EJIW Encyclopedia of in the Islamic World

5 volumes including index

Executive Editor: Norman A. Stillman

Th e goal of the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World is to cover an area of , religion, and culture which until now has lacked its own cohesive/discreet reference work. Th e Encyclopedia aims to fi ll the gap in academic reference literature on the Jews of lands particularly in the late medieval, early modern and modern periods.

Th e Encyclopedia is planned as a four-volume bound edition containing approximately 2,750 entries and 1.5 million words. Entries will be organized alphabetically by lemma title (headword) for general ease of access and cross-referenced where appropriate. Additionally the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World will contain a special edition of the Index Islamicus with a sole focus on the Jews of Muslim lands. An online edition will follow aft er the publication of the print edition.

If you require further information, please send an e-mail to [email protected]

EJIW_Preface.indd 1 2/26/2009 5:50:12 PM established separate Sephardi institutions. In Sydney, the New South Wales Association of Sephardim (NAS), created in 1954, opened Despite the restrictive “whites-only” policy, Australia’s fi rst Sephardi in 1962, a Sephardi/Mizraḥi community has emerged with the aim of preserving Sephardi rituals in Australia through postwar immigration from and cultural identity. Despite ongoing con- Asia and the . Th e Sephardim have fl icts between religious and secular forces, organized themselves as separate congrega- other Sephardi congregations have been tions, but since they are a minority within the established: the Eastern Jewish Association predominantly Ashkenazi community, main- in 1960, Bet Yosef in 1992, and the Rambam taining a distinctive Sephardi identity may in 1993. Emulating Sydney’s example, the prove problematic for the next generation. Sephardi Association of Victoria, established With the implementation of the White in 1965, opened the Sassoon Yehudah Sep- Australia policy in 1901, Jews from non- hardi synagogue in Melbourne in 1975. Its European countries were classifi ed as unde- founding members were Egyptian and Iraqi. sirable immigrants. Nevertheless, a small and Out of a general population of twenty ethnically diverse Mizraḥi community began million and an estimated Jewish population to emerge in the post–World War II era. Th e of 100,000 to 120,000, the majority Ashke- fi rst wave of Mizraḥim came from Asia, pre- nazi, the Sephardi community of about fi ve dominantly Baghdadis dislodged by the war to seven thousand represents a fragmented and postwar independence movements. Fol- minority, seeking to maintain cohesion within lowing a secret report in 1948 warning that its ranks while making valuable contributions many of the Indian Jews who wished to immi- to the host country in every domain. Retain- grate were “coloured,” the Immigration Minis- ing a distinctive Sephardi identity is becom- try, under Arthur Calwell, decided to prohibit ing increasingly problematic for the younger entry to all Jews from Asia and the Middle generation because of the lack of adequate East, except in special circumstances. Sephardi educational facilities. Th e growing Th e second wave consisted mainly of Jews socialization of Sephardi youth with the from . Some were able to enter the dominant Ashkenazim in , Jewish country in 1948, but aft er the 1956 , day schools, and Zionist organizations, and they found it diffi cult to obtain landing per- the subsequent rate of intermarriage will fur- mits. Strong representations by the leader of ther dilute their sense of identity. the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Sydney D. Einfeld, led the government to Bibliography accept those with relatives or sponsors in Gale, Naomi. “Sephardim and Sephardic Iden- Australia. Einfeld also pleaded the case of tity in Sydney,” Journal of the Australian Jewish Iraqi/Indian and Moroccan Jews. From the Historical Society 11, pt. 2 (1991): 331–351. 1960s, Israeli Sephardim with family connec- . Th e Sephardim of Sydney: Coping with tions in the country were granted admission. Political Processes and Social Pressures (Sussex: Some Turkish Jews entered Australia in the Sussex Academic Press, 2005). early 1970s, following immigration treaties Jupp, James. Immigration (Sydney: Sydney between the two countries. Th ey all called University Press, 1991). themselves Sephardim. Rutland, Suzanne D. Edge of the : Two In Adelaide and Perth, Sephardim have Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia merged with the Ashkenazi community, (Sydney: Collins Australia, 1988; 2nd ed. Syd- whereas in Sydney and Melbourne, they have ney: Brandl & Schlesinger, 1997).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 EJIW Also available online – www.brill.nl

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:451:55:45 PMPM 2 preview Samra, Myer. “Th e Founding of Bet Yosef: Con- ous attacks on by and the Otto- fl ict and Community among in mans, and the internecine warfare waged by Sydney” (Case Study: Human Action in Com- contenders to the Safavid throne. During the plex Organisations, May 2005). short and incomplete (Sunni) Afghan occu- . “Yisrael Rhammana: Constructions of pation of Iran (1722–1731), Jews and other Identity among Iraqi Jews in Sydney, Australia” non-Shīʿī minorities seem to have fared better (Ph.D. diss., University of Sydney, 1988). than during the reigns of the increasingly intolerant late Safavid shahs. During this cha- Racheline Barda otic age, some of the leaders of the Jewish community of Kashan, pressed by rapacious taxes and outright plunder instigated by Tahmāsp̣ Qulī Khān (the future → Nādir Shah, Bābāī b. Farhād r. 1736–1747), decided to convert to in order to preserve their wealth and, perhaps, their lives. Th ey and the rest of the Jewish Bābāī b. Farhād was the author of Kitāb-I community, whom they coerced to join them, Sar-Guzasht-i Kāshān dar bāb-i ʿibrī va became → (Heb. forced converts), goyimi-yi sānī (Th e Book of Events in Kashan outwardly practicing Islam but secretly faith- Concerning the Jews; Th eir Second Conver- ful to . Bābāī b. Farhād was caught up sion), a Judeo-Persian chronicle in verse cover- in these events. According to his own account, ing selected events during the reigns of the he penned a petition asking Shah Tahmāsp̣ II Safavid shahs Sultan Ḥusayn (1694–1722) to restore Jewish religious freedom, but the and Ṭahmāsp II (1722–1731). communal leaders did not send it, thinking it → Bābāī b. Farhād was the author of Kitāb-i better to deal with Tahmāsp̣ Qulī Khān, the Sar-Guzasht-i Kāshān dar bāb-i ʿibrī va Goy- shah’s general, rather than with the shah him- imi-yi Sānī (Th e Book of Events in Kashan self. Th is worked out well, because Tahmāsp̣ Concerning the Jews; Th eir Second Conver- Qulī Khān eventually allowed the Jews to resume sion), the second Judeo-Persian chronicle in their faith upon payment of further “fi nes.” verse known thus far. It covers selected events Nothing is known about Bābāī b. Farhād between 1721 and 1731 during the reigns of beyond the meager information in his chroni- → → the Safavid shahs( Safavid shahs) Sultan cle, because no other work of his has surfaced. Ḥusain (1694–1722) and Tahmāsp II (1722– He clearly came from a relatively well educated 1731). Bābāī b. Farhād acknowledges that his family, but his learning, as judged from the lit- inspiration to record mostly contemporary erary and analytical features of his chronicle, events, some of which he witnessed, came was inferior to his grandfather’s. His writing of → from Kitāb-i Anusī (Th e Book of a Forced a petition to the shah and its rejection by the Convert), the fi rst Judeo-Persian chronicle, community’s leaders suggests that he occupied → composed by his grandfather Bābāī b. Lutf.̣ a low position in the communal hierarchy. While the emphasis of Bābāī b. Farhād’s chronicle is on the brief (approximately Bibliography seven-month) period of apostasy of the Jews Bacher, Wilhelm. Les Juifs de Perse au XVIIe → of Kashan, his hometown, it also describes et au XVIII siècles d’après les chroniques de the hardships Iranian Jews endured in other Babai b. Loutf et de Babai b. Farhad (: A. towns, notably → Isfahan and → Hamadan, Durlacher, 1907). along with a few important events external to Moreen, Vera Basch. Iranian Jewry’s Hour of the Jewish community. Peril and Heroism: A Study of Bābāī Ibn Lutf’ṣ Bābāī b. Farhād lived in a turbulent period. Chronicle (1617–1662) ( and Jerusa- He witnessed the downfall of the Safavids at lem: American Academy for Jewish Research, the hands of the Afghans (1722), simultane- 1987).

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 2 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:461:55:46 PMPM preview 3 Moreen, Vera Basch. Iranian Jewry During the Jews have so melted into the rest of the popu- Afghan Invasion: Th e “Kitāb-iSar-Guzasht-i lation that it is impossible to distinguish them.” Kāshān” of Bābāī b. Farhād (Stuttgart: Franz In 1852, it was estimated that there were Steiner Verlag, 1990). fi ft een hundred baḥusiṃ in . Th e Alge- . “Th e Kitab-i Anusi of Babai ibn Lutf rian baḥusiṃ eked out their livelihood from (Seventeenth Century) and the Kitab-i Sar peddling and jewelry smithing; those in Tuni- Guzasht of Babai ibn Farhad (Eighteenth Cen- sia from agriculture. Th e baḥusiṃ were gen- tury): A Comparison of Two Judaeo-Persian erally illiterate and knew little about Judaism. Chronicles,” in Intellectual Studies on Islam, Th ey swore by Sīdnā Mūsā (Ar. Our master ed. Michel M. Mazzaoui and Vera B. Moreen Moses), as Muslims would do by Muḥammad, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990). and abstained from work on the . Th e Semitist and intrepid traveler Nahum Slouschz Vera Basch Moreen recounts that only one aged patriarch in the baḥusiṃ clan that he visited in in the fi rst decade of the twentieth century knew the Jewish prayers by rote. Baḥusiṃ In 1912, there were still about 150 families of baḥusiṃ in Tunisia. Th ey all but disap- peared aft er the First World War. Some con- Th e baḥusiṃ (Heb. outsiders) were semi- verted to Islam, while the rest moved into the nomadic Jews in western Tunisia and eastern towns, living at fi rst on the outskirts in huts, Algeria who led a tribal existence like that of but later integrating into the local Jewish the Bedouin and made their living from agri- communities. culture, peddling, and smithing. Th ey were relatively numerous in the mid-nineteenth Bibliography century, but their numbers dwindled consid- Pellissier, E. Description de la Régence de Tunis erably by the early twentieth century. (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1853), p. 186. Baḥusiṃ (Heb. outsiders), or sometimes Slouschz, Nahum. Travels in (Phil- baḥusiyyạ , a slightly arabized variant of the adelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1927), Hebrew, was the name Jewish townsfolk gave pp. 295–305. to the semi-nomadic, tent-dwelling Jews who Taïeb, Jacques. Être Juif au à la veille lived in duwwārs, or small encampments, in de la colonisation (Paris: Albin Michel, 1994), the area extending from the region around pp. 38–39. Jerid and Le Kef in western → Tunisia to the province of → Constantine across the border Norman A. Stillman in → Algeria, where they could be found between Suq-el-Ahras and → Tébessa and in the southern oases. Muslims referred to them as Yahūd al-cArab (Ar. Bedouin Jews). Basrī,̣ Meʾir (Mīr) Th e baḥusiṃ were oft en allied with or under the protection of larger Arab tribal confedera- tions, and they themselves oft en bore the tribal Me’ir (Mīr) Basrị̄ was born in Baghdad in name of Awlād Maymūn (Sons of Maimon). 1911 and died in in 2006. An econo- Pellissier de Reynaud, writing in 1853, states mist and director of the Baghdad Chamber of that “In the region of Sers, there is a rather Commerce, he was the fi rst and last Jewish considerable number of living exactly offi cial in the Iraqi Foreign Offi ce. He was the same life as the , armed and dressed also active in Jewish communal, administra- like them, riding horseback like them, and tive, and educational aff airs, was the last pres- making, when necessary, war like them. Th ese ident of the Jewish Community in , and

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 3 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:461:55:46 PMPM 4 preview was a writer of modern poetry and Baghdad. From 1947, he was director of com- prose. merce and publicity as well as deputy director Meir (Mīr) Basrị̄ was born in Baghdad in of the Dates Association at the Ministry of 1911 and died in London on January 4, 2006. Economics, but in 1952 left these posts to Th e scion of two distinguished families of enter private business. and businessmen, the Basrīṣ and the In addition to government service, Basrị̄ Dangoors, he was the last president of the played an important role in the Jewish com- Jewish Community in Iraq. As the one of munity. He was a member of the board of the older generation of Jewish offi cials and directors of the Community Council in Bagh- businessmen who considered themselves to dad (1945), and its deputy chairman from be Iraqi patriots, he remained in Iraq until 1947 to 1950. He chaired the Educational forced into exile in 1974 by the Baʿath regime. Committee in 1958 and the Jewish Adminis- Basrị̄ was educated at the Alliance School trative Committee in Iraq (1967). Aft er the in → Baghdad, where he studied French, Eng- death of Chief and community head lish, and Hebrew. Later he privately studied Sassoon → Khadduri (May 24, 1971), Basrị̄ economics and contemporary literature. In was elected president of the Jewish Commu- his youth he composed poetry in French and nity and chairman of the Jewish Council of Hebrew and was infl uenced by Bialik, Shneor, Iraq. During the diffi cult period from 1967 to and Tchernichowsky, as well as by the French 1974, he maintained daily contact with the and English romantic poets. He then devoted government, seeking to help Jews who had himself to Arabic poetry and became one been arrested or imprisoned and making of the leading romantic poets of Iraq, where inquiries into the whereabouts of those who he fi rst introduced the form of the English had disappeared. He was himself imprisoned sonnet. for three months in early 1969. He left Bagh- Not long aft er his graduation from the Alli- dad for in 1974, and the follow- ance school in 1928, Basrī’ṣ knowledge of ing year moved to London with his family. European languages enabled him to become Basrị̄ published fourteen books in Arabic a high offi cial in the new Iraqi Foreign Minis- on topics ranging from history and econom- try under the British Mandate. Five years later ics to biographies of politicians, artists, he was transferred to the General Post and and men of letters. He also wrote poetry Telegram Services under the newly indepen- and short stories. His later books include dent government. In 1935 he became deputy Aʿlām al-Yahūd fi ʿl-ʿIraq al-Ḥadīth (Eminent secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, and Jewish Men of Modern Iraq), 2 vols. (Jerusa- in 1943, its director, and was also founding lem, 1983–93), Aghānī al-Ḥubb wa-ʾl-Khulūd editor of the monthly Journal of the Chamber (Songs of Love and Eternity), an anthology of of Commerce (Majallat Ghurfat Tijārat Baghdād) his poems written over sixty years (, (1938–45). In 1936 he became deputy super- 1991), and Riḥlat al-ʾUmr min Ḍifāf Dijla ilā visor of the Stock Exchange. Th e following Wādī al-Tāymis (Life’s Journey from the Banks year he was sent by to Paris by the govern- of the tothe Valley of the Th ames: Remi- ment to serve as assistant to the Iraqi general niscences and Th oughts), his memoirs (Jeru- deputy to the International Fair. In October salem, 1992). In his memoirs, Basrị̄ is sober 1944 he joined the Iraqi delegation to the and practical, expressing no grudges or bitter- International Congress of Commerce in Rye, ness in spite of the persecution and calamities New York, and lectured on the Iraqi economy that befell him and his community. at various institutions in the . In 1945, he was appointed director of the Orient Bibliography Commerce Company, and was elected a mem- Basrī,̣ Me’ir. Riḥlat al-’Umr min Ḍifāf Dijla ber of the General District Committee, and ilā Wadī al-Tāymis (Jerusalem: Association of the Administrative Board of the District of Jewish Academics from Iraq, 1992).

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 4 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:461:55:46 PMPM preview 5 Moreh, Shmuel. “Basrī,̣ Mīr,” in Encyclopedia companions in the fellowship. Th e second of Arabic Literature (London: Routledge, 1998), charter concerned the community’s response vol. 1, p. 141. to catastrophes aff ecting members. Th e sign- ers commit themselves to provide for the Shmuel Moreh education of their companions’ children and to take special measures in the event of a companion’s illness or death. Th ey also com- mitted themselves to recite the books of Psalms, Bet El Kabbalists a common response to catastrophe. In the fourth charter the comrades designated themselves as the Ahavat group, an Th e Bet El is the preeminent school appellation that survives to this day. of Lurianic Kabbala, mainly because of the Th e pietistic life of the Bet El kabbalists was system of prayer intentions (kavvanot) insti- distinguished by the structure of the fellow- tuted by its charismatic founder, Rabbi Shalom ship. Th ere were three main areas of study: Sharʾabi. Although founded in the eighteenth exoteric, philosophical (maḥshevet Yisraʾel), century, the school and its off shoots continue and Kabbala. Th e group was divided into three to fl ourish in the twenty-fi rst century. “watches” (mishmarot) that eff ectively kept the Th e Bet El yeshiva was founded in 1737 by study room populated twenty-four hours a Rabbi Gedaliah → Ḥayyun in the of day. Th e fi rst watch began at the midnight vigil Jerusalem as a part of the general fl owering (tiqqun ḥasoṭ ) and concentrated on the study of Kabbala in eighteenth-century Jerusalem. of Lurianic Kabbala, particularly Vital’s Eṣ Th e yeshiva was galvanized by its second leader, Ḥayyim. Th e second watch commenced aft er the Yemenite kabbalist → Shalom Sharʾabi the morning prayers and continued until the (1720–1780, also known as RaSHaSH). aft ernoon. Th e third watch ran from the aft er- Sharʾabi bequeathed a system of contempla- noon to the evening service and concentrated tive kabbalistic prayer that has been the school’s on the study of Mishna and . defi ning system ever since and is responsible Th e Bet El “school” consists of a specifi c for its preeminence among practitioners of the lineage of sages drawn from a limited set of most arcane systems of → Lurianic Kabbala. communities. Sharʾabi’s teachings circulated Th e early Bet El group left a number of among the Jews of the Middle East, from documents. Th e most signifi cant of these Jerusalem to → Aleppo (Ḥalab) and thence to were four charters, or writs of fellowship → Baghdad, with contributions from the (shetaroṭ hitkashsherut), based on documents “sages of → Tunis.” Acolytes of Sharʾabi’s teach- of the same type instituted by the kab- ings dominated the Sephardic chief rabbinate balist → Ḥayyim Vital with the object of of Jerusalem in the late eighteenth and nine- coalescing the circles that had formed around teenth centuries. Several of the men desig- under his own leadership. Th us nated rishon le-siyyoṇ ( of the the four charters are evidence that the Bet El Sephardic community) and → ḥakham bāshī kabbalists self-consciously patterned them- (offi cial religious liaison to the ) selves on the Lurianic circles, which in turn were theorists of Sharʾabi’s method, active in were patterned on the kabbalistic fellowships the Bet El circle, and even his lineal heirs. described in the . From its founding through the end of the Th e fi rst charter refl ects concerns about twentieth century, the heads of Bet El were: the continuity of the fellowship and the pres- Gedaliah Ḥayyun (1737–1745), Shalom Sharabi ervation of its social structure and spiritual (1745–1780), → Yom Tov Algazi (1780–1802), intensity. Th e signatories, like those who Isaac Sharʾabi (1802–1808), → Abra- signed Vital’s charter, committed themselves ham Shalom Sharʾabi (1808–1827), → Ḥayyim to act lovingly and with humility toward their Abraham Gagin (1827–1850), → Yedidya Raphael

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 5 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:461:55:46 PMPM 6 preview Abulafi a (1850–1871), → Aaron Azriel (1871– Abuḥaserạ (the ), the ḥakham (sage) 1881), → Shalom Moses Ḥayy Gagin (1881– Yisḥ ̣aq Kadduri of the Bukharan community, 1883), Sasson Bakher Moses (1883–1903), and his student Shmuel Darsi. Masʿud ha- Alḥadad (1903–1927), Shalom Hadaya (1927–1945), Ovadiah Bibliography Hadaya (1945–1948), Yehudah Meyer Getz Duwayk, Ḥayyim Saul, and Elijah Jacob Legimi. (1975–1995). Th ere were periods in which Kavvanot Pratiyot (Jerusalem 1911), fols. 4a-5b. the leadership of the yeshiva was contested or Fine, Lawrence (ed.). Judaism in Practice: From vacant. As of 2008, the Geulah campus is the Middle Ages through the Early Modern headed by a member of the Hadaya family, Period (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University whereas leadership of the Old City center Press, 2005). remains open. Hillel, Ya’akov Moshe. Introduction to Ḥayyim In 1896, in part because of internal ten- Shaul Duwayk, Pe’at ha-Sadeh (Jerusalem: sions in the community, a breakaway group Ahavat Shalom, 1998), pp. 40–41. founded the Reḥovot ha-Nahar yeshiva in the Jacobs, Louis. Th e Schocken Book of Jewish Yissacharoff Synagogue in the Bukharan Mystical Testimonies (New York: Schocken, 1976), pp. 199–202. quarter of Jerusalem’s New City. Th e group Margoliot, Y. A. Z. Introduction to Zevi Hirsch was led by Nissim Nahum of Tripoli, with the of Zidatchov, Ṣevi le-Ṣaddik (Samet: Monroe assistance of → Ḥayyim Saul Dweck (Duwayk) 1999), p. 38. of Aleppo. Dweck had left Bet El in the midst Moskowitz, Ṣevi. Ḥayyei ha-RaSHaSH (Jerusa- of a controversy over the proper kavvanot to lem: Safra, 1969). be recited for the Sabbatical year. Reḥovot ha- Sharʾabi, Raphael Avraham Shalom. Divrei Nahar was devoted to the practice of kavva- Shalom (Jerusalem, 1908). not, apparently to the exclusion of Talmud study. Like Bet El, the new institution oper- Pinchas Giller ated around the clock. Th e daily schedule began with nightly immersion in the ritual bath (), the midnight vigil (Tiqqun Ḥasoṭ ), and the recitation of prayers with Biton, Erez Sharʾabi’s kavvanot. Reḥovot ha-Nahar served as a center for Aleppan scholars and came to include other newcomers to Jerusalem from Erez Biton (b. 1942) is a gift ed Israeli poet and the Maghreb, as well as a signifi - of Moroccan origin and a culture hero for an cant contingent of Ashkenazim. Th e leaders emerging generation of Mizraḥi writers and of the early Ashkenazic pietistic circles in intellectuals. He is unique for his artistic Jerusalem, Moshe Nahum Wallenstein, Aryeh treatment of his blindness, Moroccan ethnic- Leib Beharad, and Zevi Pesaḥ Frank, as well ity in Israeli society, confl icts of identity, and as the Hasidic rabbinical court, gave their his touching portrayals of family members, approbation to Ḥayyim Saul Dweck and Eli- and of personal tragedies and joys. jah Jacob Legimi’s book of popular peniten- Erez Biton, born in 1942 in → , Alge- tial rites, Benayahu ben Yehoyada. ria, came to in 1948 and was the fi rst In recent years there has been renewed Mizraḥi poet to give poignant expression enthusiasm for the Bet El form of contempla- to the inner confl icts of acculturation. A tive prayer, and it is being propagated with a childhood accident from an unexploded gre- new urgency. Prayer with kavvanot is now the nade while he was playing in a junkyard left province of the wonder-working rabbis who Biton blinded and maimed, and added a have come to prominence in the last three dimension of rare acuteness, sensitivity, and decades, a line of recently departed sages immediacy to his poetry and persona. Labeled that included Mordechai Sharʾabi, Israel a “cultural icon,” Biton overcame his handi-

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 6 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:471:55:47 PMPM preview 7 caps and poverty to become a social worker characterized by subtlety, impassioned spon- with an M.A. in psychology. He founded and taneity, and heightened sensory awareness. edited the literary journal Apirion, served as His books are Minḥa Maroqaʾit (Moroccan president of the Hebrew Writers Association, Gift , 1976), Sefer Ha-Naʿana (Th e Book of and has been an active force in promoting Mint, 1979), and Ṣippor Ben Yabbashot (Inter- Mediterranean cultural affi liations and activi- continental Bird, 1989). ties in Israel. Biton’s poem “First Background Data” Bibliography recalls his earliest exposure to the sensual Alcalay, Ammiel. Keys to the Garden: New Israeli experience of Moroccan family life while in Writing (San Francisco: City Lights Books, his interior life he absorbed the sounds of 1996). Bach’s Masses through the fi lter of the Judeo- Bargad, Warren and Stanley F. Chyet. No Sign Moroccan dialect. A much more ironic tone, of Ceasefi re: An Anthology of Contemporary sometimes subtle sometimes acerbic, is evi- Israeli Poetry (Detroit: Wayne State University dent in poems such as “Shopping Song on Press, 2002). Dizengoff .” Th e poet describes his eff orts to Spicehandler, Ezra and Stanley Burnshaw, T. open a shop in order “to strike some roots, to Carmi, Susan Glassman and Ariel Hirschfeld, buy some roots, / to fi nd a spot [for himself] Th e Poem Itself: a new and at the Roval [Café]” and become a true Israeli. updated edition (Detroit: Wayne State Univer- sity Press, 2003), pp. 255–258, 332–333. At the same time, he resents having to change Tucker, Naft ali. “Ha-ʿEmda ha-Ironit beyn his identity and accommodate himself by Shtey Tarbuyyot: ʿal Shirato shel Erez “unsheathing” his ever so proper, “up-to- Biton,” originally in Zehut, Vol. 3 (Summer, date” Hebrew to fi nd favor. At night he returns 1983) and posted at http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/ home to the suburbs and “another Hebrew.” sifrut/maamarim/toker-2.htm. Biton’s “Synopsis of a Conversation” is at once Vieg, Shoshana. “Shirei ha-ʿIvvaron shel ha- more adamant and more insecure. Trying to Meshorer Erez Biton: Re’ayon li-Khvod Ḥag be “authentic,” he fl aunts his Moroccan eth- ha-Urim,” an interview conducted on Decem- nicity in the Café Roval, but “falls between” ber 11, 2003 and posted in the on-line journal the competing dialects and aromas in a jum- e-mago.co.il. See http://www.e-mago.co.il/Editor/ ble of identities. literature-649.htm. Biton’s remarkable poems about his blind- ness have given him a unique status in Hebrew Stanley Nash poetry. Whether describing his youthful expe- riences in the excellent Jerusalem School for the Blind, or his parents’ reactions on the night following his accident, or his eff orts as a father Cairo Geniza: General Survey to reach out to his young son, his poetry leaves and History of Discovery an indelible impression. His “Th e Earthquake at Agadir” is an unforgettable poetic lament, while his “Ballad of the Falling Bridge” expresses More than 200,000 manuscript fragments, not only anguish at the human tragedy but dis- mainly in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo- appointment with society’s response. Arabic, and usually written on vellum or Many of Biton’s poems, such as → “Zohra El paper, were amassed in Fustat (old Cairo) Fassia’s song,” expose the tragedy of the dis- between the eleventh and nineteenth centu- placed, unfulfi lled lives of North African Jews ries. Th e vast majority of the texts date from in Israel as well as the social disparities inad- the tenth to the thirteenth century and are equately addressed by Israeli social workers now housed in many libraries around the and offi cials. None of this, however, has the world, with almost 70 percent at Cambridge ring of strident militancy. Biton’s voice is University Library. Th eir conservation and

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 7 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:471:55:47 PMPM 8 preview research have revolutionized knowledge of could no longer be used because they were medieval Jewish life, religion, language, and damaged, worn, or considered heretical. culture in the eastern Mediterranean and Th e system of geniza took various forms, have shed light on the interactions of Jews, some rabbinic communities burying the Muslims, and Christians. material in the ground, some placing it in caves or tombs, and others storing it in a des- Source ignated part of the synagogue. Most geniza “Geniza” is a convenient one-word title to collections probably did not survive, and it is describe an extensive and unique collection only due to a remarkable combination of fac- of medieval manuscripts, mainly in Hebrew, tors that the texts from the Cairo Geniza have → Judeo-Arabic, and Aramaic, and usually given modern historians such a rich source of written on vellum and paper, that has illumi- information. Th ere was a Jewish community nated virtually every aspect of life in and in Fustat for at least a thousand years, consti- around the eastern Mediterranean areas of tuting in the early part of its existence a major the Islamic world a thousand years ago. Th e hub of Jewish activity, and the dry climate collection, consisting of well in excess of of the Cairo area ensured that texts did not 200,000 items (written on almost half a mil- succumb to the ravages of time. Even more lion folios) was amassed in Fustat (old Cairo) important, synagogue offi cials in the Fustat between the eleventh and nineteenth centu- community did not take the trouble either to ries and most of its contents relate to the sort the written materials to separate items three-hundred-year period beginning when that technically required the process of geniza the Fatimid dynasty came to power (969 C.E.). or to take them to the cemetery. Th ey pre- Th ough originating in the Jewish communi- ferred to store everything that was brought to ties of Fustat and fi nally located at the end of them, so that by the middle of the nineteenth the nineteenth century in the Ben Ezra syna- century a huge cache of documents awaited gogue, the material, which is almost always in the attentions of those who were on the look- fragmentary form, relates not only to Jewish out for precious manuscripts. Perhaps there history, religion, and everyday life, but to was also in their approach a conviction that broader ideas and events that also touch on any Hebrew letters or documents written important developments among Muslims by or about Jews carried an intrinsic holiness and Christians. or even a magical power and should con- Th e motivation for the preservation of all sequently attract the appropriate degree of these texts did not lie in a desire to build an veneration. archive but in a deep, and essentially religious, Th e incentives for pursuing such treasures respect for the written word. Th e stem from were varied. Financial considerations, aca- which the Hebrew word geniza is derived may demic interests, religious identities, and tour- be of Persian origin but is widely used in the ing activities all played a part, and the central in the senses of “hiding,” roles were taken by dealers, scholars, com- “covering,” and “burying.” Th e rabbis of the munal offi cials, and visitors. Th e Karaite early Christian centuries occasionally used leader → Abraham Firkovitch acquired items the term to describe special treasures usually in the Karaite synagogues of Cairo aft er 1865 stored up by God, but it was most commonly and brought them to Russia (where they are used, as geniza, to describe the religious duty now housed in the Russian National Library of preserving items that could neither con- in St. Petersburg). Th ese items have parallels tinue to be in circulation nor be destroyed, or in the material found in the Ben Ezra syna- as bet geniza to refer to the place to which gogue and thus encourage the belief that the they were consigned to await natural disinte- latter collection may have originated in a gration. Such items usually contained the variety of communal locations in Cairo. Th e name of God or some scriptural passage but material that is probably more directly con-

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 8 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:471:55:47 PMPM preview 9 nected with the made its Having made friends with the chief rabbi way to a number of major research libraries in of Cairo, Rabbi → Raphael Aaron Ben-Simeon, the 1880s and early 1890s by way of various and with aid of prominent wealthy members visitors but primarily through the eff orts of of the Cairo Jewish community, Schechter four scholarly personalities. was able to obtain their approval (also with certain fi nancial inducements in the direc- Discovery and Study tion of some of the junior offi cials), and to A Jerusalem bookseller, Rabbi send back to Cambridge University Library Aaron Wertheimer, saw the signifi cance of about 140,000 manuscript fragments. He, many texts and edited some of them for pub- Taylor, Lewis, and Gibson and a few other lication. His impecunious circumstances, scholars worked on them for about a decade however, forced him to sell them, and most and completed some initial sorting of about reached the Bodleian Library in Oxford and 20 percent of the collection. Cambridge today the Cambridge University Library. Another also hosts the Westminster College Collec- source of Geniza material for these two major tion and the Mosseri Collection. Although centers in was Greville Chester, an some research and publication proceeded Anglican cleric and Egyptologist, who clearly during the years that saw the two world wars, received good advice about what was aca- there was no systematic treatment of any of demically signifi cant, since he passed on the Geniza collections, nor any major atten- more than averagely important pieces to the tion to their importance for medieval social two libraries. Th e archimandrite of the Rus- and economic developments, and not exclu- sian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, Antonin sively for literary history, until the 1950s. Kapustin, acquired numerous fragments for A change in the situation was primarily St. Petersburg, and the son of the British chief due to the eff orts of Shelomo Dov Goitein, rabbi , the lawyer and who had studied in , settled in Brit- bibliophile Elkan , himself ish Mandatory , and then taught at visited the Ben Ezra Synagogue twice and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the aft er his second trip brought away a sackful of University of Pennsylvania. He exploited the many thousands of items. material so brilliantly that new interest was But it was Solomon Schechter and Charles kindled. First at Cambridge, with the estab- Taylor who ensured that Cambridge Univer- lishment of the Geniza Research Unit, and sity Library came to possess almost 70 percent then at all the major centers around the world, of all the Geniza texts in the world. Schechter, most recently with the aid of substantial fund- a Romanian-born rabbi with extensive peri- ing provided by the Friedberg Geniza Project, ods of traditional as well as critical learning the conservation, description, photography, behind him, was reader in talmudic and rab- and accessibility of all the Geniza materials binic literature at Cambridge, while Taylor, an were undertaken and are now being com- Anglican priest, mathematician, and Hebraist, pleted. Beginning about fi ft y years ago, copies was master of St. John’s College. Th eir involve- were made of all the items by the Institute ment, for its part, was initially inspired by the of Microfi lmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the widowed Scottish Presbyterian twin sisters, Jewish National and University Library in Mrs. Agnes Lewis and Mrs. Margaret Gibson, Jerusalem, and there are now major projects who had brought back manuscripts from their under way, planned and fi nanced by the latest visits to Egypt, , and the Holy Land Friedberg Geniza Project, to produce digi- and showed them to Schechter. He had iden- tized images of all the collections. Apart from tifi ed them as of major scholarly importance those in Cambridge, Oxford, and St Peters- and, with the encouragement, formal spon- burg, other major collections are to be found sorship, and fi nancial backing of Taylor, had at the Jewish Th eological Seminary in New sought of such treasures in Cairo. York, the British Library in London, the John

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 9 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:471:55:47 PMPM 10 preview Rylands University Library at the University ultimately became the most popular among of Manchester, the → Alliance Israélite Uni- the Jews of the Islamic world, but others verselle in Paris, and the University of Penn- clearly preceded him in this exercise. Much sylvania in Philadelphia. Th ere are smaller has also been added to knowledge of the collections in Cincinnati, Frankfurt-am-Main, rabbinic expansions of the biblical text in Jerusalem, Kiev, Strasbourg, Vienna, Birming- Aramaic known as targumim. Various com- ham, U.K., and Washington D.C. pilations have been newly identifi ed and include lengthy elaborations of the text, poetic Text and Interpretation versions of the narratives, and halakhic inter- It is not surprising to fi nd that much of the pretations of verses that run counter to what Geniza material relates to the . is found in the talmudic sources. For their Th e consonantal texts do not vary signifi - part, the Karaites created a new linguistic cantly from what is found in the major medi- identity for themselves that was at odds with eval codices, but there are three main systems the Rabbanite one by transliterating into of pointing Hebrew, rather than the one Arabic characters the Scripture that the two championed by the Tiberian → Ben Asher communities shared. Th e literary history of that ultimately became the norm for most midrashim has also gained much from Geniza Jewish communities, all of them developed in discoveries. Instead of relying on complete the or in Babylonia. Th ese two codices that date from the late medieval communities also had their own lectionary period, students of this genre of rabbinic systems, the former completing the readings interpretation may now look to hundreds of prescribed for the Pentateuch and the Proph- texts that are fragmentary but provide numer- ets over a period of three and a half years, ous examples of improved readings. In addi- while the latter completed them annually at tion, it has become clear that many more the end of the festival. Interest in the corpora of midrashim, both halakhic and Hebrew Bible was undoubtedly encouraged aggadic, were recorded in the classical geniza in the Rabbanite communities by the example period than had previously been known, and of the Karaites, who are also well represented that some of them were much more lively, in the Geniza source. It is clear that arguments colorful, and even daring than those that were about the role of the Hebrew Bible in Jewish more centrally transmitted. religious life inspired more attention on the Also of interest to biblical scholars are the part of both these communities to the more Geniza texts of apocryphal, pseudepigraphi- intensive study of grammar, syntax, and mas- cal, and related literature that is not normally oretic notation. Th e earliest Geniza manu- associated with or found scripts, dating from a century before the rise in standard synagogal texts. Fragments of of Islam, are palimpsests, the underwriting of (Ecclesiasticus) were located and which contains a few verses from the Greek published by Taylor and Schechter them- Bible translation of Aquila, compiled about selves, and later by other scholars, so that fi ve hundred years earlier. Th ese texts raise most of the Hebrew of the work is now extant, unresolved questions about which group was obviously in various levels of originality. One using this version in the sixth century C.E. of the Ben Sira manuscripts is particularly Th ere is also considerable evidence relat- close to the version discovered by Yigael ing to the exegesis of the Hebrew Bible. Tri- Yadin at Masada, and there are also texts of lingual versions of the biblical texts, off ering Tobit in Hebrew and the Testament of Levi in side-by-side the original Hebrew with Ara- Aramaic. Perhaps even more exciting was the maic and Judeo-Arabic renderings, were one discovery of the Document, the method of expounding the scriptural text. fi rst and most extensive text of which was → Saʿadya Gaon’s Judeo-Arabic rendering researched by Schechter and published by

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1010 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:481:55:48 PMPM preview 11 him in his Documents of Jewish Sectaries Th e practical application of Jewish reli- (Cambridge, 1910) with the title “Fragments gious law was always of central importance to of a Zadokite Work,” and much of the remain- the Jewish communities, and this is refl ected der of which has surfaced among the Dead in the thousands of items relating to the fi eld Sea Scrolls found in Cave 4 near Qumran. Did of . From the gaonic period onwards, such material survive among non-rabbinic there were tensions between the decisions groups of Jews between the fi rst and eighth cen- made in the Babylonian yeshivot and those turies, to be adopted and absorbed by the Kara- followed in the land of Israel, and lists of vari- ite community when it fl ourished in the period ations, as well as evidence of clashes, are immediately aft erwards? Or were such tradi- among the texts discovered. Th ere are textual tions preserved, despite talmudic objections, witnesses to the early codes, such as Sheʾiltot, by elements of the Rabbanite community that Halakhot Pesuqot, and Halakhot Gedolot, and were more broad-minded than Saʿadya and to their later counterparts, such as the Mishneh → would have wished? of Moses Maimonides, which probably has more fragments, including some in Judeo- Talmud and Halakha Arabic translation, than all the others together. Given that the printed texts of the Babylo- Th ere are guides to such topics as testimonies nian Talmud refl ect what was written in the and deeds, as exemplifi ed in the Sefer ha- codices available in the late fi ft eenth and early Shetaroṭ of Saʿadya Gaon, and large numbers sixteenth centuries, and that there were few of responsa, particularly from the Mai- editions or manuscripts of the less well stud- monides family, that are especially concerned ied Palestinian Talmud, it is hardly surprising with ritual slaughter, inheritance, and mar- that Geniza texts that are almost half a mil- riage. Marriage and divorce documents tes- lennium earlier should be contributing to the tify to a greater concern with the rights of reconstruction of many talmudic passages. women in the land of Israel than in Babylonia Th ey are especially valuable when a Greek or and to the paleographic, linguistic, and legal Persian word, or a long-lost Hebrew or Ara- diff erences between the Karaite and Rabban- maic usage or expression, can be rescued ite procedures. from the textual corruption it has suff ered over the centuries and restored to its pristine Liturgy and Poetry form. Th e distinctions between Eastern and Th e study of liturgy has benefi ted greatly Western Aramaic are better preserved in the from Geniza discoveries. Th ere are novel or Geniza texts, and the Spanish and Portuguese otherwise unknown benedictions, later forgot- incunables from the fi ft eenth century oft en ten or rejected. Examples relate to recitations off er better readings than the later Italian and of the Shemaʿ, psalm collections, the Yom Polish editions. What has also become clearer Kippur confession, and Mishna 2; is the process whereby the talmudic text was and to the kindling of Sabbath lights and the not only transmitted but also expounded, hand-washing during the seder. via the minor tractates, the statements of Discoveries include previously unknown gaonic authorities, and compilations of run- texts of the Qaddish and Qedusha; the various ning commentaries. Work done on such ʿAmidot; the morning benedictions and commentaries by Hay Gaon in the Babylo- the grace aft er meals; and the references to nian center of Pumbedita, then by → Ḥananel special days on and festivals. Also ben Ḥushiel in → Qayrawan, Tunisia, and by documented are a varied employment of the latter’s successor, Nissim ben Jacob ibn psalms and other biblical verses, novel cere- Shahin, has been reconstructed and illumi- monials associated with the synagogal use nated, and numerous treatises have emerged of the , variations in the order about which little or nothing was known. of prayers, and the honorifi c mention of

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1111 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:481:55:48 PMPM 12 preview living persons. Furthermore, the inclusion of to describe the “celestial palaces,” as well as the Ten Commandments and the Song at the many items in the realm of → magic that tes- Sea (Exodus 15) as integral parts of the lit- tify to a daily concern with its power and con- urgy, and of mystical and messianic expan- trol. Th is concern is also expressed in the sions to the Qedusha, Shemaʿ, Qiddush, “scientifi c” areas of medicine, astronomy, Havdala, and Passover , have been → astrology, and mathematics. In addition, identifi ed. It has been possible to trace the there are texts in the areas of philosophy, the- infl uence of the two major rites-those of the ology, and polemics which demonstrate land of Israel and of -on the forma- internal Jewish divisions as well as the chal- tion of all later prayer texts. Th e use of Hebrew, lenges presented by other religious practices Aramaic, and Judeo-Arabic has been noted and, indeed, by those attacking what they saw not only in prayers and liturgical poems tra- as naive faith. Although there are items writ- ditionally been expressed in one or other of ten in classical Arabic, → Judeo-Spanish, these languages but also in other contexts → Judeo-Greek, → Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Ger- where the expected language is surprisingly man, and even medieval French, the main replaced by one of the others. competitor to Hebrew and Aramaic is In the realm of poetry, the numerous folios undoubtedly → Judeo-Arabic. Most of the and authors restored to knowledge have eff ec- fragments pertaining to everyday life, rather tively created a greatly expanded fi eld of than to what might be described as the more study. While 40,000 compositions were once sacred activities and literature of a religious available to enthusiasts of medieval Hebrew community, are composed in that . poetry, today they have some 100,000 items It is in this language that what is widely known to consult. Earlier texts-some on papyrus, as the documentary rather than the literary perhaps as early as the eighth century-are Geniza is to be found. Th e contents range now available, authorship is better estab- across all the subjects described above but lished, and whole new schools of poets have also supply a broad range of letters, docu- been added to the history of Hebrew verse. ments, reports, lists, accounts, and jottings. Research has clarifi ed medieval Hebrew poetry’s characteristics, aesthetic value, Bibliography extensive and complicated rules, and how Goitein, Shelomo D. A Mediterranean Society: it refl ects levels of Jewish literacy. It has Th e Jewish Communities of the Arab World as become clear how the whole literary genre Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo blossomed in gaonic Palestine, and been sug- Geniza, 5 vols. (Berkeley: University of Califor- gested that poetry represented the primary nia Press, 1967–88). Jewish entertainment of the time. It is possi- Lamberg, Phyllis (ed.). Fortifi cations and the ble to describe the emergence of a Saʿadianic Synagogue: Th e Fortress of Babylon and the school in Babylon that made daring linguistic Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo (London: Weiden- and structural innovations. Comparisons feld & Nicolson, 1994). may be made between such poems and those Reif, Stefan C. A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: composed in , , North Africa, Th e History of Cambridge University’s Geniza Collection (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000). and . A most exciting fi nd relates to a Richler, . Guide to Hebrew Manuscript married couple, none other than the famous Collections (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of tenth-century linguist and poet → Dunash ibn Sciences and Humanities, 1994). Labr and his wife. Stefan Reif Other areas Th ere is also a whole range of mystical material in the Geniza, including the genre called hekhalot literature because it purports

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1212 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:481:55:48 PMPM preview 13 Homosexuality in Jewish Islamic civilization, where women were almost entirely absent from the public sphere. society Desire and mutual erotic attraction between members of the same sex was accepted as a natural emotion and did not awaken feelings Judaism and Islam both strictly forbid sex- of guilt or shame. At the same time, it was not ual relations between males, but they were far seen as fi tting to address this phenomenon in from consistent on such matters, and thus public or to admit to its existence. In these there was a sizable gap between mores and societies, gender was not considered a natu- theological literature in the premodern Islamic ral, fi xed characteristic. Male or female iden- world. Romantic and sexual ties between men tity was determined by the sum of social were a fairly widespread phenomenon among behaviors, including sexual orientation. Muslims, and given the extent of Jewish accul- Dominance and penetration were signs of turation, it is not surprising that this was also masculinity, without regard to the biological true of Jews. Th e Cairo Geniza and the mag- sex of the object of desire or to the predicate nifi cent Hebrew poetry of al-Andalus provide act, and men’s need for the charms of youths documentary and literary evidence for the did not bear any negative stigma. Nor was Middle Ages, while Hebrew and other sources there a binary division between heterosexu- from the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and North als and homosexuals, or between normative Africa document it for the fi ft eenth through sexuality and deviant sexuality. the nineteenth century. In the later era, the Sexual role was dictated in large measure existence of Jewish dancing boys who oft en by social standing. Generally, carnal relations engaged in homosexual prostitution was noted occurred between individuals of unequal from Egypt to Iran. standing in terms of class and age, and took Human sexual activity is infl uenced by its the form of sexual intercourse with youths surroundings, and whether it is labeled as and slaves. Th e sex belonging to the object of “normative” or “deviant” depends upon the the man’s penetration had no importance: norms relative to the place and time, the social youth, man, or woman, slave or free—all were and cultural contexts, and the standing of the suitable choices. Since penetration was seen individual. Th e study of homosexuality to humiliate and subserviate the passive part- among Jews in the Ottoman Empire and in ner, the latter oft en became an object of scorn, the lands of Islam, and also of the attitude of and a man who continued by choice to engage Jewish society, amply demonstrates this. in anal passivity was indeed cast as a deviant. Like Judaism (Lev. 18:22 and 20:13), Islam Prior to their development of facial hair, youths strictly forbids sexual relations between males were considered to possess a female sexual (Qur’an 7:81, 26:165, 27:55; and even more identity and therefore were quite legitimate explicitly in the ḥadīth), but in actuality, the objects for masculine desire—and occasion- offi cial stance on this question was far from ally were even preferred (from the perspective consistent. Th e strict rules of sharīʿa for estab- of aesthetics). Th e many homoerotic motifs in lishing proof of adultery and sexual crimes belles lettres, Islamic mysticism, the popular- almost entirely prevented such cases from ity of sex manuals, and books of pictures and being brought to court, nor is it at all clear to dream interpretations dealing with sexual rela- what degree the punishments ordained in tions between members of the same sex all sharīʿa and civil law (Ar.-Turk. qānūn) were strengthen this impression. carried out. Research reveals a noticeable gap Th e expression of love between males was between the moral norms of the theological an open secret, and European travelers and books and the mores current in premodern diplomats who came to the lands of Islam society. Romantic and sexual ties between noted this with shock. Stories describing the men were a fairly widespread phenomenon in extent of homoerotic relations in the Orient

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1313 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:481:55:48 PMPM 14 preview identifi ed Islam with “Sodomism” and with homoerotic Hebrew poetry, there is the evi- immoral and degenerate sexuality and, in dence of halakhic and other literature con- doing so, contributed to the demonization and demning improper conduct. Huss maintains delegitimization of the threatening and hated that medieval Andalusian and Middle East- Muslim enemy (see Daniel, pp. 141–145). ern Jewish society permitted positive repre- Given the acculturation of Jews in the sentations of homoerotic love under certain Islamic world, it is not surprising that the conditions. He regards this as a result of the mores and practices of the host society existed characteristic symbiosis with the Islamic in Jewish society. Despite the bond of silence milieu. Homoerotic relations among Jews and the intimate manner of the deed, hun- continued to take place in the Iberian Penin- dreds of accounts detailing the existence of sula aft er the , but they were sexual relations between Jewish males have removed from literary discourse and are survived (there are no records regarding les- mentioned only rarely in rabbinic writings. bian relations), and they testify to a largely Th e Ottoman Empire and the Arab world forgotten phenomenon. in Early Modern and Modern Times Hebrew and foreign sources dating from Medieval Middle East and the fi ft eenth through the nineteenth century al-Andalus draw a picture clearly showing that sexual Th e → Cairo Geniza provides some of the aff airs between men were so common in the earliest evidence for the existence of the phe- Ottoman Empire and North Africa as to elicit nomenon among Jews in the Muslim East no comparison to similar activities in . during the Middle Ages. S. D. Goitein theo- Th e testimony of the sources regarding male rized that the practice of pederasty fi ltered sexual activity is supported by the increasing down from the ruling elite to broader seg- reports throughout the region in the eigh- ments of the population, and that the place of teenth and nineteenth centuries of moral and slaves was taken by poor boys. He points to sexual transgressions and the frequency of numerous documents from which it may be relations between members of the same sex. inferred that relations with youths were not As stated earlier, in the Muslim world attrac- uncommon, even though they were explicitly tion to members of the same gender was con- condemned and measures were taken to pre- sidered a part of a man’s array of general and vent sexual encounters of this kind (e.g., the normal behaviors. Moreover, the conditions restrictions against men and boys being alone of life, such as the ready availability of youths together on the pilgrimage [Ar. ziyāra] to the in a society that enforced a separation between shrine at Dammuh, southwest of → Fustat). the sexes and the late age of marriage for Th e phenomenon of pederasty achieved males, made it an attractive choice for chan- unprecedented expression in the magnifi cent neling sexual desires. Hebrew poetry that was created out of an inti- Th e activities described in the sources cor- mate familiarity and preoccupation with respond to the pattern of asymmetric rela- Arabic poetics in al-Andalus. In particular, tions described above. Most of what we know the genre of “songs of the gazelle” praised the deals with sexual relations between Jews; beauty of the beardless youth (Ar. amrad), however, there is evidence of sexual ties with described as a “gazelle” or “fawn” (Heb. sevị ), non-Jews. Meetings took place in private and fl aunted the pangs of yearning suff ered homes, in the bosom of nature, and primarily by the poet enslaved by love for the handsome in the entertainment spots for men of all reli- boy. As Schirmann and Roth have demon- gions—coff ee houses, taverns, and public strated, it is diffi cult to accept the argument of bathhouses. Of special note were the young Allony, Pagis, and others that this was merely male dancers, many of whom were typically a literary trope which in no way mirrored a Jews, with a signifi cant proportion engaging social reality. In addition to the corpus of in homosexual → prostitution. Prepubescent

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1414 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:491:55:49 PMPM preview 15 Jewish dancing boys were found as far east as realities and norms of society at large, which Iran, and as the anthropologist Laurence was well aware of the common incidence of Loeb notes, “Homosexuality is constantly such habits. Indeed, the public preferred to implied in discussing the role of the male address it by averting the eye or with a certain dancer.” → Alliance Israélite Universelle per- tolerance to the extent of almost de facto legit- sonnel made considerable eff orts to save - imization, particularly with regard to youths ish boys from what they described as “a life of and bachelors seeking relief. Th e attitude of idleness and debauchery.” Boy companions Jewish society to the phenomenon of homo- appear in the nineteenth and early twentieth sexual intercourse was similar, therefore, to centuries in almost all the major urban cen- that of urban Muslim society, and refl ected ters in Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, and . the infl uence of the latter culture, as had been Th e lack of particular attention devoted to the case in Muslim Spain. sexual relations between men reinforces the position of Michel Foucault, who maintains Bibliography that until the modern era, homosexual inter- Allony, Nehemia. “Th e ‘Zevi’ (Nasib) in the course, like various other sexual practices, Hebrew Poetry of Spain,” Sefarad 23, no. 2 was not considered more serious than forbid- (1963): 311–321. den sexual activities like adultery and rape. Assis, Yomtov. “Sexual Behaviour in Medieval Religious law treated such behavior like any Hispano-Jewish Society,” in Jewish History: other sin; it was not perceived as a distinct or Essays in Honour of Chimen Abramsky, ed. particularly worrisome moral or social phe- Ada Rappoport and Steven J. Zipperstein (Lon- nomenon. Not until the nineteenth century : Halban and Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988), was homosexuality thought of as a deviation pp. 25–59. or an act contrary to nature, reviving the view Ben-Naeh, Yaron. “Moshko the Jew and His of the transgressor as a deviant belonging to a Gay Friends: Same-Sex Sexual Relations in Ottoman Jewish Society,” Journal of Early Mod- separate human category distinguished by ern History, vol. 9, nos. 1–2 (2005): 79–105. specifi c characteristics. Foucault, Michel. Th e History of Sexuality, In attending to the issue of relations between trans. R. Hurley, 3 vols. (London: Penguin, genders, the Jewish communities enacted reli- 1990–1992). gious ordinances (Heb. taqqanot) designed to Goitein, Shelomo D. A Mediterranean Society, prevent interactions that had the potential to vol. 5 (Berkeley and : University of lead to sexual activity. Th e restrictions on the Press, 1988). movements of youths parallel those on the Huss, Matti. “Th e Maqama of the Cantor: Its movements of women in the Muslim city— Possible Sources and Relation with Medieval the object of desire had to disappear from the Hebrew Homoerotic Literature,” Tarbiẓ 72, public eye and avoid arousing the interest of nos. 1–2 (2003): 197–244 [Hebrew]. men. Th ese rules strengthened and fi nalized Loeb, Laurence D. Outcaste: Jewish Life in the offi cial ordinances of consensual agree- Southern Iran (New York: Gordon & Breach, ment (Heb. haskamot) and other formal tools 1977). for overseeing and supervising public morals Roth, Norman. “Deal Gently with the Young through informal means, such as education, Man: Love of Boys in Medieval Hebrew Poetry sermons and preaching in the synagogues, of Spain,” Speculum 57 (1982): 20–51. and the constant fear of gossip and rumors. In Schirmann, Jefi m. “Th e Ephebe in Medieval spite of the clear biblical prohibition, and Hebrew Poetry,” Sefarad 15, no. 1 (1955): 55–68. despite the bans and communal taqqanot, relations between members of the same sex Yaron Ben Naeh were frequent. A noticeable gap existed between the ethical and moral code enacted by scholars of halakha and jurists and the

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1515 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:491:55:49 PMPM 16 preview Jacques, Paula L’Héritage de Tante Carlotta (1987), Déborah et les anges dissipés (1991), La Descente au paradis (1995), Les Femmes avec leur amour Paula Jacques, born 1949 in Cairo, is an (1997), Gilda Stambouli souff re et se plaint award-winning French writer. Her novels, (2002), and Rachel-Rose et l’offi cier arabe focusing on Egyptian Jewry under Nasser, (2006)—has historical signifi cance for the portray Jews and Muslims interacting in a way it depicts the cultural milieu and every- period of political volatility and societal frag- day life of the Jewish community of Egypt in mentation. Her characters face problems of Egypt and in the Diaspora. In 1991 Jacques acculturation exacerbated by ambivalent alle- was awarded the prestigious Prix Femina for giances and cultural identities. Déborah et les anges dissipés. In 2002 she was Paula Jacques (née Abadi), French novelist awarded the Prix du Livre Europe 1 and the and journalist, was born in → Cairo in 1949. Prix Nice Baie-des-Anges for Gilda Stambouli Her family emigrated to Israel in 1958 during souff re et se plaint. the great expulsion of Egypt’s Jews under Nasser. Th ey lived on a kibbutz for three years Bibliography and then settled in . Jacques has been Cohen, Susan. D. “Cultural Mixing, Exile, and involved in French theater, radio, and the Femininity in Paula Jacques’s Lumière de l’oeil” press. Her eight novels to date focus on the Th e French Review, Vol. 67, No. 5, April 1994. Jews of Egypt during their fi nal decades in pp. 840–53. that country, from the late 1940s to the late Jacques, Paula. Lumière de l’oeil. Paris: Mercure 1950s. Th e postcolonial condition of Jews and de France, 1980. Muslims is the central preoccupation. At . Un Baiser froid comme la lune. Paris: times, Jacques follows her characters out of Mercure de France, 1983. Egypt and into France, where they face issues . L’Héritage de Tante Carlotta. Paris: Mer- of acculturation and trauma. Any security the cure de France, 1987. . Déborah et les anges dissipés. Paris: Mer- characters might have had about their rela- cure de France, 1991. tionship to and culture slips . La Descente au paradis. Paris: Mercure into uncertainty and is ruthlessly undermined de France, 1995. by French standards. Jacques’s characters, . Les Femmes avec leur amour. Paris: Mer- both Jewish and Muslim, are complex indi- cure de France, 1997. viduals in confrontation with volatile ideolo- . Gilda Stambouli souff re et se plaint. Paris: gies, political instability, gender subjugation, Mercure de France, 2002. and class dominance. Th e crisis of the expul- . Rachel-Rose et l’offi cier arabe. Paris: Mer- sion of the Jews is explored and dramatized, cure de France, 2006. as are relationships between Jews and Muslims. On the whole, Muslims are shown as suff er- Aimeé Israel-Pelletier ing from poverty and harboring vindictive feelings toward the Jews, who for their part suff er from anxieties inherent to communi- ties under stress. Th e narrator casts a harsh Juhūrī (Judeo-Tat or eye on them as they face exile, uncertainty, Judeo-Tātī) and issues of identity. Th ey are generally por- trayed as weak, materialistic, and uncertain about their identity and nationality. Juhūrī (Judeo-Tat, Judeo-Tātī) is the Jacques is a realist writer. Her novelistic endangered Iranian language of the Moun- universe—depicted to date in Lumière de l’oeil tain Jews of the eastern and northern Cauca- (1980), Un Baiser froid comme la lune (1983), sus, the majority of whom now live in Israel,

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1616 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:491:55:49 PMPM preview 17 the Russian Federation (mostly in big cities Zionists) and a Sephardi prayerbook, both outside the ), and . translated from Hebrew and both printed in Juhūrī , also known as Judeo-Tat or Judeo- Vilna. A Juhūrī newspaper began publishing Tātī (called zuhūn tātī, zuhūn juhūrīby native during . Aft er the Russian Revo- speakers), is a Southwest Iranian literary lan- lution the Soviet regime recognized the guage derived from a spoken form of New as one of the nationalities of Persian and heavily infl uenced by Āzerī the Republic of . In 1929, as a secu- Turkic, then by Russian, and now also by larization measure, the Latin alphabet was Israeli Hebrew. It was traditionally spoken by imposed on Juhūrī in place of the Hebrew as the → Mountain Jews (Turk. dağ-çufut; Russ. part of the general “Latinization politics” of gorskie yevrei; Heb. yehudim harariyim / the . In 1938, designated Tātī, it qavqaziyim) of the eastern and northern became one of the ten offi cial languages of → Caucasus. Juhūrī does not form a dialectal Dagestan, but as Soviet language politics had unity with neighboring Tātī dialects spoken changed by then, the Latin script was replaced in the past by the Muslim population. Th e by the Cyrillic alphabet. Although withering Tātī Muslim dialects of → Azerbaijan and away, Juhūrī is still one of Dagestan’s literary → Dagestan, in turn, are to be distinguished and offi cial languages. It is an endangered from the so-called Southern Tātī dialects of language, because the Mountain Jews now northern Iran (which belong to the Northwest speak Russian and/or Hebrew. Th e publish- Iranian branch). On the other hand, Juhūrī is ing activities of Mountain Jews in Israel and a close dialect of the New Persian spoken in Russia are currently either in Russian or in the past by a small Armeno-Gregorian com- Hebrew. munity in northwestern Azerbaijan (the Var- tashen, or Shirānī, dialect). Th ree dialects of Bibliography Juhūrī are known: that of Mahach-Qalah and Agarunov (Aharonov), M. J. Tatsko (Evreĭsko)- (historically, the Qaytaq dialect), that russkiĭslovar (: Jewish University of of (northern Azerbaijan), and that of Moscow, 1997). → Derbend (on which literary Juhūrī is based). Anisimov, N. A. Grammatik zuhun tati (Mos- During the nineteenth and twentieth centu- cow, Centrizdat, 1932) [Judeo-Tat]. ries, Juhūri was adopted by smaller Jewish Avshalumov, Kh. D. Folklor Tati (Mahach- linguistic minorities in Transcaucasia and the Qalah, n.p., 1940) [Judeo-Tat]. northern Caucasus (→ Neo-Aramaic, Kurd- Bakhshiev, Z., et al. (eds.). Antologiya tatskikh ish, Āzerī , and Adyge-Circassian). poetov ({city/publisher?}1932). Despite the strong impact of Āzerī, the Clift on, John M., et al. “Sociolinguistic Situa- grammar of Juhūrī is basically Iranian. Th e tion of the Tat and Mountain Jews in Azerbai- jan,” in Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Āzerī infl uence on the sound system mani- ed. Raymond G. Gordon Jr., 15th ed. (Dallas, fests itself in partial vowel harmony. Phono- Tex.: SIL International, 2005), and online at logically, Juhūrī is characterized by rhotacism www.sil.org/silesr/2005/silesr2005-017.pdf. (d > r: yehūdī > juhūrī; adīna (Friday) > orne; Lazard, Gilbert. In omoden (to come) > omore). Juhūrī preserves (1972), s.v. “Judeo-Tat.” the original initial v: vāta > vor (wind); cmf. Persian bād). Th e Juhūrī pronunciation of Dan Shapira Hebrew words is similar to that of the Jews of Iran; however, there is a group of older Hebrew words in which another (pre–Judeo-Persian?) pronunciation is manifested. Before 1917 only two books existed in Juhūrī, Matlab Siyuniho (Th e Aim of the

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1717 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:501:55:50 PMPM 18 preview Music the system of supply and demand of musical performance emerging from such attitudes and needs. Music is a fi eld in which Jews and the peo- Present perceptions about the music of the ples of Islam achieved one of their closest and Jews of the Islamic world are based on studies most fertile cultural exchanges. Th is entry of the music of immigrant Jewish societies in traces the major points of musical contact other regions that came into being in the late between Judaism and Islam, stressing the role nineteenth century and as a result of the mas- of Jewish musicians in Muslim societies and sive exodus of Jews from North Africa and the impact of Islamic music on Jewish musi- the Middle East that followed the establish- cal culture through the ages. Discrete geo- ment of the State of Israel. Th e fi nal stages of graphical variants of this musical interaction this emigration included the dissolution of are reviewed from a historical and social Algerian Jewry following the independence perspective. of Algeria (1962), the departure of much of Music is the fi eld of cultural productivity in the remaining Jewish community of Iran in which Jews and the peoples of Islam (Arabs, the aft ermath of the Islamic Revolution Persians, Turks, , Kurds, , Afghans, (1979), and the exodus of Jews from the Cau- etc.) converged in the closest and most prolifi c casus and aft er the collapse of manner. Jews have played a major role as com- the Soviet Union (early 1990s). Th us, recent posers and performers of music, mostly in studies of the music of have been urban genres, since the inception of Islam and carried out in Brooklyn (New York) and throughout its vast territorial domains, under City, of in (New York) the Arab, Persian, and Ottoman empires as and , of Iranian , well as in the modern nation-states that emerged of Moroccan Jews in Jerusalem or , from them. At the same time, the musical cul- of Iraqi Jews in London or Ramat Gan, and of tures that developed within the Islamicate Algerian Jews in Paris or Marseille. In short, Jewish communities show the clear imprint of scholarly access to tangible sources for the their co-territorial non-Jewish soundscape. music of the Jews of Islam became possible Th e multiple reasons for these phenomena of only aft er the uprooting of these communi- wide scope and geographical spread (from ties from the lands of their upbringing. the Maghreb to Central Asia) and the histori- Research, therefore, relies on musical memo- cal, social, and aesthetic backgrounds against ries constructed in a state of upheaval, with which they took place are still to be fully representations of musical identity negoti- assessed. ated in multicultural settings and under the Th e complex musical interaction between constraints of modern nation-states (Ameri- Judaism and Islam is best described and inter- can, British, French, Israeli, etc.). preted in terms of “convergence” because this Assessments of the impact of these recent term has the advantage of avoiding the con- social contexts on the study of the music of ceptual pitfalls associated with such ideas the Jews of Islam have to be added to serious as infl uence, synthesis, hybridization, and consideration of the complexities character- majority-minority that were used in the past izing their musical experiences immediately to defi ne this twelve-hundred-year-old musi- prior to emigration. Th e Jews of Islam, facing cal rapport. Convergence refers to the sharing modernity since the mid-nineteenth century, of a cultural capital, in this case music, that underwent a triple crisis that had far-reaching results from extended and close physical con- musical implications: the traditional Jewish tact. At the same time, it implies the develop- community governed by religious law ment of a network of mutual interests deriving was weakened, Western European colonial- both from the diversity of social and aesthetic ism posed powerful real and imagined chal- attitudes to and needs for music and from lenges, and emerging secular Arabic, Turkish,

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1818 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:501:55:50 PMPM preview 19 Iranian, Soviet, and other national identities gender of performers and audiences is also posed diffi cult tests for Jews. All these historical closely associated with the language of songs and social factors had musical repercussions and contexts of performance. Although aff ecting traditional repertoires, performance segregation of men and women based on reli- styles, and modes of transmission. gious rulings was a strong factor in determin- Th e impact of these early experiences of ing and characterizing musical repertoires modernity prior to emigration and of the post- and styles, the binary polarities based on gen- emigration predicament render the study of der were not rigid. Crossing gender-deter- the music of the Jews of Islam in premodern mined musical boundaries was not unheard periods extremely conjectural. Much of what of in traditional Jewish society and became is represented today as “old” or “authentic” more frequent under the impact of moder- musical traditions of the Jews of Islam con- nity. Gender, context, and language each had sists of modern elaborations encroached by an undeniable weight in defi ning musical narratives of antiquity. A sketchy glimpse into performances. For example, instrumental music the more distant, premodern past of the Jew- was more substantial in external than inter- ish musical experience under Islam can only nal contexts, while the use of local dialects be gleaned from careful scrutiny of surviving was more characteristic of Jewish women’s oral traditions coupled with cautious reading repertoires. of older literary and iconographic sources Class stratifi cation is another variable that depicting musical life. is rarely considered in studying the music of In addition, it is necessary to distinguish the Jews under Islam. Jewish communities between the music made by the Jews of Islamic were not classless, as sometimes is assumed in lands for their internal needs, especially musical studies, and access to music, which music related to the synagogue liturgy, and entails a certain fi nancial power to acquire it, the music produced by Jewish musicians on diff ered among Jews from diverse economic behalf of the surrounding society. Distin- strata. In medieval → al-Andalus, listening to guishing between these spaces and contexts refi ned courtly music was the privilege of of performance, referred to in this article Jewish courtiers, while in the late → Ottoman as “internal” and “external,” does not neces- Empire, access to phonographs and early sarily imply diff erences in musical content commercial recordings was limited to the (for example, the same modal systems apply Westernized Jewish bourgeoisie. to both internal and external repertoires). Another factor problematizing the intricacies Rather, this mapping of the Jewish musical of musical identity among the Jews of Islam is experience under Islam helps us to confi gure geographical location. Too frequently, musi- the variety of spaces for music-making and cal traditions are designated by the names of the dialectic relations between them. the modern nation-states from which Jews Language is another factor through which emigrated during the twentieth century, with- Jewish musical traditions within the Islamic out enough attention being given to local sen- sphere can be approached. Hebrew was the sibilities and self-perceptions. Th e case of in matters of religion, and there- → Yemen is exemplary. Modern conceptions fore was the basis for liturgical music, but of “Yemenite ” are challenged by in all other contexts, external or internal, the contrasts between Jewish musical tradi- musical repertories emanated from the major tions from northern Yemen (Saʿada in the Jewish linguistic areas of Islam: → Arabic, Haydan area), central Yemen (Sanaʿa and → Judeo-Spanish, → Persian, → Berber, Kurd- Manakhah), southeastern Yemen (Aden, a ish, → Judeo-Tat, → Tajik, and more. Each of center of Ottoman rule and a British outpost these languages (and especially Arabic) has a since 1839), the Habban region in eastern plethora of dialects, and each dialect is asso- Yemen (modern Shabwah Governorate), and ciated with specifi c musical traditions. Th e the remote rural areas in the southwestern

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 1919 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:501:55:50 PMPM 20 preview Hadramawt. Th e notion of a Yemenite Jewish they were eventually absorbed by their Sep- music emerged in Israel, the destination of hardic brethren. However, the newer Ashke- most modern Yemenite Jewish emigration, nazi communities established in Palestine starting with the pioneering work of the great following the late eighteenth-century migra- musicologist A. Z. Idelsohn (1882–1938) in tions to the Holy Land and ending with the the small Yemenite enclave in Palestine in the infl ux of refugees from fl ee- fi rst two decades of the twentieth century. It ing the pogroms in nineteenth-century Rus- can be justifi ed today only in reference to a sia, the Bolshevik revolution, and the Nazi syncretic music that developed in Israel on persecutions, remained relatively intact. the basis of diverse Yemenite Jewish tradi- While the internal music of these Ashkenazi tions, real or imagined, traditional or newly communities under Islam was not aff ected by composed. the non-Jewish surroundings, their instru- Th e Yemenite case is also illustrative of the mental music (known nowadays as diff erences between Jewish musical cultures music), imported from Eastern Europe to from rural and urban settings. Although Jews Palestine and → , absorbed Turkish and throughout the Islamic world underwent Arabic tunes, a process that began even ear- extensive urbanization following European lier in Ottoman → Moldavia and → . colonization, rural enclaves remained intact Not surprisingly, the earliest recordings of in many places until the mid-twentieth-cen- klezmer music were produced at the turn of tury emigration—to cite a few examples, in the twentieth century in Ottoman Istanbul. the Anti-Atlas of → Morocco, the Saharan also served as agents of mod- areas of → Algeria and → , and in → Kurd- ernization for non-Ashkenazi Jewish liturgical istan and Yemen. Rural musical traditions music during the fi rst decades of the twentieth diff ered in genre, language, and instruments century when they established modern syna- from urban ones, although the level of musi- gogues in major cities like Istanbul (where cal contact between Jews and Muslims was there were once three Ashkenazi synagogues; not necessarily dependent on the geographi- the one still functioning was founded in 1900) cal setting. A Jewish community assumed to and → Cairo (especially aft er 1917). have been isolated, such as the one on the Following these general observations, four island of → Jerba in southern → Tunisia, had major issues frame this entry. First, Islamic close contacts with the local Muslim popula- attitudes to music modeled Jewish musical tion, absorbed Sephardic traditions from the cultures under Islam. Second, the Jewish music sixteenth century on, and was open to mod- of premodern Islamic societies diff ered sub- ern Jewish music from → Tunis in the fi rst half stantially from that of modern times. Th ird, of the twentieth century. Th erefore, rural Jew- Jewish involvement in the music of Islamic ish traditions are no more authentic than cultures peaked in the modern period, due urban ones, and myths about their musical particularly to colonialism, nationalism, and isolation should be discarded. the industrialization of musical production. Finally, not all of the Jews who lived Th is “contemporary” music is a rich tapestry under Islam were ethnically Sephardi or of the most diverse geographical origins. mustaʿarabim (indigenous Arabic-speaking Finally, time and space are crucial coordinates Jews). Enclaves of Ashkenazi Jews existed in determining the discrete identities of the musi- the Islamic world in the remote past as well as cal cultures of the Jews of Islam in diff erent in the modern period. When the Ottoman geographical locales and historical periods. Empire at its zenith absorbed and Th us, treating in one entry the music of both , many Ashkenazi Jews found them- a nineteenth-century Yemenite Jewish village selves under the fl ag of an Islamic power. In and the Jewish bourgeoisie of 1930s Cairo is, sixteenth-century → Salonica and Jerusalem, at best, an intellectual exercise generated by where Ashkenazi Jews were a small minority, modern conceptions of Jewish nationhood.

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 2020 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:501:55:50 PMPM preview 21 Jews and Islamic music theory, Traces of the restrained and even negative philosophy, and research approach to music of mainstream Islam can since the Middle Ages be found in medieval Jewish writings, although Th e Jews of the Islamic lands were no less similar attitudes in the Talmud, antedating active as contributors to the theory, philoso- Islam, also informed the thinking of medieval phy, and ethics of music, and as researchers, Jewish sages living under Islam. Th e respon- than in the concrete practice of music. In fact, sum of → Hay Gaon (939–1038) to the Jewish their participation in these fi elds is better community of → Gabès on the performance documented because it is embedded in writ- of Arabic music at Jewish weddings is illus- ten texts. Th ese speculative modes of think- trative. Hay states that songs and hymns ing about music eventually had an impact on praising God are acceptable, and “no one Jewish musical performances under Islam in from the People of Israel in the whole world both internal and external contexts. abstains from them.” However, “songs of love Jewish thinkers were acquainted with of a person for a person, to praise human medieval Arabic music theory, which emerged beauty for its beauty, to laud the hero for his as a branch of the Greek legacy of speculative heroism, etc., such as those called by the knowledge. Th eoretical discussions of music Arabs ashʿar al-ghazl [songs of love], and . . . by Jews can be traced back at least to → Saʿadya women who play drums and dance, there is Gaon’s (d. 942) passage on the rhythmic cycles nothing worse than this, and even [worse] if in his Book of Doctrines and Beliefs (Ar. Kit āb it occurs at a drinking party of men, they are al-Amānāt wa ʿl-Iʿtiqādāt; Heb. Emunot ve- totally prohibited.” Clear echoes of this strict Deʿot), which is apparently indebted to antagonism to instrumental music, women the Arab philosopher Al-Kindī (d. ca. 866). singing, and music associated with drinking More intensive involvement in music theory reverberated throughout Islamic Spain and is found in Islamic Spain. For example, North Africa, most notably in → Maimonides’ → Judah ’s (d. ca. 1190) Arabic infl uential and widely quoted responsum on translation of → Judah ha-Levi’s discussion of music. singing in the is indebted to the termi- A contrast to this disapproving approach nology of the Arab philosopher al-Fārābī’s to music can be found in the mystical strains (d. 950) Kitāb al-Mūsīqī al-Kabīr (Great Book of Islam and Judaism. Sufi sm generally advo- of Music). Th e passage on music in the Sefer cated the use of vocal and/or instrumental ha-Mevaqqesh (Book of the Seeker) by → Shem music as a profound and eff ective component Tov ben ibn Falaqera (1225–1295) in the mystic’s “path.” Th e mystical Kabbala appears to be informed by the “ of and other modes of Jewish pietism held simi- Music” emanating from the Brethren of Purity lar views. Jews were infl uenced by the Sufi (Ar. ikhwān al-safạ̄ ), a group of Muslim phi- approach to music thanks to the direct and losophers in tenth-century → Basra under the ongoing access to the teachings of Sufi mas- Abbasid caliphate. ters which had been open to them since at On the basis of these theoretical and philo- least the time of al-Ghazālī (d. 1111). Th e sophical appraisals of the function and infl u- writings of → Abraham Abulafi a from Spain ence of music in respect to the human soul, (13th century) and his disciples are evidence the celestial bodies, and the Divinity, Islamic of this trend. Shaʿare Ṣedeq (Gates of Righ- thinkers developed contrasting attitudes teousness), a Hebrew tractate probably writ- toward music. While the approach of the ten in Palestine by one of Abulafi a’s disciples, Sharī ʿa (Islamic religious law) was, in gen- includes a detailed description of the Sufi eral, austere, especially toward instrumental path. Sufi infl uence is also evident in four- music and women singing, Sufi sources were teenth-century → Egypt, where → Abraham much more benign, encouraging the devel- Maimonides believed that the Sufi s preserved opment of a rich religious musical heritage. the traditions of the biblical prophets, and held

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 2121 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:511:55:51 PMPM 22 preview that their musical practices could be equated symptomatic of their role in music research to those of the and King . in the emerging Arab countries under the While speculative music theory disappeared French and British protectorates. One can add from Jewish writings in parallel with its to these research eff orts the infl uential work of decline among Muslims, theoretical concerns A. Z. Idelsohn (d. 1938), an Ashkenazi Jew about the power of music did not dwindle. who settled in Palestine in 1907 and pioneered Sixteenth-century Palestinian Jewish mystics the modern ethnography of Arabic music of all types, Lurianic and non-Lurianic, living in the Middle East (including phonograph in the fl ourishing and multicultural music recordings) in its Islamic and Jewish modes. scene of the Ottoman Empire at its height, perpetuated and expanded Sufi approaches to The Synagogue as a Musical music. Jewish mystics held nightly assemblies Microcosm similar to the Sufi sama’ in which vocal music, Aft er the destruction of the Jerusalem Tem- ultimately stemming from secular sources, ple, Judaism replaced its rituals with liturgical had a crucial role in framing the religious events. Th ese developed slowly on the basis of experience of the participants. Such assem- communitarian learning sessions in the syna- blies, dedicated to the singing of religious gogue, a house of assembly, study, and prayer. songs with high-quality musical panache Th e synagogue became the focus of Jewish and variously called baqqashot, shevaḥot, socialization. As in the rest of the Jewish or ashmorot (vigils), persisted until moder- world, so too in the lands of Islam the musical nity in the Maghreb, , Syria, and component of the Jewish liturgy grew from Iraq. Th rough their use in these mystical simple psalmodic formulae and recitation assemblies, more elaborate musical genres patterns. Traditional performances were eventually became a major factor in the per- vocal and in one voice, with intermittent and formance of the normative Jewish liturgy in nonsystematic splits of voices. Th e sole excep- the Middle East and North Africa aft er the tion was the Jewish liturgy in central Yemen, seventeenth century. which used several types of systematic plu- Finally, the Jews of Islam played a modest rivocality, i.e., combinations of diff erent voices role in a modern mode of knowledge about singing at the same time. music: scholarly research. Th is approach to A precentor called the ḥazzan (cantor) or music knowledge derives from the expansion sheliaḥ sibbuṛ (representative of the congre- of European colonialism and the contribution gation) performed the liturgy in alternation of Jews and European settlers in the shaping of with the congregation. Individual members new “musical mentalities” under colonial rule. took turns reciting sections of the order of Jewish scholars of music, usually motivated prayers that were not executed by the precen- by a sincere identifi cation with local and tor, such as the introductory psalms, or chant- modern Arabic cultural aspirations, contrib- ing the from the scroll uted to the early eff orts to document, publish, on Sabbaths and holy days according to the and institutionalize the “classical” music of Masoretic accentuation. Performances were the Islamic world. Jews were instrumental in improvised on the basis of traditional pat- conceptualizing the value of studying vener- terns that were orally transmitted from gen- able music traditions, such as the “Andalu- eration to generation. sian” ones in North Africa, in consolidating Th e musicalization of the liturgy followed modern nationhood. Th e works of assimilated upon the fi xing, more or less in its present Jews like → Edmond Nathan Yafi l (d. 1928) in form, of a prescribed order of texts of diff er- Algeria and Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger (d. 1932) ent genres and origins performed at fi xed in Tunisia exemplify this trend. Th e partici- hours of the day by a quorum of ten adult pation of Jews in the international Congress men. Th e → ̣ (liturgical poetry), which of Arabic Music held in Cairo in 1932 was fi rst emerged in Byzantine Palestine in the

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 2222 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:511:55:51 PMPM preview 23 fi ft h or sixth century but surged aft er the rise Th ese musical developments in the syna- of Islam in contact with classical Arabic and gogue were intimately related to the rise of a Persian poetry, was crucial in this process. professional caste of Ottoman Jewish musi- Hebrew manuscripts of piyyutiṃ from the cians, such as Israel Najjara. Th e aforemen- Abbasid era provide testimony that choral tioned growth of Sufi -oriented paraliturgical singing burst out in the synagogues of → Bagh- mystical devotions separate from the pre- dad in the ninth century. Th e position of the scribed synagogue services, fi rst in the Gali- ḥazzan, which developed in relation to the lee and thereaft er throughout the lands of recitation or singing of piyyutiṃ , now took Islam, added new musical impetus to the Jew- on more importance, and in the Jewish com- ish liturgy. Developments of this kind took munities of many Islamic countries it became place in the synagogues of the major Otto- a hereditary post. Nonetheless, even aft er the man urban centers, such as Salonica, Istanbul surge of the piyyut,̣ some texts of the Jewish (), → Damascus, → Aleppo, and liturgy were not performed in what can be Baghdad. conceptualized as “music,” but continued to Th ese developments in the Ottoman Empire be recited with nonmusical sound patterns were supported by religious doctrines of long that diff ered from ordinary speech. standing regarding the theurgical and trans- Synagogue services became the main inter- formational power of music. Texts justifying nal musical events of the Jewish communities the use of music in religious services on the in the lands of Islam. Styles of liturgical music basis of these doctrines circulated among diff ered drastically, refl ecting diff erent degrees Ottoman Jewish cantors and poets as late of musicalization, the musical style of the local as the nineteenth century. Several examples area, and diverse aesthetic sensibilities. Th e of this genre of texts are extant. One is a ser- music of the synagogue became a contested mon in → Ladino, “Th e Reason for Singing issue between Jewish religious authorities and in the Synagogue,” by Isaac Abraham Jacob their fl ocks, as is attested by sources from Bekhor Moshe, cantor of the Turkish Jewish Muslim Spain and the → Cairo Geniza. At community of Vienna, that appeared as an stake were the desired attributes of the ḥazzan appendix to a prayerbook printed in 1810. (musical skill vs. level of religious observance) Cantor Bekhor Moshe maintained that chant- and the measure of musicalization (favoring ing liturgical texts to the “silly” secular tunes or rejecting synagogue use of music associ- of Judeo-Spanish folksongs distracted Satan ated with the surrounding Muslim society). from interfering in the transmission of the Aft er the sixteenth century, Jewish liturgi- Day of Atonement prayers to God. Shaʿar ha- cal music in Ottoman lands became even Shir (Heb. Gate of Song or Virtue of Song) more specialized as it gradually and overtly is a short tractate by the poet → Mordechai adopted the principle of maqām (mode). Th is Abbadi (1826–1884) of Aleppo included in system of musical modes regulated the per- the poetical anthology Miqraʾ Qodesh (Holy formance of a growing number of liturgical Convocation)that he edited with other scholars texts beyond the poetical ones. It also enhanced (3rd ed., Aleppo, 1872/73; the earlier editions the need for the ḥazzan to have musical skills are not extant). In this text Rabbi Abbadi, and an implicit theoretical knowledge of music. a kabbalist with ties to Eastern European Th e fi rst appearance of the Ottoman maqām Ḥasidic circles, justifi es the use in the syna- system occurred in 1587, when Zemirot Yisra’el gogue of the secular Arabic melodies so avidly (Songs of Israel), a collection of paraliturgical consumed by Jews in the cafes of Aleppo in poetry by → Israel Najjara (ca. 1550–1625), was his time. At the end of the collection of his published by the recently established Hebrew poetry, Divrey Mordekhay (Aleppo, 1872/73), press in Safed. Th e poems in this collection he argues that Israel’s use in its prayers of the were classifi ed according to the modes of the tunes of the oppressor nation awakens God Ottoman maqām system. and makes Him aware of the enslavement of

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 2323 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:511:55:51 PMPM 24 preview His people. Hebrew poets past and present, Israélite Universelle in Morocco (starting he says, have each in their own way sanctifi ed in the late 1860s), the crumbling of the Otto- these tunes to reach God by turning the orig- man Empire, which brought Turkish Jews inal Arabic texts of the songs into Hebrew to Morocco (1920s), the landing of American praises for the Lord. Jewish soldiers in Morocco in World War II, In the Maghreb, the Jewish liturgy was less and the spread of the Ḥabad movement to musical than in the Middle East, although Morocco (1950) all infl uenced the synagogue melodies from local Andalusian traditions soundscape of . made inroads into through the However, the lasting musical consequence piyyut ̣ and local Sufi infl uences. Th e Jewish of the disruption in the continuity of the Jew- liturgy in rural or remote eastern areas of Islam, ish communities of Islam that began in the such as Kurdistan, Persia, and the emirate of late nineteenth century was the intensifi ca- → , was substantially less musical. tion of the “maqāmization” of the Jewish lit- Modernization and emigration made a urgy that had begun earlier on in the large deep imprint on the liturgical music of the Ottoman cities. Of special interest in this Jews of Islam. Encounters between diff erent respect is the tradition of Aleppo, a renowned local traditions led to homogenization, while center of Arabic music, where the local Jews the spread of the Western idea of music as developed a rich paraliturgical and liturgical art further enhanced the aesthetic aspect tradition following their exposure to Turkish of liturgical performance. Examples of the instrumental music and Arabic song as well impact of European colonialism on liturgical as to some elements of French and Italian music are found in Algeria, Tunisia, and music. Following emigration to Palestine, Egypt, where “modern” patterns of synagogue and especially to Jerusalem, the liturgical and music emerged under the infl uence of Pari- paraliturgical maqam practices of the presti- sian models. Th e music of the Great Syna- gious Syrian communities cast an everlasting gogue of → Oran, the largest one ever built imprint on cantors of the most diverse origins in an Arab country and inaugurated in (Persian, Baghdadi, Bukharan, Yemenite, 1918, was accompanied by an organ and Kurdish, etc.) who settled in the new neigh- included a trained choir that used written borhoods of the Holy City. Jewish scores. Modernizing trends were also pro- and singers from Aleppo who moved to Jeru- moted by Joseph Cohen in the synagogue salem in the early twentieth century, among of → Sfax (Tunisia). Cohen, trained in the them → Raphael Antebi, known as Tabush rabbinical seminary in Paris and a teacher at (1830–1919), became models for these cantors. the → Alliance Israélite Universelle school, Around the same time the Aleppo liturgical edited a prayerbook entitled Sefer Tefi llot tradition was also brought to the United States Yisra’el (Tunis, 1905) that includes a musical by → Moses Ashear (1877–1940), a disciple of appendix with Hebrew prayers adapted to Tabush, who moved to Brooklyn in 1912. music by Beethoven, Rossini, and Meyerbeer. Th e canonization and globalization of the Similar processes, under Italian infl uence, maqam-oriented liturgy from Jerusalem is occurred in the 1930s at the magnifi cent indebted to the prestige of the city as a center Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in → , of learning as well as to the arrival of distin- Egypt, under the baton of the Turkish-born guished cantors from Jerusalem in North and Italian-educated and ethnog- Africa, the , and Europe starting in rapher → (1898–1975). French, the early decades of the twentieth century. A Turkish, and Ashkenazi infl uences were well-documented case of the geographical felt even in the more conservative Moroccan spread of the Jerusalemite maqām liturgy is synagogue in the emerging colonial metrop- the city of Tunis, where the renowned cantor olis of → Casablanca. Events as diverse as → Asher Mizraḥi from Jerusalem (1890–1967) the establishment of schools by the Alliance settled, fi rst from 1914 until 1918 and later on

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 2424 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:511:55:51 PMPM preview 25 from 1927 to 1967. Mizraḥi brought to Tunis their centuries-old culture through the ample a liturgical style that by then was called “Jeru- availability in America, Europe, and Israel salem-Sephardi,” and he implanted it among of popular Arabic music in recordings and the city’s younger cantors in place of the older broadcasts. local practices. Despite the hegemonic preeminence of the Recording technology intensifi ed the expan- Jerusalem-Sephardic style (and its appealing sion and dissemination of the hegemonic Jeru- contemporary popular Arabic backdrop) salem-Sephardi style, which leaned mostly on among the Jews of Islam in their new diaspo- the popular repertoires of mainstream, twen- ras, other liturgical traditions strive to pre- tieth-century Egyptian-Syrian maqām prac- serve their unique identities. Moroccan Jews tice. Th ese developments also led to the remain attached to their liturgical music emergence of the “star cantor” in contempo- traditions, continuing the local practices of rary Sephardic and oriental communities. their communities in Israel, France, , A prominent fi gure in the consolidation of and . Following the pattern of this style was Cantor Ḥayyim Saul Abboud the maqāmized Jerusalem-Sephardic style, (1906–1977), a native of Aleppo and disciple namely the drive to musicalize the liturgy of Tabush, who went to South America as a with the prestigious art music of the sur- young man and then returned to Jerusalem, rounding culture, Moroccan Jews have also where he was an undisputed leader of the adopted into their liturgy melodies from the Jerusalem-Sephardi style. Th e maqāmic lit- Andalusian repertoire associated with the urgy of Abud’s generation grew even more singing of piyyutiṃ . Traditional Yemenite by taking into its repertoire the most elabo- Jewish liturgical traditions persist in Israel in rate songs of the mainstream Egyptian style local “ethnic” synagogues—congregations that had dominated the Arab world since whose members predominantly belong to the 1930s. Tunes by celebrated composers like one ethnicity. Descendants of Iraqi Jews in Farīd al-Atrasḥ (d. 1974), Muhammaḍ ʿAbd Israel also strive to maintain their specifi c al-Wahhāb (d. 1991), and Riyāḍ Al-Sunbatị̄ liturgical traditions under the pressure of (d. 1981) entered the synagogue on the wings Jerusalem-Sephardic infl uence. of their wide dissemination in recordings and fi lms and their aesthetic appeal to Edwin Seroussi Jews acculturated in Arabic musical sensibili- ties throughout the Arab world. Th eir appeal did not decline aft er the massive twentieth- Th is is the fi rst part of the entry Music. Th e century exodus of Jews from the Arab coun- complete article will appear in the EJIW. tries, continuing to nourish memories of

EEJIW_Preview.inddJIW_Preview.indd 2525 22/26/2009/26/2009 1:55:511:55:51 PMPM