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[Editor's Note:
I received a review copy of Ms. Pal-Yarden's disc and was so moved by both
the music and the accompanying book that I asked if she'd be kind enough to
contribute to Jump Arts Journal and reprint it here in our new incarnation,
Acoustic Levitation. Happily, she obliged, and our coverage of the disc Yahudice
will appear here separately. I discovered the Kalan Müzik label on a
recent visit to Istanbul and purchased over forty of their discs of ethnic
historical and contemporary recordings, nearly all packaged within large CD-sized
multilingual books. They are the Turkish equivalent to the US labels Smithsonian/Folkways
and Rounder but with even better packaging yet at a lower price. They currently
have no US distribution. We apologize for being presently unable to reproduce
some of the standard Turkish letters with their diacritical marks, such as
the s with a cedilla and the g with circumflex. We have adapted them to their
closest English counterparts, choosing for similarity of visual appearance
rather than for equivalent sound.]
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In the last few
years Istanbul has become a scene for the unique musical activities of Ladino
(Judeo- Spanish) music. Sephardic tradition has become more accessible to
the Turkish audience, and a door has opened for musicians of other faiths
to collaborate with Jewish musicians. A heterogeneous audience attends Sephardic
music events and purchases its products. This article's
aims are to give an introduction to Ladino music in its commercial aspects
in Istanbul and open some more paths for thorough research.
Many questions
arise from the Ladino music scene in Istanbul: Can we identify special musical
characteristics that will distinguish all Sephardic groups founded in Istanbul?
What are the tools used to draw Sephardic music out from the Jewish community
private circles toward the Turkish non- Jewish audience, and what is lost
or gained from this spreading and sharing?
Which came first:
Did the curiosity of Turkish people toward Jewish secular and religious ceremonies,
embodied in Sephardic music, make Turkish musicians eager to collaborate with
Sephardic musicians and thus bring the Ladino songs forward musically and
publicly? Or did the collaboration between Turkish and Sephardic musicians
spring from a deeper concern by the Turkish audience for Sephardic music,
and thus spur a need for a wider and a more prominent presence of this music
in Turkey? Does the collaboration between Sephardic and Turkish musicians
determine the quality and success of Ladino songs in the music industry in
Turkey? Some of the questions are not so easy to answer, and for some, an
answer will need to be given in the frame of deep and long academic research.
There are about
25, 000 Jewish people in Istanbul nowadays. Most of them are the descendants
of the Jews who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492. Istanbul
has one of the largest Sephardic populations in the world. Just to give a
perspective, in all Israel there are only approximately 100,000 Sephardic
people. The Sephardic community in Istanbul functions as a unit and has many
institutional frames that maintain connections between its members. The important
links include the weekly Jewish newspaper Salom Gazetesi, with many subscribers
in Istanbul; the Hahambasí (the chief rabbinate of the Jewish community
of Turkey), which organizes and joins all the activities of the community,
and many other social frames which enable the people to have a closely-knit
community life.
After the Jewish
people were expelled from Spain and Portugal, they spread mainly to the east
and the west of the Mediterranean region. There were also communities, most
of them of Portuguese origin, who came to Europe, mainly to London, Amsterdam,
and Vienna. In the eastern Mediterranean, they established their communities
under the protective wings of the Ottoman Empire, later divided into Turkey,
Greece, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. In the west, they settled in northern Morocco.
Their communities
prospered culturally and economically, thanks to Ottoman law granting autonomy
to minorities, who could continue their lives as independent ethnic units.
This enabled the Jewish community to continue to preserve its religion, traditions,
language, and all the rituals connected to their cultural heritage.
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The Ladino language,
in use among the Sephardic Jewish people since the days of the expulsion,
is actually a melting language. Its syntax is derived from medieval Spanish,
but its vocabulary is a mixture of Spanish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Greek,
and Turkish. We can also find Serbian and Bulgarian vocabulary. The percentage
of foreign vocabulary depends on the local linguistic influences. For example,
we will find more Turkish words in Istanbul's Ladino, and
more Arabic words in the Ladino of Jerusalem.
Under the European
influence at the beginning of the 20th century, the Ladino language became
secondary in status. Even nowadays I hear people call it jargon or the balıkcı
dil (Turkish: the language of fisherman). This condescension was also hastened
in Turkey by the trend of nationality. In the early 1930s, the saying 'Vatanda?,
Türkïe konu?' ('Citizen, speak Turkish') and its sanctions encouraged
Jewish people as well as other minorities to neglect their ethnic language
and move to Turkish. Children raised by their grandmothers could still hear
Ladino, but they were ashamed to speak from fear that they would have a Jewish
accent and their Turkish would show their linguistic inferiority. The same
trend appeared in Israel in the '50s and further on: 'Yehudi, daber Ivrit'
(Hebrew: 'Jew, speak Hebrew.') Today Ladino is barely functioning as a daily
language. but still I can hear it in the streets of Kurtulus and Sisli in
Istanbul. In some neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Bat Yam in Israel it is also
still in use.
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Ladino music
changed its role in the Jewish community from the beginning of the 20th century.
Little by little it lost its function inside the community in the traditional
rituals of the life cycle and the year cycle, and moved into other frames
such as commercial recordings and performances. One needs to study Turkish
music in order to have a deeper knowledge about the Ladino song repertoire
from the ex-Ottoman Empire's main centers of Jewish Sephardic
diasporas: Istanbul, Izmir, and Saloniki. Additionally, Istanbul's
own musical life has a great effect on Ladino music, since one of the Sephardic
communities that still exists and keeps its Ladino language and songs is here
in Istanbul.
The Sephardic
Turkish community's approach was to keep Ladino music behind the general Ladino
cultural arena, although we can in recent years see an impressive progress
toward appreciating Ladino language and music. I believe we owe that to the
fact that it gains more and more publicity and fame among the non-Jewish Turkish
listeners. The more honor it gains among the outsider audience, the more it
is tolerated among the Sephardic people.
Nevertheless, the case of Janet and Jak Esim challenges this theory. Janet
and Jak Esim gained world recognition by being the most active Turkish Sephardic
ensemble abroad. They were given the German Critics Award in 1992, participated
in three CD compilations (A Jewish Odyssey, La Yave, and Gallus Music) and
released an album with a German company. They have also gained the recognition
of the Turkish audience; their music is well-known and loved.
Apparently, it should have been enough to award them with the recognition
of their own people, but still they gain less publicity than local Sephardic
groups such as Erensya Sepharadi and Los Pasaros. Usually in the local festivities
and celebrations Janet and Jak Esim are not chosen to represent the community.
Musically, Janet and Jak have been collaborating with well-known Turkish musicians
for many years: Erkan Ogur, Okay Temiz, Herman Heder, and others. Although
choosing harmonized musical arrangements in their last CD, Mira, they still
manage with their vocal characteristics to maintain a style close to the way
it was sung by the Sephardic informants. In most of their former CDs, the
micro-tonality bears evidence of Turkish musical influences.
Los Pasaros is a good example of a group which started as an inner community,
amateur Ladino group, and by collaborating with professional Turkish musicians
had improved dramatically its abilities, producing a good album with high
professional standards.
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Sephardic Turkish
culture over the last 70 years discouraged being an artist; young adults are
pushed towards business, medicine, law, etc. A very low percentage of musicians
exists even today in the community, and if someone deals with music he is
usually an amateur who works in a 'serious' job and only in his spare time
does music. The groups which insisted on making music were limited in their
musical skills. If you add to this the tendency to collaborate only amongst
themselves, no wonder you cannot come up with very sophisticated, professional
and fine musical products (CDs, cassettes, plays, musicals, concerts, and
so on).
Los Pasaros started
as this kind of group and mostly was content to give concerts inside of the
community. They indeed were invited to give concerts abroad, but most of their
concerts were to the Sephardic communities around the world. In the last two
years they started to search for new paths and got to work on their new CD
Zemirot with the Turkish musician who became the arranger of the CD, Mustafa
Keser. They used a whole ensemble of Turkish musicians and started to insist
on performing together with them as well. That they still have a mixed attitude
to their music is demonstrated in the CD booklet; although the jacket is elegant
and contains extensive notes, none of the Turkish musicians'
names appear.
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Sefarad, a group
of three young Jewish Sephardic musicians (Sami Levy, Jem Stamati, and Jacky
Bensuse) established less than a year ago, released their first CD at the
beginning of this year. Together with the actress named Hande Altayli and
a very powerful CD company, DMC, they appeared with a well-planned product,
with Turkish youngsters as their target market. Sefarad aims towards pop star
status, but with an interesting ideology connected to their music: to make
Ladino music a new popular music in Turkey, less for old Sephardic people
and more for youngsters.
Sefarad's
repertoire consists of two groups: the original, most popular Ladino songs
they know from their Sephardic heritage, and Turkish mainly love songs based
on Ladino melodies. Every song on their CD has two performances: one in Ladino
with its origin text and one in Turkish with a newly written lyric not necessarily
connected to its origin. For example, the most famous Ladino song from the
Kopla genre, derived from a biblical story about the miraculous birth of Avraham
(Avram Avinu, Padre Kerido, Luz de Yisrael), became a song praising the Turkish
summer vacation spot Bodrum. Another song that originally was a longing song
for Jerusalem became in Turkish a song about a person's
confession to his mother. Sefarad gained huge exposure in the Turkish media
and quickly rose to the top of the CD charts in February 2004.
Musically speaking,
Sefarad mixes Bregovich's orchestration with trumpets and
wind instruments, typical Turkish pop music passages, and the unique quality
of Turkish vocal style of the soloist Sami Levi. Besides the trio, all the
rest of the musicians in the group are non-Jewish Turks. The other two musicians
beside the soloist did not play on the CD but were replaced by professionals.
This CD is a very brave project that proved itself both popular and profitable.
They have had the largest amount of publicity ever given in Turkey to Sephardic
music and made the biggest step toward making this music digestible and easy
on the Turkish ear.
Are they accepted
by the community? The frequency of their appearance in the Jewish newspaper
as compared to the Turkish media is negligible. Not only that, they are criticized
for not bringing a more honored and serious music, but choosing instead light
material and sometimes too-spicy Ladino lyrics (which actually does, however,
commonly exist in Ladino songs). The fact that the songs were also sung in
Turkish, and were not translations but totally new lyrics, was also problematic
for the ears of people from the Sephardic community.
The quiet but
powerful revolution arrives from an unexpected place: the young fans in the
Jewish community who follow Sefarad from concert to concert are singing their
songs in both languages- Ladino and Turkish. They feel that this is the way
their culture should be shown: young, dance-like, spicy, and, very importantly
Turkish. They want to feel a partt of the Turkish scene and at the
same time they do not give up their identity as Jewish and Sephardic. They
play the role of fans as if to say, 'Don't
play the Ladino music as if it belongs to our father's generation,
play it so we can feel part of it. Don't push us away from
our musical heritage. We want to belong to it but that does not mean we are
not part of the Turkish identity.' Attending Sefarad's
concerts, there is a mixture of people, but most of them are aged from 16
to 35. They have many fans that are neither Jewish nor familiar with Ladino.
I think they are doing a huge service to Ladino music, although changing songs
in order to adjust them to the outsider audience remains problematic for some
listeners.
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Maftirim is a
hymn singing tradition unique to the Turkish Jewish community, still practiced
in Istanbul's Sisli Synagogue. Most of the religious Jewish rituals have strong
relations to Ottoman court music. Many of the hymns sung in synagogues are
precise replications of Ottoman vocal and instrumental genres such as pesrev,
sarki, and beste, but with liturgical text written by different poets from
the 16th century and onwards. Derived from that is the strong relation of
religious music with the Ottoman makam system. The Maftirim repertoire is
derived from Mevlevi dervish music, which is also divided into different makams.
It is sung by men every Saturday during several months on the Jewish calendar
year after the prayer ritual of this Sabbath. Every week has a different makam,
and the cantor leads the Maftirim singing.
The first composer
known in that genre, in the 16th century, was Rabbi Shlomo Ben Mazaltov. Other
important composers and poets include Al Harizi, Shlomo Ben Maymon, Israel
Nadjara (with his essential book Shirey Yisrael beErets Hakedem), Eliya Gayus,
and Yosef Ganso. This tradition, which developed in Edirne, appeared later
in Istanbul, Bursa, and Izmir. Nowadays there are several amateur Maftirim
groups that participate in different events and occasions. Istanbul's
Culture Department traditionally hosts concerts called Birlikte Yasamak (Turkish:
To live together) devoted to minorities in Turkey, where choirs of Turkish,
Jewish, Greek, and Armenian origin introduce their traditions.
The choirs also
collaborate on popular Turkish classical songs. Among the Maftirim groups
are the group of Hazzan Aaron Kohen Yasak, the group of David Sevi, and the
group of Yaakov Taragano. All of them are Jewish and are familiar with this
music from their participating in the ceremonies in the synagogues. The Maftirim
group of Yaakov Taragano also collaborated with Turkish musicians, all graduated
from the conservatoire of Istanbul Technical University, known for its traditional
Turkish music education. The Maftirim group of Aharon Hakohen collaborated
with Turkish players and arrangers, and performed under the roof of Kalan
Müzik, the CD company who supported the project and gave unlimited financial
means to enable it to be as professional as can be. Their album is the only
album in print of Maftirim repertoire nowadays. Despite its importance, it
was criticized by the Sephardic Turkish community for not being loyal to their
synagogue heritage (since it is forbidden to sing those hymns with accompaniment
in the synagogue, and traditionally it was sung only vocally).
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The Yahudice
project is another aspect of Ladino music in Istanbul. It was made in 2003
after a long process of fieldwork and archival research. I proposed it to
Kalan Müzik as a project that will emphasize the fact that Ladino music
is related to Turkish, Greek, and Arabic music, and had a fertile dialogue
with Ottoman culture, more so than with that of medieval Spain. Yahudice had
few reasons to be accepted in the community: the fact that I came from another
country, Israel, made it easier because I did not have to behave according
to the Turkish Sephardic community codes. Being Jewish and of eastern origin
made a strong link that led to my acceptance and being embraced, connecting
me to this community. The fact that I came with music education from Israel
made them curious about how would I dress their Ladino songs. Also, the longing
many of them have for Israeli music and Hebrew language made me a kind of
a transfer of the Israeli spirit, music, and culture, and most of them still
see me as "the stranger from Israel." It gave me a relative freedom
that under no circumstances could have been given to an insider.
Using a typical
Turkish çalgilar (group of players, musicians), most of whom were known
to the average Turkish classical listener, gave it the "stampa"
(signature) of good music. Creating a link to the Turkish audience by telling
the stories of the songs and discussing the Jewish Sephardic heritage in their
own language, though with difficulty and making it clear that I was new here,
made many people want to accept me as their kind. Many people ask me to tell
more stories because it gives the Jewish audience a feeling of pride in their
heritage, and of nostalgia. In addition, to the Turkish audience it opens
a window to understanding this closed community by offering more knowledge
about it. I think all those conditions made this project unique to Istanbul,
and maybe no other combination of factors would make it happen in any other
place in the world.
Yahudice contributed
to Ladino music in Turkey by demonstrating a full collaboration among Turkish
and Greek musicians and by emphasizing the notion that these melodies were
born because of interaction between communities and not through cultural isolation.
The music I chose demonstrates how close we are culturally and musically,
and the wandering of melodies from Armenians to Greeks to Turks to Jews (not
necessarily in that order) only proves the common musical characteristics.
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Here we can close
a circle: Jewish musicians from the days of the invention of 78 r.p.m. recordings
in the former Ottoman Empire, including Roza Eskenazi, Haim Efendi, Isaac
Agazi, Nadjara, Viktoria Hazan, just like the present-day performers, were
Sephardic, sang in more than two languages, and played with musicians who
were not Jewish. That was the natural way of life in the old days of Istanbul
and this mixing nourished the music and made it flourish. The 'Dark Ages'
of Sephardic music in Turkey started with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
and the establishment of the Turkish Republic. Ideas of nationalism left the
newborn republic's minorities with a feeling of uncertainty about their place
and role in the republic. This uncertainty affected the cultural life and
was expressed by suppressing the Sephardic identity, increasing the Turkish
identity, and keeping Sephardic traditions within the close circles of the
families and community life. For approximately sixty years this situation
has not changed very much.
We see a careful
reawakening, especially in the last five years, of Sephardic music. There
is a growing use of the notion of creating music together as in the old days
at Tünel (a district in Istanbul that used to have different ethnic groups
living together in a good neighborhood). This new vibrant activity is only
a spark which needs to be nurtured in order to be comparable to the long and
wide collaboration in the 'Tünel zamanlarï' (the times of Tünel,
the end of Ottoman rule and beginning of the republic). In order to revive
Ladino music, let us support and be tolerant of new musical attempts, for
in this way traditional Jewish-Spanish music will not disappear from the pages
of history.
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DISCOGRAPHY
Janet & Jack
Esim: www.oz-ist.com
Janet & Jak Esim. Judeo- Espanyol Ezgiler. Istanbul: Global, 1989. CD
001.
----. Antik Bir Hüzün. Istanbul: Global, 1992. CD 002.
----. Sefardim 1. Istanbul: 1992.
----. Birkaç Sonsuzluk Ani. Istanbul: Trikont, 1994.
----. Mira. Istanbul: Global, 2003. CD 004.
Los Pasaros Sefaradis:Â
www.sephardic-music.com
Los Pasharos Sefaradis Vol. I (cassette). Istanbul: LPS, 1987.
----. Vol. II (cassette). Istanbul: LPS, 1987.
----. Vol III (cassette). Istanbul: LPS, 1987.
----. La Romansa de Rika Kuriel (cassette). Istanbul: Gözlem Gazetecilik,
1988.
----. Kantikas Para Syempre. Istanbul: Gözlem Gazetecilik, 1995.
----. Zemirot: Turkish-Sephardic Synagogue Hymns. Istanbul: Gözlem Gazetecilik,
2002.
----. Kantikas Para Syempre (2nd edition), Istanbul: Gözlem Gazetecilik,
2003.
Maftirim: www.kalan.com/english/scripts/album/searchresult.asp?rn=83,08374
Maftirim. Judeo-Sufi Connection. Istanbul: Kalan Müzik, 2001. CD 234.
Sefarad: www.sefarad-tr.com/nedir.html
Sefarad. Sefarad. Istanbul: DMC, 2004. CD 20099.
Yahudice: www.hadasspalyarden.tk
Hadass Pal Yarden. Yahudice. Istanbul: Kalan Müzik, 2003. CD 272.
For further information
about the Maftirim phenomenon, see the excellent and authentic Maftirim album
and its 63 page booklet containing detailed information in English and Turkish:
Maftirim: Judeo-Sufi Connection. Istanbul: Kalan Müzik. 2001. CD 234.
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Copyright (c) 2004-08, Hadass Pal-Yarden