Exploring the history and development of Maftirim music in Turkey

12 Introduction
reform. More recently, amid diverse sociopolitical tensions,
synagogue
security and enclosed Maftirim sessions resemble a kind of
second-
stage, internal emigration of the religiously observant—a
departure
from the street into secured space. As such, Maftirim
performance
today continues to have much to tell us about the urban
landscape of
music-making, intercommunal relations and tensions, and the
place
of Jews in contemporary Turkish society.
❊
The thematically based chapters of the book interpret music-
making
in Ottoman-Turkish synagogues, with particular reference to the
Maftirim repertoire, as a part of a shared imperial and national
his-
tory, even as the Jewish population in Turkey significantly
decreased
over the course of the twentieth century. Understudied in
comparison
with Ottoman Jewry and locally settled and self-sustaining
today, the
Turkish Jewish community, though small, is worthy of scholarly
atten-
tion. In order to do justice to contemporary life and write

against the
grain of a narrative of decline, each chapter begins with
ethnographic
historical traces located in the present. The traces not only
serve as
a springboard for the historical discussion of the chapters, but
also
suggest a contemporary mixture of tenses more aligned than
linear
decline to a lived experience of an Ottoman-Turkish-Jewish
musical
culture today. To hear the historical and contemporary music
behind
the lines of this cultural history, a discography is provided at
the end
of the book.
Taken as a whole, the five chapters move chronologically from
the
turn of the twentieth century to the present day. At the same
time, each
chapter focuses on a specific theme significant to this changing
histori-
cal period. Through the life stories of four Ottoman-born Jewish
com-
posers living in the early twentieth century, Chapter One
explores how
Jews in linked roles of religious vocalist and leader (from hazan
to con-
gregation head to chief rabbi) as well as popular artists
facilitated cul-
tural flows by circulating in musical urban spaces of which
synagogues
were a part. Framing music-making within the urban
environment as-
sists in examining the precise places and people participating in

com-
mon patterns of patronage, aesthetic conventions, and
apprenticeships
Discussion one (75-150 words)
Companies are marketing their products to impact your
purchases as a consumer!
•List a product that you regularly purchase. Discuss the
product's marketing segmentation strategy and specifically
mention where YOU fall within their strategy.
•As you respond to peers, reflect on the product they are
discussing and respond with where YOU fall in their products
marketing segmentation strategy!
Assignment one:
During Week 1 you invented a product – this week you will
create a chart showing price vs quality or two other factors that
impact your product.
Write a 2 page paper stating your USP – unique selling
proposition. Explain market segmentation, pricing or anything
else that would help position your product for success in the
marketplace and include your chart on the second page.
•Your Paper should be double spaced, Times New Roman with
standard margins. (Remember, the chart should go on a separate
page).
Include a cover sheet and 2-3 references

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
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the
Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars,
researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information
technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new
forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please
contact [email protected]
University of Texas Press is collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to Asian Music.
http://www.jstor.org
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.
43

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.
REFERENCES CITED
Al-Fassi, Muhammad
1962 "La musique marocaine dite 'musique
andaluse'." Hesperis-Tamada 3 (1):
79-106.
Bar-Yosef, Rivkah
1970 "The Moroccans: Background to the
Problem." S.N. Eisenstadt, Rivkah Bar-
Yosef, and Chaim Adler, eds.,
Integration and Development in Israel.
Jerusalem: Israel University Press.
Pp. 419-28.
Bensimon-Donath, Doris
1971 "Social Integration of North-African
Jews in Israel." Dispersion and Unity
12:68-100.

Blacking, John
1977 "Some Problems of Theory and Method in
the Study of Musical Change." Yearbook
of the International Folk Music Council
9:1-26.
Chottin, Alexis
1939 Tableau de la musique marocaine.
Paris: Geuthner.
Deshen, Shlomo and Moshe Shokeid
1974 The Predicament of Homecoming: Cultural
and Social Life of North African
Immigrants in Israel. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
44
Fenton, Paul
1975 "Les baqqasot d'orient et d'occident."
Revue des Etudes Juives 134 (1-2):
101-21.
Herman, Simon N.
1970 Israelis and Jews: The Continuity of an
Identity. New York: Random House.
Idelsohn, Abraham Z.

1929 Jewish Music in its Historical
Development. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston.
Katz, Elihu and Michael Gurevitch
1976 The Secularization of Leisure: Culture
and Communication in Israel.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
Scholem, Gershom
1976 Elements of the Kabbalah and its
Symbolism. Jerusalem: Bialik
Institute. (In Hebrew)
Schuyler, Philip
1978 "Andalusian Music of Morocco." The
World of Music 20 (1): 33-46.
Smooha, Sammy
1978 Israel: Pluralism and Conflict. London
and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Tur-el (Gilead), Tali
1981 "The Place of Music in the Custom of
the 'Bakkashot' among Moroccan Jews in
Israel." M.A. Thesis, Tel-Aviv
University. (In Hebrew)
45

Paper no. 2
List the Similarities and Differences between Jewish-Moroccan
‘Bakkashot’ and Jewish-
Ottoman ‘Maftirim’.
Please make a comparison of the similarities and differences
(rather than talking about
the ‘Bakkashot’ separately for one page and then about the
‘Maftirim’ for one page...) –
for example, you might write something like: “Both the
Bakkashot and Maftirim are sung
on... however the former is sung in the morning while the
latter...”
! You should use ALL 3 sources listed below. If you would like
to add other sources
(but NOT instead of the 3 listed below), you are welcome to do
so. If you add
additional sources, include them in your paper’s “Works Cited.”
! Submit as an attached Word document (preferred) or PDF. Do
not submit links
to Google Docs.
! Keep the introduction and conclusion concise. Get to the

comparisons quickly.
! Not more than TWO 1.5-spaced pages
! Cite your sources
! Plagiarism includes copying and pasting from Wikipedia, an
encyclopedia, or
any other sources not quoted or cited and paraphrased. It will
not be tolerated,
and you will not receive credit for the paper.
Sources
Available on the eCommons
1. Seroussi, Edwin. “Politics, Ethnic Identity and Music in the
Singing of Bakkashot
among Moroccan Jews in Israel” in Asian Music 17/2 (1986),
32-45.
2. Jackson, Maureen. Mixing Musics: Turkish Jewry and the
Urban Landscape of a
Sacred Song (Stanford University Press, 2013)
3. Seroussi, Edwin. “The Turkish Maqam in the Musical Culture
of the Ottoman Jews:
Sources and Examples”, in Israel Studies in Musicology,
Volume 5 (1990), 43-68.

Exploring the history and development of Maftirim music in Turkey

Exploring the history and development of Maftirim music in Turkey

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Exploring the history and development of Maftirim music in Turkey

Similar to Exploring the history and development of Maftirim music in Turkey (20)

More from moggdede

More from moggdede (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Exploring the history and development of Maftirim music in Turkey