UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Singing as an Israeli Woman: Musical Personae in a Cosmopolitan Society Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/52x0w04t Author Singer, Merav Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Singing as an Israeli Woman: Musical Personae in a Cosmopolitan Society By Merav Singer A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Benjamin Brinner, Chair Professor Tamara Roberts Professor Paola Bacchetta Professor Edwin Seroussi Fall 2015 Abstract Singing as an Israeli Woman: Musical Personae in a Cosmopolitan Society by Merav Singer Doctor of Philosophy in Music University of California, Berkeley Professor Benjamin Brinner, Chair Israel in the 21 st century is an intensely multicultural society where several types of cosmopolitanism vie with regional and ethnic forms of expression, a phenomenon that plays out in musical life. I propose that such a society offers a variety of possibilities for what a woman is, what she can do, and how she can work. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of four female singer-songwriters that examines the ways they negotiate and sometimes challenge socio-cultural norms in creating their careers and constructing their artistic personae, or the version of themselves that they present as musicians. The artists I focus on straddle four major rifts in Israeli society, between Arabs and Jews, Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, Russian-speaking immigrants and native Israelis, and Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities. In using their ethnic heritage as cultural capital to corner a unique market niche, these artists become enmeshed in social politics that include tensions between ethnic and religious groups, conflicting gender roles, and struggles over belonging. I argue that as they create legible personae to meet the demands of the music industry, their liminality between mainstream society and a minority sector challenges the discourse around those identities. The success of their careers thus depends both on how their particular ethnicity is positioned in relation to more powerful models of Israeliness that are reproduced by public discourses, the state media and the entertainment industry, as well as how they meet commercial criteria for mainstream pop music. In working to satisfy this dual set of demands they engage with the canon of Israeli music, revealing and expanding its boundaries. To illuminate how the artists define and challenge discourses of Israeliness, I analyze their songs, how they perform them, and what people say about them. The radio airtime their music receives and the venues where they perform further reveal how they are positioned within Israeli culture. Thus while the strategies they use in marking themselves as foreign are common to artists cross-culturally, the challenges they encounter offer a window onto changing social patterns in contemporary Israeli society. 1 In memory of my mother, my inspiration and guide in this project Dr. Hadassah Ruth Singer i Contents Contents .......................................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iv Notes on Language ........................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... vii Chapter One: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Ethnic Musical Personae ......................................................................................................... 1 Israel: A Boiling Pot ............................................................................................................... 4 Performing Contested Identities ............................................................................................. 7 Gendered Ethnicity and Israeli Popular Music ..................................................................... 11 Methodology: Archive and Repertoire ................................................................................. 14 Four Case Studies ................................................................................................................. 17 Chapter Two: Mira Awad ............................................................................................................. 19 A Christian Palestinian Woman in Israel .............................................................................. 20 Performing Different Forms of Arabness ............................................................................. 23 Cosmopolitan Arabness .................................................................................................... 24 Legible Arabness .............................................................................................................. 34 Political Arabness ............................................................................................................. 37 Cosmopolitan Artist .......................................................................................................... 45 Palestinian Ethnicity as Incompatible with Jewish Israeliness ............................................. 47 Chapter Three: Dikla..................................................................................................................... 50 Mizrahi Woman in Israel ...................................................................................................... 51 Diva of Hebrew-Arabic Rock ............................................................................................... 51 Egyptian Diva ................................................................................................................... 53 Authentic Arab Singer ...................................................................................................... 58 Authentic Mizrahi Singer .................................................................................................. 60 Cosmopolitan Artist .......................................................................................................... 71 Pan-Mizrahi Artist ............................................................................................................ 75 Mizrahi Ethnicity as Marginalized Variant of Israeliness .................................................... 77 Chapter Four: Marina Maximilian Blumin ................................................................................... 80 Russian-Speaking Israeli Woman ......................................................................................... 81 Israeli Russianness ............................................................................................................ 88 Eastern Russianness .......................................................................................................... 94 Romantic Russianness ...................................................................................................... 98 Immigrant Russianness ................................................................................................... 100 Cosmopolitan Artist ........................................................................................................ 105 ‘Russian’ Ethnicity as Part of Dominant Israeliness........................................................... 110 Chapter Five: Din Din Aviv ........................................................................................................ 113 Israeli Artist ........................................................................................................................ 113 New Age Jewish Orthodox ................................................................................................. 115 Generalized Ethnicity...................................................................................................... 127 Wholesome Femininity ................................................................................................... 132 ii New Jewish Orthodox Femininity .................................................................................. 136 Folkloric Greek ............................................................................................................... 140 Melting Pot Ethnicity as Israeli........................................................................................... 142 Chapter Six: Concluding Thoughts ............................................................................................. 145 References ................................................................................................................................... 148 iii List of Figures 2.1. Album cover of Bahlawan 2.2. Artwork in CD booklet for Bahlawan 2.3. Form of “After All the Rain” 2.4. Opening of “After All the Rain” 2.5. Vocal and guitar parts in “After All the Rain” 2.6. Sania Kroitor’s violin solo in “After All the Rain” 2.7. Electric guitar and cello solo in “Our Relationship” 2.8. Awad