11Introduction
other minority composers infused such developments into their own religious music. Ottoman innovations included new instrumentation, complex or new makams and usuls, development of the vocal and in- strumental taksim (improvisation), and changes in fasıl genres, such as the nineteenth-century light classical şarkı (literally, “song”) that popu- larized the fasıl cycle in the twentieth century.18 European genres and instruments, as well as notational systems, presented further musical choices to Ottoman composers, especially by the nineteenth century; however, oral transmission and performance dominated the musical scene through the early twentieth century. With the advent of records and growth of gazinos (nightclubs) at the turn of the century, fasıl music found a popular, commercial stage—an early entertainment industry often owned and operated by minorities, including Jews, and showcas- ing vocalists who may have also sung religious songs in synagogues. Maftirim music shared in such musical crosscurrents of the time, and by the early Republic boasted big audiences and a repertoire that included contemporary composers and topical subjects. In the 1920s, as Turk- ish Jews from the provinces increasingly congregated in Istanbul, local Maftirim singers joined Edirne émigrés to perform at numerous syna- gogues in the city, providing a popular, weekly venue to hear Ottoman court music forms in an era of political and cultural reform.
In the course of the twentieth century, as Jews gradually vacated their neighborhoods in Istanbul, whether through emigration or up- ward mobility, the historical practice of Maftirim gatherings on Shab- bat diminished into today’s single secured session, together with one public performance group. By the 1990s, three male vocalists were considered the last remaining masters of the genre in Istanbul: David Behar, İsak Maçoro, and David Sevi. Recently, the Ottoman- Turkish Sephardic Culture Research Center completed a major proj- ect remastering their recordings together with notation and historical background of extant Maftirim compositions. Taken as a whole, the evidence of the century appears to match a story of increasing cul- tural reduction, isolation and, ultimately, preservation. As we shall see, however, behind this apparent decline lies a more complex history of music-making across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as Jew- ish and non-Jewish musicians continued to network together to pro- tect endangered Ottoman musical forms in a republican era of cultural
10 Introduction
Izmir and Salonika to hear renowned hazanim (prayer leaders, or can- tors) like İsak Algazi (1889–1950), and Samuel Benaroya (1908–2003) visited the Mevlevi lodge in Edirne as a boy to learn Ottoman music.15 As mentioned earlier, it is significant that the city of Edirne figures in these reports since it was the Ottoman capital (1402–1453) before the taking of Constantinople and a default royal residence at least until the eighteenth century. Given the Mevlevis’ historical linkages with the Ottoman ruling class and musical education, interactions with Jewish musicians—especially in Edirne and Istanbul—would effectively spell the latter’s active participation near or at the very center of religious and musical crosscurrents in Ottoman imperial culture. Ongoing visi- tations until the end of the twentieth century, moreover, suggest a historically multifunctional dimension to Ottoman and Turkish syna- gogues for learning, making music, and socializing—a dimension that has progressively narrowed and been reduced exclusively to Jewish re- ligious practice today.16
According to the textual source of the güfte mecmuası (song-text collection), Jewish composers documented music in ways similar to their non-Jewish counterparts and participated in contemporaneous developments in court music. From an early Ottoman Jewish güfte mecmuası (Israel Najara, 1587) to later collections starting in the sev- enteenth century, Jewish composition and documentation of religious pieces correlated more and more with pervasive Ottoman practices, incorporating lyrics, makam, usul (rhythmic patterns), and genres in use in the Ottoman court suite.17 Developing into the Maftirim reper- toire, the non-notated compositions confirm performance and educa- tional practices in common with Ottoman musical culture. Until the twentieth century, oral learning through master-pupil apprenticeship relationships (meşk) predominated in the empire, taking place within such venues as the palace music school (Enderun), Mevlevi lodges, private homes, and later music schools and societies of the early twen- tieth century. The well-documented historical employment of Jewish, Armenian, and Greek Orthodox composers at court suggests another avenue for the sharing of such musical practices through active involve- ment of Jews in palace culture.
Far from being a static tradition, Ottoman court music changed and developed over the centuries, and as it did so participating Jews and
9Introduction
liturgical practices of Muslims and non-Muslims worshipping in Sufi lodges, churches, and synagogues of the empire, including gatherings of Maftirim groups. The Ottoman court suite, or fasıl, arose within a longtime regional environment of suite forms in the Near East, Persia, and North Africa, developing a specific Ottoman style, distinctive from Arab and Persian predecessors, by at least the seventeenth century. As a chamber music form, the court suite was generally performed in intimate settings (palace, homes) by an ensemble of instrumentalists and singers, showcasing a series of compositions of distinct genres in the same makam. Similar and contrasting, the sacred suite of Maftirim pieces translated court musical forms into Jewish religious space through Hebrew-language pieces performed a capella by a male choral ensemble in synagogues on Shabbat.14 This vocal ensemble presented original compositions by Jewish composers, as well as adaptations from non-Jewish Ottoman pieces with Hebrew poems or scriptural passages as lyrics. Historically, Maftirim singers performed one suite in one makam before weekly prayer services, and by the nineteenth century established a tradition of early morning performances in Otto- man cities with significant Jewish populations (Edirne, Salonika, Izmir, and Istanbul).
Textual sources point to a measure of interaction between Jewish and Mevlevi (“whirling dervish”) musicians, suggesting clear avenues of musical contact and confluence. Originating in Konya in the thir- teenth century, the Mevlevi gradually became the most prominent Muslim Sufi order connected to the sultan and Ottoman ruling class, establishing lodges in 1436 in the second Ottoman capital of Edirne and in 1494 in the third capital of Constantinople. Developing a distinctive musical form, the ayin, to accompany their religious choreography, the order played a central role in court music culture through the pres- ence of Mevlevi musicians at the palace, the significant role of Mevlevi lodges in music education, and the further development of the ayin as some of the most complex compositions related to Ottoman court music. Meetings between Mevlevi and Jewish musicians are reported from the early empire in biographical accounts of sixteenth-century Edirne religious scholar R. Joseph Caro and composer R. Avtalyion ben Mordechai, and in contemporary times in life stories from Jewish urban centers. For example, Mevlevi musicians attended synagogues in
8 Introduction
to categorize descendents of Iberian Jews exiled by the Spanish Inqui- sition in the fifteenth century, and currently to define Ladino-speaking Ottoman and post-Ottoman worlds. Scholars have also debated the utility of “Sephardi” as a broad category of identification in Jewish his- tory today.9 Despite the term’s usefulness for a variety of scholarly foci, the intercommunal and musical dimension of the present study begs for language reflecting the ethno-religious breadth and interactivity of Ottoman and Turkish music-making, however contentious and chang- ing over time. Indeed, this varied, shifting collectivity included a wide swath of Jewish individuals, not only so-called Sephardi composers, for example, but also Arabic-speaking instrumentalists from Ottoman Arab territories, Jewish gramophone entrepreneurs from Eastern Europe and Russia, dönme composers from Salonika, and Jewish émigrés from Nazi Germany, Austria, and Hungary.10 These Jewish musicians and busi- nesspeople also interacted closely with Greeks, Armenians, and diverse Muslims straddling the worlds of their coreligionists and the surround- ing urban musical spheres. Whereas highlighting the ethno-religious distinctiveness of any one of these musicians risks over-accenting Ot- toman religious communities or retroactively imposing contemporary ethnic boundaries, language reflecting the interactive cultural realm of music-making elucidates aspects of individual and communal identifi- cations transcending the so-called millet system and at times opposing it.11 By speaking of “Ottoman Jews” we can capture the social and musical milieu of which musicians were a part, and “Turkish Jews” follows them into the Republic, reflecting new national identifications and citizenship as well as the disjunctions and transitions from what might be called their Ottoman culture area.
❊
Let us briefly survey Ottoman court music as the historical foundation for the Maftirim repertoire at the core of this cultural history.12 Based on compelling and well-documented textual analysis by music histo- rians,13 the current study investigates the social and urban contexts of this historical record. Patronized by the palace and cultivated in a va- riety of urban settings over time, Ottoman court music shares musical structures—compositional, rhythmic, melodic, poetic—with historical
University of Texas Press
Politics, Ethnic Identity, and Music in Israel: The Case of the Moroccan Bakkashot Author(s): Edwin Seroussi Reviewed work(s): Source: Asian Music, Vol. 17, No. 2, Music in the Ethnic Communities of Israel (Spring - Summer, 1986), pp. 32-45 Published by: University of Texas Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/833897 . Accessed: 10/01/2012 03:23
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POLITICS, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND MUSIC IN ISRAEL: THE CASE OF THE MOROCCAN BAKKASHOT'
by Edwin Seroussi
A. Z. Idelsohn, considered by many as the father of Jewish music research, stressed that "the Jewish people have created a special type of music, which is an interpretation of its spiritual and social life, [of] its ideals and emotions" (Idelsohn 1929:429). We can agree with Idelsohn on this broad statement. At the same time, we must consider that the Jewish people have changed radically since Idelsohn's days in almost every aspect of their physical, social, and spiritual existence. The most dramatic of these changes, besides the Holocaust and the rise of the American Jewish community, has been the creation of the State of Israel. The rise of an independent political entity run by and for a Jewish majority is an event whose ultimate impact in Jewish history is still difficult to assess.
To researchers of Jewish culture in general and Jewish music in particular, the upheaval in the behavior and values of world Jewry caused by the creation of the State of Israel indicates that it is time for new concepts and new theoretical frameworks. If we agree with Blacking and say that music "reflects the deeper sources and meanings of social and cultural continuity and change" (1977:23), then contemporary Jewish music studies can throw new light on the social and cultural processes set in motion by the creation of the modern Jewish state.
I think we are inevitably moving toward a dichotomy between Jewish music studies inside and outside of Israel. This belief stems from the growing difference in patterns of behavior and in the world view of Israeli Jews and those from the Diaspora (see Herman 1970). In Israel, Jews are experiencing, for the first time in the modern era, the effects on their lives of governing an independent political entity. Also, Israeli society is essentially pluralistic, the result of the direct and unprecedented confrontation of different Jewish communities characterized by particular social backgrounds and by diverse interpretations of Judaism. For these and for many other reasons, Israel comprises a new social and existential experience for Jews. As a consequence, the forces that shape the culture of Israeli Jews, including their music, are of a different nature from those that have shaped Jewish culture in other times and lands. In
32
modern Israel Jewish musics and musical cultures are for the first time in confrontation with other Jewish musics and musical cultures, rather than those of non-Jewish groups.
The literature on the problems of modern Israeli society is as vast as one can imagine. However, a disproportionate majority of these works is sociological or socio-anthropological in nature. Aspects of culture, particularly the expressive arts, are rarely treated in the literature, as if nothing can be learned from the understanding of these aspects of human behavior. Statements like "while the complete assimilation of all ethnic groups [in Israel] is still a national goal, cultural uniformity is no longer pursued" (Smooha 1978:236) or "Oriental [Jews] will continue to lose their most distinctive subcultural attributes . . . while preserving some of their folk variations (such as food and music)" (ibid.: 241) are typical. Seldom posed are such questions as why certain types of cultural expression change while others do not, what the role of these forms of cultural expression is in the life of the people, or how changes in such cultural expressions reflect other trends in society.
THE BAKKASHOT TRADITION
In this paper I shall attempt to show how, in Israel, political interests intermingled with the ethnic identity of a specific Jewish community (the Moroccan) promote and help to define the context of performance and the symbolic meaning of an old musico-poetic tradition: the singing of bakkashot. Renewal of content and meaning in traditional patterns of behavior among non-Western Jewish immigrants in Israel has already been pointed out by anthropologists (see especially Deshen and Shokeid 1974). For Moroccan Israelis renewal has become an essential motivation for the expressive behavior associated with the singing of bakkashot, a tradition long predating immigration.
Bakkashot is a paraliturgical event performed after midnight by Jewish communities around the Mediterranean Sea. The origins of this tradition go back to the sixteenth-century Kabbalistic movement led by Rabbi Ishaq Luria Ashkenazi (the Holy Ar'i) from Safed in northern Galilee. Following the ideas of the Kabbalah concerning the occult and the esoteric values of the vigil ('ashmoret) and the power of song and music, a custom of rising in the middle of the night to pray and praise God
33
with sacred songs of mystical content developed (Scholem 1976:143-45).
This practice, along with other aspects of Lurianic Kabbalah, spread to Jewish centers in North Africa, Italy, the Balkans, and Turkey (Fenton 1975). Societies of rabbis, poets, and singers with names such as Shomrim la- bogger (watching [or watchers] for the vigil) were organized during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The purpose of these societies was to organize special prayers for night watches and to publish collections of texts for the vigils. The decline of these societies (and therefore the decline of the whole tradition) was evident during the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, two of the most important bakkashot traditions survived to the twentieth century and still exist in Israel: the Syrian (Aleppo) and the Moroccan.
Two important characteristics apply to the bakkashot traditions in their different versions: (1) a large body of Hebrew sacred poems is composed or compiled from different sources for these occasions and (2) local "art" music traditions are adapted by Jews for the singing of those texts. These characteristics reveal an important social aspect of the bakkashot: the existence of this tradition in well-to-do Jewish urban societies. The conditions for the presence of such societies existed in geographical locations where Jews enjoyed a relatively prosperous and stable social life.
Although there is no evidence of the existence of a bakkashot tradition in Morocco until the mid-nineteenth century, one can suppose that such events took place there at least since the early eighteenth century. The Moroccan Jewry was traditionally immersed in the study and practice of Kabbalah and produced some of the most renowned rabbis in that field. Moreover, a large body of Hebrew mystical poetry was composed in Morocco between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Considering this fact, one can assume that gatherings in which Hebrew mystical poetry was read, studied, and sung did exist.
Today, the Moroccan Jews in Israel perpetuate this old mystical tradition. In every large or mid-sized city in Israel, they gather early on Saturday mornings during a period of twenty weeks between -Shabbat Ber'eshit (at the end of October) and Shabbat Zakhor (at the end of February).2 The event takes place in the synagogue. It starts about 3:00 a.m. and ends around 6:00 a.m., close to the beginning of the morning prayers.
34
The "program" of such gatherings is dictated by a printed collection of sacred poetry entitled Shir Yedidot,3 which is owned by almost every participant in the bakkashot. The book is divided into two sections: the first part includes prayers and psalms that are invariably performed at the beginning of each meeting (Tur-el 1981:85); and the second section consists of twenty "chapters," each one corresponding to a specific Saturday.
Each chapter of Shir Yedidot consists of a set of about twenty piyyutim (sing. piyyut) and various gasa'id (sing. qasidah). A piyyut is a liturgical poem in Hebrew. The qasidah is a long poem modeled after an Arabic poetic form with the same name. The content of these qasa'id is based on exegetic interpretations of the biblical passage corresponding to each Shabbat.
The music to which the piyyutim of Shir Yedidot are sung is derived from the Andalusian music of Morocco, the "classical" or "art" tradition of Moroccan urban society (see Chottin 1939:101-33, Al-Fassi 1962, and Schuyler 1978). The poems, corresponding to each Saturday, are sung to one nubah (in the technical vocabulary of the Moroccan-Jewish singers in Israel). The nubah is the largest unit of the Moroccan Andalusian repertoire, comprising an extended suite which includes instrumental and vocal compositions. Two principles dominate the concept of nubah: tba', the modal organization; and mizan, the rhythmic organization.
To comply with the religious ban on instrumental music inside the synagogue, the performance of bakkashot is a purely vocal event. Therefore, the concept of tba' (related to the melodic organization) is more important in the Jewish repertoire. As a consequence, variety is achieved through melodic means, notably melodic modulation. However, in social gatherings held outside the synagogues during the weekdays, piyyutim from the bakkashot repertoire combined with piyyutim not included in Shir Yedidot are performed with instrumental accompaniment. These social events are not called "bakkashot," but their musical content is intimately related to that tradition and the performers are the same singers that appear in the synagogues. Among the pretexts for these gatherings are the dedication of a new Torah scroll, the visit of an important personality and the beginning of a new month of the Hebrew calendar.
35
The bakkashot are performed by singers called paytanim (sing. paytan). Paytanim are considered by the Moroccan Jews in Israel as specialists, and those most appreciated by the audience are called "professionals." This select group of "professionals" is invited to participate in gatherings outside their hometowns and is rewarded with substantial payments by their sponsors. It should be stressed, though, that the paytanim consider their work as singers as a "side job" and that all of them hold stable jobs.
The relevant features of the bakkashot tradition can thus be summarized as follows:
1) The bakkashot tradition takes place as a religious event with a mystical background and some educational overtones (a rabbi usually delivers a homily in the intermission of a bakkashot event).
2) The tradition is deeply engraved in the social life of Moroccan Jews in large urban centers.
3) Its musical content is considered by performers and audiences as highly sophisticated; the singers are specially trained individuals versed in an intricate musical system as well as in a large body of liturgical poetry.
4) The tradition survived critical stages in the social history of Moroccan Jewry, especially during the twentieth century. These stages included the advent of the French protectorate in Morocco, internal mass migration toward big cities (notably to Casablanca) in the 1930s, and finally the mass emigration to the State of Israel in the 1950s and 1960s.
PERSISTENCE AND CHANGE WITHIN THE BAKKASHOT TRADITION
The endurance of the tradition itself is therefore the first subject of any inquiry. The question which confronts us when witnessing not only the survival but the revival of the Moroccan bakkashot in Israel is: why? Why is this group interested in ensuring the continuity of such a tradition after so many other traditional patterns of behavior are abandoned in the process of integration into their new society? A related second question concerns the nature of the changes through which this tradition has passed in order to adapt to the new circumstances. I believe that investigation of the processes of change can eventually lead us to clues for the answer to our first question.
36
From a theoretical viewpoint, one of Blacking's hypotheses concerning the nature of musical changes (1977:2-3 and 17-18) seems to be confirmed when analyzing the Moroccan bakkashot in Israel. In our case, changes in the social and cultural condition of the group are not necessarily reflected in the musical material but more in the context of performance and in the ways singers and audiences perceive this tradition. I will mention here only two aspects in the process of contextual change in the bakkashot that seem to me cardinal to the understanding of the interaction among politics, ethnic identity, and this musical event. I refer here to (1) secularization and (2) change in the symbolic meaning of this tradition in the eyes of performers and audiences.
By secularization, I define the process of change in the external behavior of the individual and in the shared values of a community whose behavior and values were previously dictated by the laws and customs of Jewish religion. Secularization is reflected in visible changes in the performance practice of the event, in the role and status of the singers in Israel in comparison with Morocco, and in the behavior of the audiences. For example, the paytanim today tend to behave more like "artists" in the Western sense of the word. In general they care less about religious norms, such as covering the head or driving on Saturdays. Moreover, they are very aware of the commercial aspects of their craft; the payments to the most distinguished singers have been rising consistently in recent years. All these patterns of behavior contrast with the traditional role of the paytanim in Morocco.5 There, they were renowned rabbis or pious individuals concerned more with the religious aspects of the tradition.
The shift in symbolic meaning can be deduced from the ways audiences and singers reflect the importance of the tradition's continuity in Israel in verbal expressions or in actions. These suggest that in Morocco this tradition reflected, in the form of a non-normative religious event, the identity of the Jewish minority in a potentially hostile non-Jewish environment. In Israel, the bakkashot is perceived as a cultural event based on paraliturgical practices that reflect the specific identity of a Moroccan-Jewish minority in the context of a European- dominated Jewish society. An example of actions aimed to ensure the tradition's continuity in Israel is the creation of previously non-existent frameworks for training singers, such as organized workshops in community centers.
37
NEW FUNCTIONS FOR THE BAKKASHOT TRADITION: MOROCCAN- ISRAELI POLITICAL IDENTITY AND THE ABUCHATZIRA CASE
Transformation of the symbolic meaning of the bakkashot is further suggestive of widespread social and cultural change in Moroccan-Israeli society. I posit that the concern of the Moroccan Jews with the continuity of this tradition can be grasped today as a vehicle that helps to promote the political interests of this particular community. To illustrate this thesis, I selected one of many examples from field experience. Some background concerning the circumstances is necessary in order fully to understand the case.
The 1977 elections in Israel marked the initiation of a new period in the political, social, and economic order of the state. It is important for us here to stress the political role played by the ethnic identity of the non- Western Jewish communities in this new period of the country's history. The cultural policies of the governments dominated by the Labor Party during the first twenty years of the state were based on the concept of the "melting pot," the integration of cultural heritages of the different immigrant groups into an ideally neutral Jewish-Zionist cultural matrix (Smooha 1978:252-53). However, it was evident from the start that such a matrix was largely based on concepts and values drawn from the modern industrialized societies of the Western world. These concepts and values reflected the ideals of the dominant socio-economic strata of the society formed by immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Western countries (Smooha 1978:217).
Immigrants from non-Western countries who moved to Israel with almost messianic hopes had therefore to adjust to new norms of behavior, new social values, and new cultural contexts. The process of adjustment created complex feelings in which the desire to integrate into the new Jewish state was mixed with bitterness toward the authorities because of social injustice and protest over a growing economic gap between social classes stratified along ethnic lines (Bensimon-Donath 1971:84). The Moroccan Jews, being the largest and most disadvantaged among the non-Western communities, fell especially victim to the social, economic, and cultural crisis caused by immigration. A pattern of identifying Moroccans with negative values, such as laziness and violence, began to emerge among the Israeli middle class of Western descent (Bar-Yossef 1970) and even within the establishment (Smooha 1978:87-89).
38
Despite the perception of total ethnic integration as an ideal norm (Smooha 1978:77-78), the cultural pluralism of Israeli society became a recognized fact by the establishment during the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, the second generation of non-Western immigrants born and/or educated in Israel slowly learned how to cope with the new socio-economic system (even if from a disadvantaged starting point) and how to channel the identity crisis of their parents into constructive patterns of social action. After a period of violent protests in the early 1970s, non-Western Jews started to grasp the latent possibilities behind political power, particularly due to the growing proportion of their votes vis-A-vis those of the overall population. They realized that only social, economic, and cultural improvements (the last being connected with the abolition of the stereotypic image of the "Oriental") could be achieved on their own and not through the paternalistic concessions from the Ashkenazi establishment and would redeem them from past frustrations. To achieve these improvements, there was only one alternative: to gain a representative share in the governmental decision-making mechanism and to have direct access to the state's economic resources. A challenge of such alternatives produced unprecedented political activism among the non-Western Jews, notably among Moroccans during the 1977 election.
The results of the 1977 national election, with the victory of the right-wing parties for the first time since the creation of the state, demonstrated these new trends. The victorious parties openly addressed the ethnic sentiments of the non-Western public by indirectly accusing the Labor administration of being the source for all social and economic injustices and by stressing nationalistic views that always appealed to that part of the electorate. The demagogic use of concepts such as "the ethnic gap" (pa'ar 'adati) during the campaign reflected the sensitivity of the "ethnic issue" in the political arena of Israel in 1977. In the aftermath of the elction, Jews from non-Western communities started to fill more important governmental posts than before (but still not in proportion to their percentage of the population). In the realm of cultural policies, the creation of the Center for the Integration of the Oriental Jews' Heritage in Israel as a division of the Ministry of Culture and Education was a visible sign of the growing political influence of that segment of the population.
39
In 1979, the specific case that I want to analyze began to develop. The Minister of Religious Affairs, Aaron Abuchatzira, a Jew of Moroccan descent, was accused of mismanagement and corruption during his previous tenure as mayor of an important city near Tel-Aviv. Suddenly the case was in the headlines. Insinuations of a plot intended to discredit one of the first Moroccan Jews to become a cabinet minister in Israel were made by his supporters. Moreover, the minister belonged to a prestigious family of renowned rabbis. His great- grandfather is revered as a saint by Moroccan Jews in Israel until this day. All these facts added very emotional arguments to the case. At stake was the honor and integrity of the largest and most influential among the non-Western Jewish communities in Israel.
In March 1980, I went to record an "end-of-the- season" bakkashot party, an event held between the last Saturday of the bakkashot and Passover in every city where an active group of singers has met throughout the winter. These parties are celebrated in rented halls to allow dining and the use of an instrumental ensemble. Tickets are sold by the organizers of the event, who take care to invite the most distinguished group of singers from around the country. The particular party I am referring to took place in an important southern city where the overwhelming majority of the population is of Moroccan origin.
After setting up my equipment, I was informed that there was the unprogrammed possibility that the accused minister would come to the party after the Parliament session in Jerusalem. The atmosphere in the overflowing hall was tense. The minister indeed arrived about one hour after the event started and was received in an enthusiastic manner by the audience, which stood up and clapped hands rhythmically while chanting his name. After a series of songs and speeches the minister was invited to deliver a speech. He showed a personal acquaintance with some of the singers, whom he greeted by first names. His speech dealt with only one surprising (for me) issue, especially considering his political and personal circumstances at that time. He spoke about the meaning of the bakkashot tradition for the Moroccan Jews in Israel.
He stressed the following points: 1) Two weeks before that evening, Israeli television
(which has only one channel and is controlled by the government) presented a two-program series on the bakkashot tradition of the Moroccan Jews. The minister
40
argued that such a program demonstrated that Moroccan- Jewish cultural values had now been recognized by the whole of Israeli society. This statement clearly implied that such values were not widely recognized in earlier days.
2) He accused the older generation of Moroccans of being ashamed of their traditions. He stressed that the older generation hid their traditions because they were taught to think that such customs were "primitive" and improper for a modern nation.
3) He pointed out that cultural integration in Israel cannot be achieved through melting-pot policies, but only through the formation of a cultural mosaic in which the best values of each community have been brought to the fore.
4) He encouraged audience members to bring their children to social gatherings like the one he was addressing.
5) Finally, he mentioned that, until the 1970s, Moroccans participated only in the building of the state's economic infrastructure and in the defense of its borders. It was now time for them to "collaborate in the consolidation of the Jewish [emphasis mine] culture of the state of Israel."
This speech was one of the best examples demonstrating the awareness of a new symbolic mening for the bakkashot tradition in Israel. Moreover, in this case a skilled politician was using this awareness to convey his ideological stance and to promote personal interests as well.
THE BAKKASHOT AS MOROCCAN-ISRAELI VALUE SYSTEM
What is the essence of this new symbolic meaning and what is the mechanism that allows a politician to address such a meaning for political gains? I believe that the Moroccan Jews perceive the bakkashot as a counterpart to classical European music (and its performance), which they associate with the high cultural values of the Western Jews. Thus a parity between both repertories is suggested, and, by extension, an equal status for the music of both groups is proposed. "This is our concert music," a singer once told me.6 This analogy is based on the artistic value of the Andalusian musical tradition as reflected in its sophisticated modal and rhythmic organization and in the length of the performances. Both characteristics, sophistication and length, are associated by the Moroccan singers with the European classical tradition.
41
As a consequence of such an evaluation of the music, the role and status of the Moroccan singers have changed. Singers and audiences now stress the importance of the music in the bakkashot more and the role of the texts less. This trend, which I have labeled secularization, is also reflected in the increasing commercialization of the bakkashot repertoire. Songs can now be purchased on cassettes sold in stands in markets and central bus stations side by side with recordings of popular music. The awareness of the importance of the mass media is, in my opinion, another important element in the process of secularization and in the forging of a new public image of the Moroccan as an "educated" individual in the eyes of other Israelis.
Aaron Abuchatzira discovered that there are potential political gains in new cultural trends such as the revival of the bakkashot tradition. Such cultural trends helped to strengthen the identity and unity of the group that supported him politically on ethnic grounds. The reaffirmation of such support was particularly important for him in a critical moment of his own political career. Instead of appealing directly for sympathy from the audience by attacking those who accused him of corruption or by recalling the divisive ethnic (and therefore negative from a Jewish-Zionist point of view) background that his followers attached to such accusations, he chose to recall the symbolic meaning of the bakkashot. By doing so, he also reaffirmed, without having to state them directly, his ideological convictions concerning the future of Israeli society, i.e., a moderate religious (this is the inner meaning of the word "Jewish" in his speech), pluralistic society with equal participation of all the Jewish communities.
Finally, one must, at least in a few words, relate this contextual analysis of the bakkashot revival to the music material itself. At the beginning of my study of this tradition, I was especially interested in the singers' cognitive concepts of "old" and "new" in the bakkashot repertoire. They think that the "old style" (to use their own term) consists of piyyutim sung to Andalusian melodies belonging to a tradition unknown to the Moroccan Arabs and therefore less subject to the rules that regulate the present repertoire of Andalusian music in Morocco. The "new style," they argue, consists of piyyutim composed in recent times and sung to well-known parts of the Andalusian repertoire as performed today by Arab musicians in Morocco. This "new style" requires more
42
expertise in the subtle melodic and rhythmic structure of the music. The "new style" is therefore performed by "professional" paytanim and is preferred in social gatherings outside the synagogues to enable the necessary use of instrumental accompaniment.
I mentioned at the beginning of this paper that changes in the symbolic meaning of the bakkashot are not particularly reflected in critical changes of musical content but in contextual changes. However, I may add now that there is a change in the emphasis of the different parts of the repertoire. The "new style" is more and more preferred because it reflects the transformations in the contextual level. In this latter "style," the music is more sophisticated (according to singers and audiences) and thus appeals more to the mass media and to commercial diffusion.
From a broad theoretical perspective, we learn from this study that symbolic forms of expression - music chief among them - are an important source for the understanding of more general patterns of behavior. In Israel, where almost every mode of expression involves statements concerning existential issues, for example inter-ethnic relations or the Jewish nature of the state, the study of music can help to refine the scholar's perception of reality in a way that the study of no other mode of human behavior can do.
University of California, Los Angeles
NOTES
1. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of The Society for Ethnomusicology in Tallahassee, Florida, October 18-23, 1983.
2. On each Shabbat (Saturday) of the Jewish year, a portion of the Torah is read in the synagogue. This reading is one of the central events of the Saturday prayers. Consequently, each Shabbat is named after the first word of its corresponding Torah reading.
3. Shir Yedidot means "a song of loves" after Psalm 45:1.
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4. Sociologists have pointed out a general trend of secularization in Israeli society. See Katz and Gurevitch 1976, for example.
5. Some of these trends, however, were already visible in Casablanca during the 1940s.
6. In the slang of non-Western Jews, the word konzertim (literally "concerts"), refers to the whole repertoire of European classical music and not to the specific musical form or performance context attached to that word by Westerners.
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