October 22th, 2021, Shabbat is almost here!
And today we will listen to a master of Yemenite music: Aharon Amram.
Hello, how are you? I hope well. Today, when this email is being sent, I am in Mérida, Spain. The Jewish community of Mérida is the first of which there is a documentary knowledge in the Iberian Peninsula and, consequently, the most lasting Jewish settlement in Spain, according to José Antonio Ballesteros Díez, in his work Judíos en Mérida (siglos II al XVII) (available here, in Spanish). And in Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience (available here) Jane S. Gerber explains that:
“The movement westward began after Titus’s destruction of Judea and was spurred on by Rome’s brutal suppression of a revolt in Palestine in 135. As Jews fanned out to the further comers of the Mediterranean, Italy and Spain to the north, the African coast to the south, they built settlements that have left us such archaeological traces as ruins of synagogues, the underground burial caverns known as catacombs, and trilingual (Hebrew, Latin, Greek) tombstone inscriptions. One such tombstone dating from sixth-century Merida confirms the proud claims of later Spanish Jews that they were descended from the “founding fathers” of the nation. […] Other cities with strong, influential Jewish communities included Calatayud, its very name derived from the Arabic Kalaat el-Tabud (quarter of the Jews) and Merida, from which many Sephardic families proudly claimed their origin. According to tradition, it was the first Spanish city founded by the Jerusalem exiles, making it the home of a special nobility and ancient aristocracy.”
Nevertheless, Mérida is better known for the Roman legacy. This ? is just one of the many examples: the aqueduct of the miracles. The picture is by Lorenzo Vallés, in wikimedia.
Then, please, spread the word.
 |
Share this with a friend, right from here |
About Aharon Amram
- He was born in Sana’a, Yemen, in 1939, in a family of 7 children. His father was the head of the psalm readers company.
- The family emigranted to Israel in 1950, as part of the Operation Magic Carpet.
- Since he was 14 years old, Aharon started to participate in the radio show dedicated to the “voice of Isarel for the inmigtantes of Yemen”.
- He got a scholarship to study music in Tel Aviv.
- This paragraph is very important, so I copy it literally: “When one of his teachers found out that Amram was practicing Yemenite singing while out of school and singing at weddings and Bar-Mitzvahs, she advised him to choose between Yemenite and classical singing because of the different vocal techniques. He chose Yemenite singing, and thereafter saw it as his calling in Israel to revive, preserve, and continue the Yemenite tradition.”
- He used to sing at weddings and started to recorded albums. In 1961 he started to work as a guide in a youth center, where he stablished choirs and singing groups.
- In 1963 he toured Europe with Hapa’amonim dance group. After that he continued performing also abroad and he has been recording albums and creating dance and music groups.
- He composed or arranged many songs, like Galbi. The melody for his Kirya Yefefia is his.
- In many occasions he performs just with a can, like in the video we have today, due to a prohibition on playing musical instruments (I suposse this comes from the times of the destruction of the Second Temple) which was recognized among Yemenite Jew. He has been awarded in several occasions and he is considered a benchmark in the music of Israel and specially in the music from the Yemenite.
About the piece Kirya Yefefia
As the poem is the same as the previous week and it was already explained, I invite you to visit that edition on the website, here, to learn about it if you didn’t read it yet.
|
Share this with a friend, right from here |