Showing Results 1 - 10 of 182
Musicians on ritual stand, Ashdod, late 11th or early 10th century BCE. Music and dance played an important role in Israel and the ancient Near East in both daily life and special occasions such as…
At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites, wherever they lived, were sought out and brought to Jerusalem to celebrate a joyful dedication with thanks-giving and with song, accompanied…
These hollow, spool-shaped terra-cotta objects from Beth Shemesh would hold one or more pellets (often small pebbles) that when shaken would produce a sound. They have been considered babies’ toys…
By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat,
sat and wept,
as we thought of Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung up our lyres,
for our captors asked us there for songs,
our tormentors, for amusement,
“Si…
Ernst Josephson painted David and Saul early in his career, when he was working with mostly historical and biblical subjects. Here a young, eroticized David plays a lyre for a darkly brooding King…
The plot of La Juive (The Jewish Woman), an opera in five acts, centered around a romance between a Jewish woman and a Christian man. It was one of the most popular operas of the nineteenth century.
A pathbreaking composer, Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864) surprised and delighted generations of opera fans in Europe and around the world. To the staid formula of live performances, he added sound…
This manuscript copy of a prayer book, containing prayers and hymns for the Sephardic community of Amsterdam, was written out by David Mendes.
Like most of Henry Valensi’s other “Symphony” paintings, Symphonie Vitale does not refer to a specific piece of music, but instead reflects the principles of Musicalism, the art movement founded by…
Arthur Kolnik dedicated his illustrations of Y. L. Peretz’s story, “A gilgl fun a nign” (The Transmigration of a Melody), to his brother, who, along with his family, was murdered in the Holocaust…
