Rumenishe Shtiklekh: klezmer music among the Hasidim in contemporary Israel

Judaism, Wntr, 1998 by Joel Rubin

7. Celebrated on the 33rd day after Pesach, the pilgrimage on Lag ba-Omer was originally celebrated by Sephardic Jews. Considered religiously to be a minor holiday, it has only become important for Hasidim and certain other Ashkenazic groups since the second half of the nineteenth century. A second pilgrimage takes place annually on the Seventh of Adar, commemorating the presumed anniversary of Moses' death, where instrumental music is performed. See Andre Hajdu, "Le Niggun Meron: Description d'un patrimoine instrumental juif," in Yuval, Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre, Vol. II (Jerusalem: At the Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1971), pp. 73-111; Hajdu and Mazor, Hassidic Tunes.

8. According to AS, whose family comes from Safed and who has been a long-time pilgrim to Meron, Segal's family stemmed from Tiberias, and originally came from Romania (Interview AS, August 1993).

9. It should be noted, however, that recently, "a sort of substitute for the klezmer band has developed, in the form of a single musician singing and accompanying himself on percussion instruments (snare drum, bass drum and a single cymbal) which were not affected by the ban....Another recent tendency aiming at circumventing the ban consists of celebrating the wedding outside Jerusalem, sometimes barely off the outskirts of the city." Yaakov Mazor and Moshe Taube, "A Hassidic Ritual Dance: The mitsve tants in Jerusalemite Weddings," in Yuval, Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre, Vol VI (Jerusalem: At the Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1993), p. 165. The repertoire sung by the drummer at the Yerushalmi weddings is identical to that performed by instrumentalists at other orthodox weddings.

10. YF, a new informant central to my 1997 research, is 19 years old and studied at the same yeshiva as GK.

11. Hajdu did, however, know of the American tradition, both through his personal association with New York musician Peter Sokolow, as well as through access to the Jakob Michael collection at the National Sound Archives, which includes a significant number of 78 rpm and LP recordings from the United States. The only Israeli to have actively researched the American klezmer tradition was American-born Janet Elias (now Cassel) in the early 1970s, who interviewed several of the musicians and took lessons with clarinetist Dave Tarras. Elias, however, became very orthodox and discontinued her research without having published any results.

12. The only Romanian musician whom he actually named was the well-known nai player Gheorge Zamfir, who, as was pointed out at the conference by Robert Garfias, is not a Gypsy and additionally is not considered to be a leading representative of Romanian instrumental music. What is interesting for this discussion is that his music was perceived by my informant to be Gypsy.

13. These include various commercial recordings, field recordings from the National Sound Archives in Jerusalem, as well as: Andre Hajdu and Yaakov Mazor. Ozar ha-hasidut - 101 niggune riqgud/Hassidic Treasury - 101 Hassidic Dance Tunes. [Jerusalem: Renanot Institute for Jewish Music (prev. Israel Institute for Sacred Music), 1974/1988]; Hajdu, "Le Niggun Meron"; Yaacov Mazor and Andre Hajdu in collaboration with Bathja Bayer, "The Hasidic Dance-Niggun: A Study Collection and Its Classificatory Analysis," in Yuval, Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre, Vol. III (Jerusalem: At the Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1974), pp. 136-266; and Hajdu and Mazor, Hassidic Tunes.