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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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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 Franco. It shows David dancing before God and his…
We’re striding in your front ranks,
marching mankind—
with the cool and with the fervid,
with the proud and the courageous—
step after step!
On his high gibbet, the old god
swings and swings.
Patched…
He sings in the courtyard, clad in rags
A small, poor chap, a crazed Jew.
People drive him away, God has muddled his wits
Ages and exile have confused his tongue
He wails and he dances, weeps and…