Class 3: Jewish Music: Tradition, Migration, and Cultural Expression

Music and Identity

For many people, music is a key means of identity expression, community building, and political engagement. This is certainly the case among Jewish communities, where music may reference cultural practices, bring contemporary Jews into conversation with their ancestors, and offer responses to current events. Jewish music is a window onto the themes of commonality and diversity, integration and distinctiveness, chain of tradition, and migration.

Jewish music is intertwined with migration, as features acquired in previous places of settlement persist centuries after Jews have left those places and come to new ones. And, as Jews have moved to Israel and developed a rich, diverse tradition of modern Israeli music, that music has influenced music in the Jewish diaspora.

Influences on Music

Jewish communities around the world have produced and consumed diverse musical forms and styles, from Middle Eastern to European, from religious chant to hip hop. The primary influence on Jewish music has always been the surrounding society’s music, but Jewish musical traditions from different places nevertheless have similar patterns. Music has accompanied holiday observances, prayer services, life-cycle events, and community gatherings, and it has been used for education and for entertainment. Jews have adapted local musical forms, instrumentation, singing techniques, and even songs for particular Jewish uses. In some cases, the resulting Jewish music is indistinguishable from local Muslim or Christian music.

Textual and other religious traditions influence Jewish music, with prayers from biblical and rabbinic sources set to music and sung in synagogues and beyond. Even in music not intended for liturgical use, we see the influence of liturgical traditions. For example, Jewish klezmer music in Ukraine has similarities to local Christian folk music, but in klezmer, the modes—the intervals and scales that make up the melody—and the emotional embellishments are influenced by Jewish cantorial music sung during synagogue services. This gives klezmer a slightly Middle Eastern flavor and grace notes that emulate weeping, audible in a comparison of this klezmer song and this Ukrainian folk song.

In addition, Jews have influenced their surrounding musical cultures. Many famous musicians and composers in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and North America have been Jewish. Younes Dardashti, a Jewish singer who was one of the most revered performers in Iran, is just one example.

Music and Community

In contemporary Jewish communities, music is central to religious devotion and communal engagement. Synagogue services in most ancestral traditions and denominations include a great deal of singing, sometimes led by a ḥazan, or cantor, in various degrees of performative style and congregational participation. In some cases, immigrants brought melodies to their contemporary communities, as in the American Kol/Kal Nidre samples from Europe and the Middle East, and in other cases, melodies were adapted from local popular songs or composed originally, as in the version of the prayer Adon Olam set to the tune of a song from the musical Hamilton). 

Jewish summer camps feature lively singing sessions, often led by charismatic song leaders with guitars. The grace after meals blessings are often sung communally, sometimes accompanied by elaborate hand motions or table banging. Another popular form of engagement with music, especially at American Jewish summer camps, is “Israeli dancing,” an ever-changing set of line and circle dances performed to recorded songs that have been popular in Israel at various points in history.

Rupture and Reconstruction

Especially in Israel and the United States, increasing numbers of young people are embracing the musical traditions of their ancestors, including traditions that might otherwise be lost. They sometimes perform traditional songs with traditional musical styles and instrumentation. But often they create innovative hybrid forms, blending contemporary elements with traditional styles, such as klezmer, Persian, and Iraqi. Through music, composers and performers not only entertain but also connect to their ancestors and perform their multifaceted identities.