#sephardic song

[sefaradweb]

Yitzhak Isaac Levy

🇪🇸 Yitzhak Isaac Levy (nacido el 15 de mayo de 1919 en Manisa, Turquía, y fallecido el 21 de julio de 1977 en Jerusalén, Israel) fue un destacado cantautor, musicólogo y compositor israelí especializado en música judeoespañola. Su familia se trasladó a Palestina cuando él tenía tres años. Estudió en el Conservatorio de Música en Jerusalén y en la Academia Samuel Rubin en Tel Aviv. En 1954, Levy fundó una serie de programas en ladino para la radio pública israelí Kol Yisrael y en 1963 fue nombrado director de la sección de música étnica. Dedicó su vida a recopilar y preservar las canciones sefardíes, publicando cuatro libros de romances y diez volúmenes de canciones litúrgicas. Su esposa, Kohava Levy, y su hija, Yasmin Levy, continúan su legado musical.

🇺🇸 Yitzhak Isaac Levy (born May 15, 1919, in Manisa, Turkey, and died July 21, 1977, in Jerusalem, Israel) was a renowned Israeli singer-songwriter, musicologist, and composer specializing in Judaeo-Spanish music. His family moved to Palestine when he was three. He studied at the Conservatory of Music in Jerusalem and the Samuel Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv. In 1954, Levy founded a series of Ladino broadcasts for Israel's public radio, Kol Yisrael, and in 1963 he became the director of the ethnic music section. He dedicated his life to collecting and preserving Sephardic songs, publishing four books of romances and ten volumes of liturgical songs. His wife, Kohava Levy, and daughter, Yasmin Levy, continue his musical legacy.

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

sephardic women ages 40-60 will genuinely just make the most heartwrenching music ever like it's the easiest thing ever

[fishflesh]

outer worlds fans pls come back to life pspspspspspps

[mascula-sappho]

kuando el rey finrod

[greencheekconure27]

"Puncha Puncha "

Angelique Ionathos

@tuulikki

[theblanknight]

Hello everyone, as per request I will give some notes abt my recording of this traditional Sephardic folk song, "Morenica"

Well first a all, who the heck were the Sephardim!? funny you should ask: there're those who say that I am their king, and many claim to be my true bride/cousin. if you remember the outrageous years between 1491 and 93, the Spanish Kingdom took out their antisemitism on their own population of Jews, some of which were a people who spoke a form of medieval Spanish that would turn into "Ladino." These were the Sephardim, and during the Inquisition they were driven from their homes and spread out around the Mediterranean and beyond. They kinda ended up "everywhere," and there're all kindsa rumours like some families still have the keys to their ancestral homes in Spain, stuff like that. some consider that kingdom the last true Kingdom for the Jews, and the mysterious, hidden King to be the true King of the Jews Himself:

The Christ, known by some as Lucifer the Morning Star: The Devil Himself, The Mad King / Fool lost in the wilderness, though he did either no wrong or not enough wrong to get that name...

Loki? no, heh heh heh, that's not one o' yours, nazis! in your sister state, the United States they knew us by another name...

lol i might link the versions of this song i referenced and was influenced by in a bit, i'll just post this now 'cause i think someone wants to show it somewhere

Track credits:

Marlon Joseph Tesoro Battad - percussion, fiddle, piano, backup vox, arangement, engineer, graphic design

Heather Fisch (deceased?) - vox

Nathan Wolman (deceased?) - trumpet

6:30 PM: well i'll try a' be curt abt my influences for now, capiche? speakin a capiche: ho! savina's unique cover is the first version a this song i ever listened a by accident that i know of

now i've HEARD there're those who otherwise like some a my writing but want me to stop posting mor kabasi... i think i get it lol! this is a zionist family in general, eh? no idea, everyone! i'm just tryna be honest with what i was exposed a.

this next one i only listened a when i was researching in 2017 to get ready a begin practicin my own version! ho, it sounds medieval! they got historic paintin! they got long, album names! i can FEEL myself gettin more intelligent just lookin at this ting lmao!

suttin' i WOULD like to note, however, is that whoever made this might've reverse-engineered the absence of these Sephardims' journey through africa and the middleast. maybe they referenced a medieval text! maybe these folk genuinely played it like this up into the modern age! we'll probably never know...

those're pretty much the main influences for my arrangement. might keep adding onna these descriptions later, no idea

i listeneda Ofra Haza's version, it's true! i don't count her version as an obvious influence, though, just being honest! it's prob more of an influence in unseen ways, though

[adiradirim]

Karen Gerson Şarhon, editor in chief of El Amaneser ("The Dawn,") , a 32-page monthly Ladino supplement to Turkey’s weekly Jewish newspaper and the world’s only monthly Judeo-Spanish publication. El Amaneser is a project of the nonprofit she directs, the Sephardic Cultural Research Center, which acts as the hub of Istanbul’s Jewish community and a treasure trove of precious Ladino texts and translations. Included in these archives are recordings of native Ladino speakers preserved by the Center’s Ladino Database Project, and other undertakings such as the most comprehensive recordings and research of Maftirim, a musical tradition unique to the Turkish-Jewish community that emerged through interactions with Muslim Sufi orders in Edirne. Şarhon notes proudly that the center also has a variety of language-learning programs on its website, the only one on the internet with a Ladino language option. Şarhon grew up in a Ladino-speaking family in Istanbul, and her passion for the language intensified when she formed Los Pasharos Sefaradis (The Sephardic Birds), the first ensemble dedicated to researching and performing Sephardic music, in which she sang the old Ladino songs in the authentic style of her grandmothers. She went on to be a champion of Sephardic and Ladino cultural preservation. Read more about her accomplishments here.

“Ke mos biva esta lingua ermoza de muestros abuelos i el Dio ke mos de fuersa i enerjiya para luchar kontra su desaparision,” Karen Gerson Şarhon proclaims in Ladino. “Long live this beautiful language of our ancestors, and may God give us strength and energy to strive against its disappearance.”

[chanaleah]

it’s pretty ironic how much anti-zionists quote Emma Lazarus

“None of us are free until all of us are free!” Like yes girl that quote is generally accredited to Emma Lazarus, who was a Zionist and ALSO was speaking about Jewish refugees fleeing antisemitic violence in Russia

Anyways Emma Lazarus is my favorite poet so here’s some facts about her while I wait in an airport for my flight to take off

She was descended from Sephardic Jews who fled the inquisition and settled in the Americas in the 1600s

Most of her poems revolved around Jewish themes

She wrote the famous poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty, “The New Colossus”

She volunteered with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society helping Jewish refugees from Russia get settled in the US

She was a Zionist over a decade before the modern Zionist movement was founded, and advocated for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Eretz Yisrael and wrote essays against antisemitism

And here is a passage from my favorite Emma Lazarus poem, “In Exile”

Strange faces theirs, wherethrough the Orient sun / Gleams from the eyes and glows athwart the skin. / Grave lines of studious thought and purpose run / From curl-crowned forehead to dark-bearded chin. / And over all the seal is stamped thereon/ Of anguish branded by a world of sin, / In fire and blood through ages on their name, / Their seal of glory and the Gentiles' shame.

Freedom to love the law that Moses brought,/ To sing the songs of David, and to think / The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught, / Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink / The universal air—for this they sought / Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link / Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain, / And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane.

If you want to read more here is an article I can recommend you: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/emma-lazarus

[spacelazarwolf]

Qinat Be'eri (A Lamentation for Be'eri) by Yagel Haroush

Yagel Haroush is a singer, a kamancheh and ney player, a poet, a composer of piyutim (traditional religious songs) and a teacher of Middle Eastern music. After completing his studies at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, Yagel earned a master’s degree in philosophy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and was awarded the Daoud Al-Kuwaiti Scholarship for musical excellence. Yagel specializes in performing and composing music based on maqam, the Middle Eastern modal system. He studied the Persian form of maqam, known as dastgah, with Prof. Piris Eliyahu and his son Mark Eliyahu, and Arab maqam with Prof. Taiseer Elias. As a child, he absorbed the liturgical poetic tradition of the Moroccan piyut (religious song) at his grandfather’s home in the southern Israeli city of Dimona, where every Shabbat, a group of paytanim (composers and singers of piyutim) would gather. Later, he delved into the secrets of the baqashot (“supplications”), a Sephardic mystical singing tradition practiced by Moroccan Jews. Yagel’s ensemble, Shir Yididot, performs original reinterpretations of this tradition that situate the baqashot within the broader context of Middle Eastern mystical song. The group released its debut album in 2016. Yagel is also the founder of the Study Center for Makam and Piyut, where he teaches composition and performance, as well as theoretical performance studies based on Jewish sources – philosophy, Kabbalah and Midrash. He also founded the School of Oriental Music in the Negev in the town of Yeruham, and Kedem, a school for composition in the spirit of maqam in Jerusalem.

Qinat Be’eri was written by Yagel Haroush in the month of Marḥeshban after the massacres on 7 October and disseminated on social media. (The text of the qinah here is as shared on the website Kipa on 7 January 2024.) The initial English translation and notes was shared by Yosef Goldman and Josh Fleet. (These notes were very lightly edited for clarity.) On Tishah b’Av, a second English translation was offered by Dr. Susan Weingarten. –Aharon Varady

Eikhah [1] – Alas! my well [2] has turned into my grave. And the day of my light [3] has become my darkness And all fruit has been destroyed and my singing overturned. My eyes pour forth water [4] from the depth of my brokenness.

Eikhah — Israel on a day of calling to God. Life was requested but chaos received Elder and infant wallow in blood. [6] His festival desecrated by a merciless enemy. My eyes pour forth water from the depth of my brokenness.

Eikhah — mothers, girls, and young women Taken into captivity as in the days of pogroms And fences were breached righteous sheep And the dancing ceased and the songs of my singers My eyes pour forth water from the depth of my brokenness

And eikhah — I wonder, you who enobled her — How long shall a nation live in upheaval How long shall her stature be brought low to the ground And now, arise to kindle my lamp [7] And from the wellsprings of your mercy heal my brokenness And my eye [8] that pours forth will water Be’eri

The opening word of the Book of Lamentations, “איכה” — translated as “alas!” or “how?!?” — is often used in Jewish poetry of lament — ḳinnot — that memorialize the Jewish people, from the liturgy for mourning the Temple’s destruction to today.

Be’eri means “my well.” [Be’eri here also refers to Kibbutz Be’eri, the site of one of the massacres that took place on 7 October 2023. — ANV]

A reference to the festival of Simḥat Torah on which the massacres took place. In TaNaKh and Rabbinic literature, Torah is compared to both light and water. “For the commandment is a lamp, the teaching of Torah is a light” (Proverbs 6:23) and “A flowing stream, a fountain of wisdom” (Proverbs 18:4). Also find Shir haShirim Rabbah 1:2.

"For these do I weep, my eyes flow with tears; far from me is a comforter who might revive my spirit; my children are forlorn, for the foe has prevailed” (Lamentations 1:16)

i.e. Simḥat Torah.

Find Ezekiel 15:6, “When I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you: ‘Live despite your blood’���”

It is you who light my lamp; YHVH my elo’ah lights up my darkness” (Psalms 18:29).

Hebrew, עין (‘ayin), means both “spring” and “eye.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

As a Jew, I have felt completely alienated by the community that purports to represent me. In my earliest childhood memories, I recall  family members, Hebrew School teachers, and religious leaders telling me about the many promises of the state of Israel: a safe home for all Jews, a place – I was told – where we made the desert bloom. From as early as I can remember, I was taught by my family members and Hebrew School teachers that Jews need Israel because of the devastating losses during the Holocaust and enduring antisemitism. I went to Hebrew School three days a week, and remember feeling almost-constantly panicked about the potential for another Holocaust. The message was painfully clear: everyone hates Jews, and that’s why we need Israel. There was so much about Jewish history and culture I never learned in Hebrew School: our working-class roots and deep commitment to the labor and socialist movements both in Eastern Europe and in the U.S.; Sephardic and Mizrahi culture and customs; the history of Yiddish; even the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And of course, left out of most American Jewish education are the violent origins of the Jewish state: Israel’s dispossession and mass slaughter of Palestinians in 1948. The land on which Israel was built was not a barren desert made fertile by Jewish refugees and immigrants, but the Palestinians’ homeland, inhabited for millennia. When I began to learn the truth – that Israel violently expelled almost 1 million Palestinians to create the state of Israel – I felt completely shocked, and deeply betrayed by the adults whom I had trusted. It seemed – and I now know with certainty that it is – antithetical to Jewish values. Since I first learned about the Nakba, I’ve regularly felt alone in my religious community. There’s an assumption – from both the Jewish community and society at-large – that because we are Jews, we are also Zionists. Yet, so much of my political compass – including my commitment to anti-Zionism, actually comes from what I’ve learned from being a Jew. The same Hebrew school teachers who instructed me to love Israel also taught me Jewish songs like Olam Chesed Yibaneh (we will build this world with love) and Lo Yisa Goy (nation shall not lift up sword against nation). Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its subjugation of Palestians contradicts these Jewish tenets, yet in a majority of American Jewish communities, those of us who oppose Israeli colonialism are treated as traitors. It’s been confusing to feel both deeply connected to Judaism and Jewish values, and to also be told repeatedly by Jews and Zionists that I’m a self-hating Jew. It often makes me feel like I have no safe religious home. The only times I’ve felt like I’m free to practice my religion as an anti-Zionist, and to proudly declare that I’m an anti-Zionist because I’m Jewish, are when I’ve taken action with Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist, Jewish organization that stands in solidarity with Palestinians. 

[protectionsquad24601]

I don't think people understand how intrinsically Jewish the Les Misérables musical is. The writers of the original French musical were Claude-Michel Schönberg (Hungarian Jew), Alain Boublil (Sephardic Jew), and directed by Robert Hossein (Moldovian Jew). Schöneberg also composed the music. It was adapted into English by Herbert Kretzmer (Lithuanian Jew).

The lyrics include many references to Jewish beliefs and values. Schöneberg said in an interview, "When I’m writing a show there is always a part that is typically Jewish."

However, the one that sticks out to me especially is a line from the Epilogue:

"They will live again in freedom,

In the garden of the Lord;

They will walk behind the ploughshare,

They will put away the sword."

The origin of the phrase - specifically, the bit about 'ploughshares' and 'swords' - can be traced back to a nevuah (prophecy) by Yeshayahu (Isaiah), a Jewish navi (prophet) from the sefer Yeshayahu (Book of Isaiah). (Sorry, yes, I insist on the Hebrew words first.)

"The Torah will go forth from Tzion (Zion) and the word of Hashem from Yerushalayim (Jerusalem)... They will then cut their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning knives. No nation will lift a sword against the other, and they will no longer learn warfare."

This is a quote about the 'end of days', and the idea of a peaceful paradise free from war was emulated in the song to convey a similar paradise for our barricade boys, the casualties of the June Rebellion. This is only one of the many examples of Jewish themes and references in the Les Misérables musical!

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

I know I love to talk about the beautiful and joyous parts of sephardic culture and ill keep doing that because I believe we have incredible food, music, art, clothing, language, dance, and more to share with the world. I want people to enjoy our culture and to help preserve it.

however I also need people to understand there is so, so much pain and suffering behind these beautiful things. just like any other jews our joy cannot exist without sadness. the horrible things we have gone through is just as important to our stories as the wonderful things we've done and created

take for example: one of my favorite sephardic songs, adio querida (or kerida because we can't agree on spelling). I love this version. it is a beautiful, heartbreaking song yet without the historical context it sounds much emptier than it really is. this song is about the deep scarring caused by repeated exile and realizing that you'll never find a true home and your people have been wandering for so, so, so long. its the admittance that you loved a place so much and you thought you could live there forever only to realize that that was never going to be your life. this is a particularly sad example however my point still applies to happier things we have made because those are all heavily influenced by the fact that we have had to hide and run away for so so so long.

I would talk about how the Spanish inquisition and expulsion from various places in the MENA region has utterly decimated our culture and now there's just a few of us left to pick up the pieces. however we'd be here for days so let's not do that now

[greencheekconure27]

@tuulikki (idk just in case you're interested)