music Festival. Intended to be a 15-hour party overnight dance party, the festival was the site of one of the deadliest massacres that occurred when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

During the violent chaos that unfolded, Rashed was separated from his brother, who ultimately survived. He sought cover behind a car belonging to his friend Erick Peretz, who was at the festival with his 16-year-old daughter Ruth, who had cerebral palsy and used a wheelchair. Rashed watched Peretz and his daughter seek cover behind an ambulance, then, to his horror, witnessed Hamas fighters burning the vehicle. Erick and Ruth Peretz’s bodies were identified 12 days later; they were among the more than 380 people murdered at the festival that day.

The experience turned Rashed’s life upside down. “I was in crisis [for] a year,” said Rashed, who added that, in the aftermath of the attack, “I looked middle-aged within hours.”

Rashed was stuck in Israel for several months, as his passport was stolen in the attack. When he finally returned to the United States, he quit his engineering job. Seeking comfort, he found himself cooking the foods of his childhood, like manakish — a type of flatbread served with toppings like za’atar, hummus, and labneh — or the very thin, crispy Druze pita, rolled into a wrap and filled with cucumber and tomato salad, hummus, hard boiled eggs, feta and chickpeas.

The Druze are a small religious and ethnic minority in the Middle East, with a population of about 1 million spread across communities in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. (Israel has vowed to protect the Druze in Syria if they come under attack from the new regime there, and this week Syrian Druze visited a Druze site in Israel for the first time in decades.) In Israel, Druze communities, comprising less than 2% of the population, tend to be patriotic and serve in the military, as Rashed did. “We don’t have [a] country, but we serve the country we live [in],” he said.

Inspired by reconnecting with Druze cuisine, Rashed decided to open an American outpost of Taboonia.

“For me to sell the food from our culture, and especially my mother’s recipes, this is my baby,” he said.

On Oct. 5, 2024 — almost exactly one year after the terrorist attack — he launched the Taboonia food stall, selling Druze food and coffee at the New Meadowlands Market at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Saturdays and at the Grand Bazaar on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Sundays. It was an instant hit.

The same month he opened his food stall, Rashed met his future business partner, Ray Radwan. Radwan, a Druze born in New Jersey whose family is from Lebanon, works in the restaurant industry, and the pair decided to open a brick-and-mortar outpost of Taboonia at 832 Sixth Ave. Construction on the fast-casual dining space, which seats roughly a dozen people, began last November, and the restaurant had its soft-launch opening last month.

Until recently, the only Druze eatery in New York has Gazala’s, an Upper West Side restaurant run by Gazala Halabi. When Gazala’s was targeted with anti-Israel vandalism in February 2024, scores of local Jews turned out to show support. The pattern repeated that July: Following a Hezbollah rocket attack that took the lives of 12 children and teens in a Druze town in northern Israel, Jewish New Yorkers showed up at Gazala’s in droves.

“It really feels like a family,” Halabi said of the Jewish community’s support at the time. “I really feel, again, like I’m not alone.”

But the city’s significant population of kosher-keeping Jews could not join in the rush. Gazala’s is not kosher and serves shellfish alongside serves Middle Eastern specialties like kibbeh, meat-stuffed grape leaves, shawarma and lamb.

Taboonia is vegetarian, making it relatively easy to achieve kosher certification. Rashed said the restaurant is expected to receive its certification from Rabbi Zev Schwarcz at IKC in the coming weeks, and that there will be a grand opening celebration, likely after Passover. And because Taboonia isn’t owned by a Jew, it should be able to stay open on Shabbat and maintain its kosher status — an added perk.

“See, to be Druze, is a plus,” he said.

Rashed said it’s just good business to seek kosher certification. “Kosher, everyone can eat, OK?” he said. “But not kosher, not everyone can eat.”

But he is also grateful to the support he’s gotten from Jews in New York and beyond — including through a recent viral video that the actress and pro-Israel activist Noa Tishby posted about him on Instagram.

“My community is Jewish,” he said, adding that he attended school alongside Jewish students, and that his Hebrew is better than his Arabic or English. “I am around Jewish since 13 years old.”

Rashed’s six years in New York and New Jersey have influenced his palette, as well as the restaurant’s menu. In addition to traditional Druze foods, Taboonia also serves some cross-cultural treats, like everything bagel-seasoned bourekas, filled with mozzarella cheese.

Rashed hopes that Taboonia will be a place of repast and respite for New Yorkers of all stripes.

“Me and other Druze, Lebanese Druze, we [are] all of us all together [in the] middle of the war, in the middle of New York, to show the world we can make it a different way, and maybe we can make a change for some people, yes?” Rashed said. “Because [in] this place you’re going to hear Arabic, Hebrew, and English. No one is going to judge anyone about anything.”

[gaywineauntsstuff]

Arabic in the batfam

@leefail has gotten me obsessed with how arabic would work in the batfamily

because arabic is natively spoken by 230 million people and is taught in any muslim majority to country because its considered poor faith to recite the Quran in any other language.

its also the most inconvenient and stupidly difficult language to learn in human history.

why?

because it is a colonial language

meaning the Arab empire happened and we all switched to arabic but unlike English... there wasn't the internet for people to learn how the 'og Arabs' spoke it and Arabs didn't slaughter and replace like the puritans they just taxed and converted (slaughter optional im not ignoring north Africa but it was region specific)

so that means that arabic which has a collective vocab of about 12.1 million words as well as a nasty habit of giving 100 words the same meaning as well as assigning 1 word like 8 meanings got practiced by these arabic speaking countries differently

so certain words fell out of use or changed meaning in one country while being startlingly popular in another

it also means that a lot of arabic regions maintained their older speech patters

latinised softer letters in levant countries closer to Cyprus due to the presence of Aramaic, syrianic and latin.

harsher more guttural sounds in regions that were closer to Iran.

so what does this mean? and Why does this mean arabic is a bitch to learn

well for one you don't write in your regional dialect, you write in modern standard or fus7a which is a whole other beast. Meaning that you don't really learn to speak in school.

two the dialects are significantly different enough across the region that people who learned arabic in Lebanon won't understand people from morocco.

now we are all SUPPOSed to speak Modern Standard Arabic but you have to understand how little it is used outside of like legal jargon. so you kinda lose it once you leave Arab formal education.

Which means if you immediately default to MSA 99% of Arabs will assume you are a cop like if you know the word for government but not skirt... come on man be less obvious.

Now most us speak 1 -3 dialects and understand 9-10

me personally I speak a levantine dialect and can understand most Egyptian, Jordanian and Gulf dialects. Iraqi and the rest of North Africa (with the exception of Tunisia) not so much.

Now what does that mean for arabic in the batfamily

its too useful for the Bats to not use

so do all of the bats speak arabic 1000%

Do all of them speak different dialects 1000%

Here they are imo

Bruce: Bruce is a cop (MSA) He can code switch and speak all the dialects but he just genuinely likes MSA, its the most complex and intricate form of the language and what's most commonly used for things like poetry and literature. But it does mean that his speech comes off very stilted and cringeworthy to most Arab speakers. The first dialect he learned was definitely Egyptian because its the one that's the most common in music and television as well as having the largest group of people speaking it (110 of the 230 million are from Egypt)

Dick: now I have no evidence for this but Dick Grayson would speak Lebanese arabic. It's notoriously the softest of the dialects and has the most higher pitched and flippy tones. His mother also grew up in France which would Fit for Dick since Lebanese Arabic tends to substitute harsher arabic words with French. the most common greeting in Lebanon is 'Hi, kefak ca va' which is English, arabic and French. And for a cameleon character with such an interesting and convoluted ethnic background I think picking the softest dynamic tongue with the most intersectionality fits.

Jason: Jason todd speaks Jordanian arabic, Jordanians are the most hilariously creative people in the mid east imo. there are turns of phrase from Jordan that kinda make you pause and blink for a second because damn... okay then. I have never met a Jordanian without a degree in the most creative insults you've ever heard. Jordanian arabic is also very close to stereotypical Levant arabic which still maintaining a lot more of the harsher more guttural sounds that countries like Lebanon and Syria tend to exclude. Jordan also has a huge Bedouin population and I just think he'd match that vibe

Tim: Tims parents were archeologist.. Egyptian. Tim has the heaviest Egyptian accent when he speaks arabic. His parents definitely had him learn it in hopes he'd follow their footsteps. Ja become Ga and he works so damn hard to keep the accent out of his words to try and hide any identifiers and he fails miserably. He also uses it the most out of the kids and he can read and understand MSA fluently unlike Dick and Jason who are fine readers but cannot speak it for the life for them. Tim also does the international students Mix and Match where you sometimes just use a word that's country specific to other countries. Tim doesn't tell Damian he understands it and so Damian has the most intense shock of his life when Tim replies back to his angry arabic muttering.

Damian: So I know that talia studied at the university of Cairo but I feel like Ra's speaks a very old form of arabic so I think Damian code switches quite often. I picture him speaking like a Saudi upper court dialect when he's talking with Ra's and I think talia does the same. But I think Damian is most comfortable somewhere in-between Jordan and UAE arabic with more levant terms of endearment (because of the aforementioned softness and ik talia isn't a soft parent in canon but she is one in my heart so there) and more casual speech following GCC speaking patterns. Tho I think Damian can understand and speak all of the dialects including the less popular ones like Moroccan daraji.

Steph: I have zero evidence and not even an elaboration but if steph was Middle Eastern she'd be Iraqi bc vibes so that's what she speaks fuck you im right. It's definitely on the harsher side tonally but idk she gives the energy of using it and teasing Jason and Dick for using frou-frou arabic. Tho I will absolutely make the argument that she learned Syrian arabic for a friend pre her involvement with the bats.

Also Steph, Dick and Jason do sip and bitch sessions and they disagree on the correct way to make coffee. Jason is absolutely a traditionalist, Dick is a Turkish coffee believer and steph adds way too much cardamom.

also also Jasons favorite poet is Darwish, Tims fave is Al-muttanabbi, Dicks is Gibran (ik he spoke mostly in English but tell me Dick Grayson isn't gonna freak over 'your children are not yours they are children of the world') , Bruces is Qabbani. Steph doesn't like poetry but she has absolutely read memoirs of a woman doctor by nasal el saadawi and loved it

[anastasiareyreed]

boycott everything russian!

please boycott and don't spread russian music, literature, movies, series, art and russian artists! don't use trending russian music on Instagram or TikTok, don't popularize the culture of a terrorist country!

and please be sure to point it out to other social media users. this is the minimum you can do to avoid unnecessary trauma to the victims of russian aggression. the victims should not see the tolerance of the culture of the state that kills and tortures them every day, that destroys entire cities and creates environmental disasters killing hundreds of people!

earlier I wrote about why it is important to realize the level of guilt of the russians and not tolerate everything russian, in order to show the whole world and the russians themselves that their culture of terrorism and dancing on bones will not be tolerated in a civilized society!

russia is currently waging a full-scale genocidal war against Ukraine and taking part in the genocide of the Syrian people who are suffering from the terrorism of dictator Bashar al-Assad!

please show your respect and tolerance for Ukrainians and Syrians, boycott everything russian and educate others! do your part in the information war against imperialist xenophobic racist homophobic and nazi russia!

[vintageblackandwhiteportraits]

Asmahan

[octuscle]

New Car

Peter was aware of how stupid it was to meet with the seller of the car. It was an almost new BMW M3. The car was still going to cost over USD 100,000.00. That was way out of his budget. But there was something that appealed to him even more than the car itself. In a photo, the owner had been reflected in the car's freshly polished paintwork. And Peter couldn't get this reflection out of his head. You couldn't see much. But what you could see was muscular, tattooed and wearing a shiny Adidas tracksuit. Peter couldn't get this image out of his head for the life of him. So he dialed the number given. And when he heard the voice on the other end of the line, he got a hard-on. It was churlish English with a heavy Arabic accent. Peter was actually on the phone to one of his favorite wankers. Bloody hell! He tried to act as cool as possible. He tried to ask a few questions that feigned competence in the direction of sports cars. He was trying to come across as cool and chavvy as possible. He probably sounded more than ridiculous. But the two of them arranged to go for a test drive. After the salesman hung up, Peter urgently needed to go to the bathroom. And have a wank.

The appointment for the test drive was on Friday evening. Peter took the bus to the address given, which was located in a suburb with a bad reputation. There was garbage on the streets. There was graffiti on the walls. But the cars parked on the street were in many cases like something from another world. Expensive, high-powered cars, perfectly maintained. And he was leaning against one of them. The prototype of an Arab chav who spent too much time pumping iron and in the tattoo parlor. Peter had to make sure his erection wasn't too obvious. The guy introduced himself as Ibrahim and greeted Peter with a fist bump. He said that Peter wasn't allowed to smoke in the car and offered him a fag. And instead of saying that he didn't smoke at all, Peter gratefully accepted the fag, took a light and walked around the Bavarian beauty, trying to look as professional as possible. "Shit, dude, what's that on your pants?" Damn, Peter must have sat on a piece of chewing gum on the bus. "You're not getting into my car like that," growled Ibrahim. He opened the trunk, took a pair of training pants out of a sports bag and threw them to Peter. "Seriously?" asked Peter. "Here, on the street?" "Either that or you can fuck right off again." So Peter took off his shoes and trousers, put on the tracksuit bottoms and then his…. Nike sneakers??!?!???! He wasn't wearing sneakers. Ibrahim threw him the key. "Come on then, brother. Fall in love with my baby!" Peter sat down and tried to start the engine as cool as possible. When the 510 horses howled, he winced. Ibrahim grinned. "Yes, you have to get used to it. But you will. Go on, drive towards the highway!" The car was hell. An untamed beast. Peter's forehead was covered in sweat. "Come on, old man! Step on the gas!" And Peter stepped on the gas. The speedometer showed 140 miles per hour. Damn, that would cost him his driver's license. And Ibrahim calmly started a conversation about soccer. "Of course Galatasaray will win the championship again this time!" Peter heard himself say and stepped on the gas once more. The BMW was power and strength pressed into leather and steel. He loved the car. As if remote-controlled, he chased the car first along the highway and then at far too high a speed along the arterial road towards the city center. The sleeve of his jacket stretched across his biceps as he wrenched the steering wheel. Ibrahim pressed himself into his sports seat. "Hehehe, you and the baby make the perfect unit!" "Dostum, ne düşünüyorsun? Gerçek Türk erkeklerinin kanında petrol vardır." replied Peter. No, not Peter, Sinan! Ibrahim turned up the music. Syrian gangster rap. Just the right thing to cruise along the city center boulevards now. it was a warm evening. Ibrahim opened the glass roof. He let his mighty biceps hang out of the open window. The boys and girls looked respectful, envious or disgusted when Sinan revved the engine. But in any case, they looked: Who gives a shit, they had the coolest car, they were the cool guys with the biggest muscles. "Dude, get some cigs and then change drivers," said Ibrahim Sinan. And Sinan headed for the nearest kiosk.

Sinan would never be able to afford such a car in his life. Even though he was number two in the gang behind Ibrahim, his place was usually in the passenger seat. But fuck it, Ibrahim was his boss and he followed him through rough and tumble. Ibrahim's hand missed the stick of the gearshift. But he caught something that was at least as hard. Shit, if he cums on the leather, Sinan would spend the whole morning cleaning the car again. But it was worth it.

Pics by @ki-kink

[starlightervarda]

Going with my personal headcanon that Ra's al Ghoul and Talia are from the Levant -- maybe specifically Syrian -- do you think they had any downtime in between all their assassin-ing to teach Damian how to play the oud? Maybe played some Farid or Fairouz songs for him as lullabies?

On that note, does Damian secretly love Lebanese popstars like Nancy Ajram, Elissa and Haifa? Did he get Dick and Jon into Mashrou Leila, Saint Levant and Elyanna?

Did he watch classic Egyptian movies and musicals???

Did they bother making him learn Modern Standard Arabic like we all do in school or did they just teach him three dialects to get by??? Can he understand wtf Khaleejis or Moroccans are saying???

Does Talia pronounce his name Dem-yaan like my Lebanese classmate did?

DOES HE CALL RA'S 'JIDDO'???

Discuss.

[jarviskingston]

🌍🌎🌎

[dashuri5432]

what I realistically think op characters ethnicities are

-Luffy: indigenous Brazilian (with a slight Portuguese and African mix in there)

-nami: Saami (native people of northern Scandinavia) this makes a lot of sense to me since many Sami people were tragically murdered (like namis parents) and had there children taken away. to put this into simple terms, namis parents were killed and then nami became and orphan and grew up on an Aegean island (agriculture similar to cocoyasi village)

zoro: Mongolian (got really lost as a child and ended up in Japan)

usopp: south Sudanese but grew up in South Africa(because there’s a lot of Dutch settlers there due to colonization and there were a lot of white people in syrup village)

sanji: half german half Syrian, Germa was based off Germany but sanji does use arabic words and makes “simsim cream” (sims in means sesame in Arabic) he was born in Germany but ran away and ended up in northern France (in my heart he’s 100% Albanian but this is supposed to be realistic not hcs)

Robin: native Siberian specifically nenet, similar to what I said about the Sami and nami earlier, many siberians went though genocide just like in robins backstory and how all her people were whipped out. (Robins also has a very Siberian/turkic look in my opinion coming from a 🇰🇿 girl)

Franky: Dominican that grew up in north eastern America

brook: African American from Louisiana (I can’t really explain this one it just feels right) (also brooks love for music and a lot of music types came from black Americans)

Jinbe: Indian Fijian (this one is also hard to explain it just feels so right)

extra ->

law: Sinti Romani (a big group of Romanis mainly located in Germany) btw this one is mainly due to looks bcz there’s no way in hell law is a white German lmaoo that boy is BROWN