Research Catalog

Title

Music in the Jewish community of Palestine 1880-1948 : a social history / Jehoash Hirshberg.

Author

Hirshberg, Jehoash.

Publication

Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xii, 297 pages : map, music; 24 cm

Summary

• This book presents a social history of the music of the Jewish community in Palestine from the beginnings of Jewish immigration to Palestine in 1880 to the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. The story is a fascinating case study of a small society of immigrants and refugees who established an internationally recognized professional musical establishment against the backdrop of two world wars, the absorption of successive waves of immigrants, local skirmishes, and a full-scale national war.
• Though under Ottoman and later British rule, Jewish society in Palestine was virtually autonomous in cultural matters; its musical culture struggled for a balance between a transplanted European heritage and a powerful, ideologically driven desire to find inspiration from the East. Professor Hirshberg opens with a description of music in Palestine under Ottoman rule, and then proceeds to chart the momentous history of the next 70 years in a broadly chronological framework. His final chapters centre on the broad array of ideological and social polemics which dominated the musical scene for the entire period.
• As such, his book will be of interest not only to music historians (especially those interested in national schools and in twentieth-century music), but also to social historians, cultural anthropologists, and historians of contemporary Jewry.

Subjects

• Jews > Palestine > Music > History and criticism
• Music > Social aspects

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

A Map of Some of the Towns and Settlements in Central and Northern Palestine -- 1. Cultural and Ethnic Interaction in Ottoman Jerusalem -- 2. The Musical Scene in the Ottoman Period: Initiatives and Rivalries -- 3. From Abyss to Recovery -- 4. The Temple of the Arts: Dream and Nightmare -- 5. Music of the People, Music for the People -- 6. Music in the Land of the Bible, Pure Music, and Good Manners -- 7. A Scene Change: Enter the Germans -- 8. From Pan-Europe to the Palestine Orchestra -- 9. Inventing a Tradition of Folksongs -- 10. The Immigrant Composers Transform the Musical Scene -- 11. My Heart is in the East -- 12. Individualism versus Collectivism: Music and the Kibbutz -- 13. In the Cause of Jewish Music -- 14. Between East and West: The Ideological Strife -- 15. The Semiotics of the East -- Epilogue: Guns and Muses.

ISBN

0198162421

OCLC

• 31434154
• ocm31434154

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries