gnomi | Erev Shabbat Jewish Blogging

Last week, I asked for topic suggestions, and

chaiya responded (in part):

Easiest is probably that I want to hear more about Jewish music. I didn't grow up with it, and I only tend to be exposed to that which has English on the cover, and a tiny fraction of that. What's good? What's classic? What brings back memories?

So, this week I'll talk more about Jewish music.

My exposure to Jewish music started at a very young age. We listened to a lot of Jewish music at home -- Paul Zim, Shimon and Ilana, lots of others -- and we sang a lot, as well. My parents had vinyl albums of Hebrew songs, and I recall an 8-track tape of songs written at the time of the Yom Kippur War.

Some of my most vivid memories from when I was in Kindergarten through 3rd grade involve the Chanukah pageant put on by my school. I remember the principal of the school (who is the rabbi who did

mabfan's and my wedding) teaching us songs to sing at the pageant.

And I grew up in Young Judaea, so there's a lot of Hebrew music that I think of as YJ songs. These include both songs we sang (such as "Lo Alecha" and "Halicha L'Keisaria (Eli, Eli)") and songs we danced to (such as "Hora Nirkoda" and "Od Lo Ahavti Dai").

There are the songs -- such Shabbat zemirot and the various songs that come out of the davening -- that I think of as being specifically religious songs.

And there are the things that one can do with some Jewish songs. I have a mental list of songs that I've tried to get "Adon Olam" to fit to (one can sing "Adon Olam" to many, many things). There's the fact that I periodically sing "Ain K'Elokainu" to the theme from "The Addams Family" ("Nice...spice...grind twice"), since I discovered during college that it works. I have inflicted "Aishet Chayil" as sung to "Old MacDonald" on a number of my friends over the years.

There is touching, beautiful Jewish and Hebrew music. And there is raucous, rocking Jewish and Hebrew music. There are new songs and there are ancient songs. Songs of love and war, songs of survival and despair. Songs for the holidays and songs for the workday. And songs of Shabbat, as I discussed last week.

Shabbat shalom!