Emotions in Jewish Music: Personal and Scholarly Reflections

by Jonathan L. Friedmann (Editor)

Overview

Emotions in Jewish Music is an insider’s view of music’s impact on Jewish devotion and identity. Written by cantors who have devoted themselves to the study and execution of Jewish music, the book’s six chapters explore a wide range of musical contexts and encounters. Topics include the spiritual influence of secular Israeli tunes, the use and meaning of traditional synagogue modes, and the changing nature of Jewish worship. The approaches are both personal and scholarly, describing the experiential side of Jewish music in both practical and philosophical terms. Emotions in Jewish Music reveals much about the emotional aspects of Jewish musical expression.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761856757
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	11/25/2011
Pages:	118
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.46(h) x 0.57(d)

About the Author

Jonathan L. Friedmann is cantor of Bet Knesset Bamidbar and Valley Outreach Synagogue-P’nai Tikvah, both in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is professor of Jewish music history at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, and is the author or editor of eight books, including Jewish Sacred Music and Jewish Identity (2008), Music in Jewish Thought (2009), Perspectives on Jewish Music (2009), and Quotations on Jewish Sacred Music (2011).

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Jonathan L. Friedmann
1. Naomi Shemer’s Artistic Expression: Poetry, Prayer, or Both?
Meeka Simerly
2. Why Nusach Still Matters
Mark S. Goodman
3. Davening and Congregational Song
William Sharlin
4. A Wandering Musician
Roni Kripper
as told to Jonathan L. Friedmann
5. Emotions, Cohesion, and Synagogue Song: A Durkheimian Approach
Jonathan L. Friedmann
6. Golden Links in an Unbroken Chain: The Role of Music Memory in Adult Jewish Education
Sharon Eve Colbert
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Emotions in Jewish Music presents a subtle and panoramic survey of sacred sound in Jewish thought and practice. The insights Friedmann and fellow contributors offer about music—and its role in Judaism particularly—are unique and multi-dimensional. This clear volume will surely enhance the reader’s appreciation of music and its many aspects, no matter one’s level of musical literacy. —Brad Stetson, Ph.D., lecturer in religious studies, California State University, Long Beach

As a Catholic inclined to interior silence in my seeking the Divine, I found Friedmann’s artfully collected articles a revelation, dissolving the false division between the voice’s yearning to praise Hashem and the soul’s yearning to be passive before the Most High. Thank you, Jonathan, for assembling such a profound meditation on the relation of interior worship and song! —Joseph Conti, Ph.D, lecturer in comparative religion, California State University, Fullerton