What makes Jewish music Jewish?

I love this question, too, and did some research a while ago. Just like Jews and Jewish food, our music comes in all nationalities and flavors: Ladino, Kletzmer, Mizrahi, Israeli Folk, Classical, and Hassidic Nigunim. Yiddish and Kletzmer from Eastern Europe, for example has become identified as "Jewish" when actually it's originally indigenous to Goyishke Eastern European folk or worse burlesque (a friend played some of the original tunes and words and translated the Yiddish - it would burn your ears--heavy metal has nothing on it!). So there has been a conversion process with all these types of music so to speak. Cossack dances, Polish military marches, East European folk songs, Near Eastern dance tunes, Turkish chants, Ladino folk, and even Central European waltzes were all secular and non-Jewish melodies that could be transformed into Jewish music, even Holy nigunim or chants. This was not considered a problem for Hasidim. On the contrary, Hasidic thought contains a notion of tikkun (literally, "fixing"), whereby non-Jewish or secular melodies can be spiritually redeemed and restored to their religious state by being sung as meditations, either with new religious lyrics or without words altogether.

According to a well known tale, the Kalever Tsadik, Isaac Eizik (Toib) of Kalev (1744-1821), was once walking in the Ukrainian forest when he heard a pastoral shepherd singing a love song in Ukrainian. The Hasid was captivated by the song, whose lyrics spoke of the shepherd's longing for his love, separated from him by the vast forest. The Hasidic Rebbe took the song and translated the lyrics into Yiddish, replacing the lyrics' description of secular love with a description of his soul's longing for the Shekhina, the mystical divine presence (of God). He then asked the shepherd to sing the song, but the young man found he had forgotten it. Whereupon the Hasid exclaimed, ""I have purified the nigun and returned it to its holy sources!"

Or, stories are also told where tunes can start out sacred, and then go through the secular world and back again -- like “A Gilgul fun a Niggun” (“The Transmigration or Reincarnation of a Melody”): The tale is about a nigun/melody that wanders from town to town in Eastern Europe. The nigun begins its life as a wedding melody composed for a Hasidic rebbe, then wanders from town to town in Eastern Europe where various people hear it and borrow it temporarily. From the wedding, it goes on to become a Jewish memorial prayer in another shtetl, then moves via Kiev to the Yiddish theater in Warsaw, only to end up being played as a poor organ-grinder's tune in the circus. The nigun's wanderings continue from house to house, person to person, town to town, and, eventually, back to the Hasidic rebbe. But the melody's migration is not yet done. At the tale's end, it departs with one of its bearers to a new destination: America.

Breath, sound, rhythm, tunes, and lyrics can communicate the Divine Presence. The transformation from secular to Jewish involves that Divine Presence. If it still sounds secular or non-Jewish, it's because it still lacks the rectification or tikkun. This is why some Rock can sound Jewish and some not so Jewish, or why some Burlesque Kletzmer can and some not. As far as how that gets put into the music, it just is done by people who have it. The music is a conveyor or door or reflection of some Ruach Jews know and carry.

"There are gates in heaven that cannot be opened except by melody and song." -Zohar

That is a good question. Often I guess the lyrics. Abie Rotenberg sings distinctly Jewish songs. In that case it is the lyrics. Klezmer is the beat and the tone I suppose.Ofra Haza was Israeli and sang pop, folk, rock and other types of music but I would call her music more Israeli than Jewish. The Yeshiva Boys Choir sings Jewish songs by the lyrics and not the beat. That is a great question.

I think in some cases its the lyrics, in some cases its the beat and in some cases its both.

Music labels are 90% marketing constructs. I always appreciate it when the producer puts 'Celtic' on a disc in shiny gold letters because I know then to avoid it. :-)

I think in this case though, the most pertinent factor may be the fact that the audience for a Hebrew-language group, regardless of music style, is going to be primarily Jewish.

There is no such thing as "Jewish music" or even "Jewish foods". Its just things that come into our culture. Matzo ball soup for example is categorized as a "Jewish food" but you wouldn't see a Sephardi Jew who may enjoy some Mtzo Bll Soup. But with music, Klezmer music is more of south eastern european music than just "Jewish Music". Many things that are categorized as such is apart of Secular Jewish culture.

Well, traditional Jewish music usually incorporates:

- 3/4 time rhythms (sometimes colloquially referred to as 'oomph-ah')

- Traditional Jewish instruments (harp, klezmer)

- A spiritual theme to the lyrics (but not always; secular music by Jewish musicians is fairly common)

Wikipedia can explain it better than I can.

That we sing it at services & events? Often the words are distinctly Jewish no matter what the tune :).

I don't know maybe the jews playing it.

Harp is not a jewish instrument it's an egyptian one. The ancient egyptians used to play it.

Matisyahu

Have you checked into the Klezmer revival though? I love the Klezmatics!

http://www.google.com/musica?aid=ypmt534q75C&sa=X&...

THE SOUND OF THE VIOLINS AND FIDDLERS MUSIC OF THE SOUL

[edit] Mizrahi

MIDDLE EASTERN GREEK/ EASTERN SOUNDS

http://www.jewishmusic.com/

RUSSIAN GYPSY MUSIC ( CAN IDENTIFY WAILING BURNING VIOLINS ETC.. A SOUL MUSIC

http://www.barynya.com/pobedinski.htm

IVE LIVED WITH IT ALL MY LIFE.. LOVE IT :)

I THINK THEY ARE JUST GYPSY SOUL MUSIC :)

WHICH BRING OUT MY OWN RUSSIAN/ GREEK HERITAGE :)

ALL SOUL OF SOUL MUSIC :)

MUSIC AND WORDS THE BEST :)

BUBLICHKI. ETC.