''Pizmonim'' (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

פזמונים, singular ''pizmon'') are traditional

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

songs and melodies sung with the intention of praising God as well as learning certain aspects of traditional religious teachings. They are sung throughout religious rituals and festivities such as prayers,

circumcision Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. Top ...

s, '' bar mitzvahs'',

weddings A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marria ...

and other ceremonies. ''Pizmonim'' are extra-liturgical, as distinct from '' piyyutim'', which are hymns printed in the prayer-book and forming an integral part of the service. Similar songs sung in the synagogue on the Sabbath morning between midnight and dawn are called ''

baqashot The ''baqashot'' (or ''bakashot'', he, שירת הבקשות) are a collection of supplications, songs, and prayers that have been sung by the Sephardic Syrian, Moroccan, and Turkish Jewish communities for centuries each week on Shabbat mornin ...

'' (שירת הבקשות).

Geographical background

''Pizmonim'' are traditionally associated with

Sephardi Jews Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

, although they are related to

Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

' '' zemirot''. The best known tradition is associated with Jews descended from Aleppo, though similar traditions exist among

Iraqi Jews The history of the Jews in Iraq ( he, יְהוּדִים בָּבְלִים, ', ; ar, اليهود العراقيون, ) is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BC. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and mo ...

(where the songs are known as ''shbaḥoth'', praises) and in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

n countries. Jews of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, Turkish and Balkan origin have songs of the same kind in Ladino, associated with the festivals: these are known as ''coplas''.

History of texts

The texts of many ''pizmonim'' date back to before the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, while others were composed by poets such as

Yehuda Halevi Judah Halevi (also Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi; he, יהודה הלוי and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi ; ar, يهوذا اللاوي ''Yahuḏa al-Lāwī''; 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, ...

and Israel Najara of Gaza after the Spanish Inquisition. Some melodies are quite old, while others may be based on popular Middle Eastern music, with the words composed specially to fit the tune. A prolific composer of ''pizmonim'' of this last kind was Hakham Rephael Antebi Tabbush (Aleppo 1830According to the biography i
www.piyut.il
and the preface to ''Shirah Ḥadashah'' ("the Blue Book"). ''La-qedoshim asher ba-are"tz'' gives the date as 1856/7.-Cairo 1918), who is regarded as the founder of the tradition in its present form. The tradition has since been exported to

Syrian Jewish Syrian Jews ( he, יהודי סוריה ''Yehudey Surya'', ar, الْيَهُود السُّورِيُّون ''al-Yahūd as-Sūriyyūn'', colloquially called SYs in the United States) are Jews who lived in the region of the modern state of Syri ...

communities in the Americas by his pupils, principally Hakham Moses Ashear in New York. ''Pizmonim'' are composed for special occasions such as weddings and ''bar mitzvahs'' by Cantors in the past, as well as the present, by Ezekiel Hai Albeg, H Ezra Mishaniye, Rabbi Raphael Yair Elnadav, and others. Most ''pizmonim'' are in Hebrew, though a few are in Judaeo-Aramaic or

Judaeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encom ...

''Maqamat'' (''maqams'')

All ''pizmonim'' can be classified under different '' maqams'' (musical modes), of which there are about ten in common use. '' Maqam ajam'', which sounds a little like a Western

major scale The major scale (or Ionian mode) is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double ...

, is the thematic ''maqam'' that contains many holiday melodies. ''Maqam hijaz'', which corresponds to the

Phrygian dominant scale In music, the Phrygian dominant scale is the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale, the fifth being the dominant.Dave Hunter (2005). ''Play Acoustic'', San Francisco: Backbeat, p. 226. . Also called the persian scale, altered Phrygian scale, d ...

, is the thematic ''maqam'' that contains many sad melodies. ''Maqam sikah'' (or ''sigah''), containing many three-quarter-tone intervals, is used for the

cantillation Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy. Cantillation includes: * Chant ...

of the Torah. ''Maqam saba'' is the ''maqam'' used for circumcisions.

Origins of tradition

The origin of the tradition could potentially be explained in the context of certain rulings of the ''

Geonim ''Geonim'' ( he, גאונים; ; also transliterated Gaonim, singular Gaon) were the presidents of the two great Babylonian Talmudic Academies of Sura and Pumbedita, in the Abbasid Caliphate, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of ...

'' discouraging the use of '' piyyutim'' in core parts of the prayer service. These rulings were taken seriously by the Kabbalistic school of

Isaac Luria Isaac ben Solomon Luria Ashkenazi (1534 Fine 2003, p24/ref> – July 25, 1572) ( he, יִצְחָק בן שלמה לוּרְיָא אשכנזי ''Yitzhak Ben Sh'lomo Lurya Ashkenazi''), commonly known in Jewish religious circles as "Ha'ARI" (mea ...

, and from the sixteenth century on many hymns were eliminated from the service. As the community did not wish to lose these much-loved hymns, the custom grew up of singing them extra-liturgically. Thus, the original core of the ''pizmonim'' collection consists of hymns from the old Aleppo ritual (published in Venice in 1560) and hymns from the Sephardic service by

, Solomon ibn Gabirol and others. A few hymns were also taken from the liturgy of the

Romaniotes The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes ( el, Ῥωμανιῶτες, ''Rhomaniótes''; he, רומניוטים, Romanyotim) are a Greek-speaking ethnic Jewish community native to the Eastern Mediterranean. They are one of the oldest Jewish comm ...

. Further ''pizmonim'' were composed and added to the collection through the centuries. This practice may have arisen out of a Jewish prohibition of singing songs of the non-Jews (due to the secular character and lyrics of the songs). This was true in the case of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

songs, whereby Jews were allowed to listen to the songs, but not allowed to sing them with the text. In order to bypass the problem, many composers, throughout the centuries, wrote new lyrics to the songs with the existing melodies, in order not to violate the tradition of not singing non-Jewish songs.

Liturgical and non-liturgical use

During typical Shabbat and holiday services in the Syrian tradition, the melodies of ''pizmonim'' are used as settings for some of the prayers, in a system of rotation to ensure that the maqam suits the mood of the holiday or the Torah reading. Each week there is a different '' maqam'' assigned to the cantor according to the theme of the given Torah portion of the week. A ''pizmon'' may also be sung in honour of a person called up to the Torah, immediately before or after the reading: usually this is chosen so as to contain some allusion to the person's name or family. ''Pizmonim'', or any melodies, are generally not applied throughout the week during prayer services. Another occasion for their use is at the gatherings some individuals would hold in their homes on Shabbat afternoons. A gathering of this kind may take the form of an extended kiddush, and is known as a ''sebbet'' (from the

Syrian Arabic Syrian Arabic refers to any of the Arabic varieties spoken in Syria, or specifically to Levantine Arabic. Aleppo, Idlib, and Coastal dialects Aleppo and surroundings Characterized by the imperfect with ''a''-: ''ašṛab'' ‘I drink’, ...

for "Saturday").

The Red book

In 1959, the Syrian community of Brooklyn, New York, acted on the need of compiling their own pizmonim book based on their ancient traditions from Aleppo. Prior to this, there were many older pizmonim books circulating around the community, but they didn't have Hebrew vowels, and were generally difficult for the masses to utilize. The book, which was published by the Sephardic Heritage Foundation, was started in 1949 by Gabriel Shrem and was completed in 1964. It aimed to include the ancient (Baqashot and Petihot), the old (Israel Najara, Mordechai Abadi, Raphael Tabbush, Moshe Ashear), and the new material (Raphael Yair Elnadav, Ezra Dweck, Gabriel A Shrem, Ezekiel Hai Albeg, Abraham Cohen Saban, Ezra Mishaniye, and other modern Israeli melodies). The book also has innovative features very useful for a cantor, such as a list of maqams to go with the specific perasha, as well as which pieces of Sabbath prayers fit with the melodies of certain pizmonim. In later editions, more songs were added to the book in their appropriate sections. The classic red pizmonim book mentioned above serves Syrian Jews of Brooklyn as their official canon of pizmonim. The book is currently in its ninth edition.

Sephardic Pizmonim Project

The Sephardic Pizmonim Project, is a website dedicated to the scholarship, restoration and preservation of the ancient music of the Sephardic-Syrian Jewish community. The project, founded by David Matouk Betesh, is dedicated to the memory of his great grandfather, cantor Gabriel A Shrem, a former instructor at

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

's Cantorial Institute (Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music), cantor of B'nai Yosef Synagogue and editor-in-chief of the "Shir uShbaha Hallel veZimrah" pizmonim book. The website is also dedicated in honor of cantor Isaac J. Cabasso of Congregation Beth Torah in Brooklyn, New York. Preludes to the project began in the late 1970s when Shrem started teaching a course at Yeshiva University. As a demonstration tool, Shrem recorded the bulk of the pizmonim for classroom distribution. The collection resulting from these recordings encompassed roughly 65% of the Sephardic pizmonim liturgy. Since 2004 and over the course of about seven years, Isaac J. Cabasso, on behalf of the Sephardic Pizmonim Project, has provided approximately 200 more recordings of pizmonim not recorded by Shrem. The Sephardic Pizmonim Project organisation re-released all of Shrem's recordings on a large CD collection in September 2004 selling approximately 7,000 CDs. The organisation launched a website in 2006 with the goal of "preserving all iddle Eastern Jewishliturgical traditions". In the process, cantors throughout the world have contacted the organisation to provide recordings to further enhance the project. The project's website (www.pizmonim.com) contains recordings of the Biblical taamim and the

, together with pizmonim not included in the CD collection. In January 2012, the website, under web designer Sam Franco, received a major facelift to advance the organization into the next decade. In 2020, the project announced that it had reached the benchmark of only missing 65 melodies of pizmonim from the 'Shir Ushbaha Hallel VeZimrah' pizmonim book. When the project first began, they were missing over 300 pizmonim. The last 65 pizmonim that are still missing will be more difficult to obtain due to the aging population and the general difficulty of those specific pizmonim. In addition to preserving "Red Book" pizmonim, the project also attempts to preserve pizmonim from "Old Shir Ushbaha" (Cohen, 1905, 1921) as well as melodies whose names appear in the weekly Hazzanut notes of H Moses Ashear (1877-1940).

Notes

External links

Piyut
(in Hebrew), also contains hymns from other traditions.
Sephardic Pizmonim Project
includes samples of pizmonim from Shir Ushbaִhah Hallel Vezimrah Pizmonim book. Jewish prayer and ritual texts Jewish services Jewish music Judaism in Syria Vocal music Jewish music genres Hebrew words and phrases in Jewish prayers and blessings

Geographical background

History of texts

''Maqamat'' (''maqams'')

Origins of tradition

Liturgical and non-liturgical use

The Red book

Sephardic Pizmonim Project

See also

Notes

Further reading

Books

Secondary literature

External links