Jewish Sacred Music by Israeli Composers: Identity, Context, and Stagnation

Yuval Shaked

This lecture examines selected aspects of a rich and layered subject: Jewish sacred music written by Israeli composers. These observations touch only the fringes of an ongoing, dynamic, and often contradictory process — one in which Israeli identity has been entangled ever since Zionist ideology began to shape it decisively.

The word identity carries a contradiction. On the one hand, it aims to capture an individual’s uniqueness, making it recognizable and distinct from others. On the other hand, identity also squeezes individuals into broad categories that can swallow up or erase those very particularities. This tension plays out on two levels: collectively (how Israeli Jewish sacred music relates to the wider world of sacred and Jewish music) and individually (where a single work by an Israeli composer fits within the whole corpus of Israeli Jewish sacred music).

Though a direct confrontation of these issues might be enlightening, time constraints prevent it here. Still, what follows will include some directly relevant remarks along with a few less-academic assertions.

Culture has not been a priority in Israel for some time — a fact that predates the recent violence. Contemporary music, especially Israeli music with Jewish themes, plays a tiny role in the country’s music business, education, and daily life. This is true even for the music professionals — composers, performers, theorists, ideologues, professors, and administrators — who shape public life. Several distinctively Israeli factors (mostly socio-political) have contributed to this, along with broader Western trends, especially growing globalization.

Another relevant context: for more than thirty years, works of Jewish sacred music by Israeli composers have been performed and have tried to influence the landscape, though these efforts lack the detailed analysis they deserve.

The field of Jewish sacred music in Israel features surprisingly rich and frequent activity, particularly in the public sphere. I am referring especially to the many cantorial traditions and the various branches of Hasidic music. What stands out: this music is often used and distributed outside the standard religious-ritual framework and liturgy. It has become embedded in secular popular culture. There are pop-style arrangements of biblical verses, a national Hasidic song festival, and something close to a hit parade. A growing number of mostly Orthodox pirate radio stations now broadcast music styles that earlier would have been unthinkable — for example, biblical texts set in a 1970s Beach Boys style. Recently I even heard traditional Chanukah and Passover songs arranged as reggae.

The term sacred music includes liturgical music and musical compositions based on sacred texts. It could also be extended to instrumental works that deal with or evoke sacred themes. Between the two named poles lies a wide field of possibilities for lively musical creation.

To put it bluntly — and I beg the audience’s pardon for the impertinence — a comprehensive survey of Jewish synagogal music by Israeli composers would resemble in substance the well-known book Your Sex-Life After Sixty. Historically, the relationship between art and religion has been complicated and charged, especially between progressive composition and religious establishments of various faiths. Each side suspects the other; they are locked in a deep love-hate relationship. Neither is fully at fault. Each acts out of self-interest while depending on and shaping the other.

For many years, two opposing forces have steered liturgical composition in Israel. The first is linked to Zionist (more precisely, social-Zionist) identity. This force wielded significant power even before the state of Israel was founded, though its influence has notably declined lately. Since Zionist identity crystallized partly as a rejection of traditional Jewish identity (symbolized by the stereotypical Diaspora Jew), the unspoken imperative became: forge a new, non-religious Jewish identity. National and universal humanistic values of Judaism had to be separated from the religious and, detached from ritual, anchored in what were taken as generally valid artistic forms. As a result, many works were created that are in some ways great but liturgically unusable. They substitute a music that responds only to conditions set by the composer. I will discuss examples shortly.

The second decisive force — Orthodox Judaism — is gaining ground today. It has markedly succeeded in shaping many areas of Israeli life and lifestyle. For well-known scriptural reasons, Orthodoxy currently shows little interest in modern liturgical music. To put it bluntly: even sacred music by observant Israeli composers like Andre Hajdu (born Budapest, 1932; in Jerusalem since 1966), Max Stern (born Valley Stream, NY, 1947; lives in Beer Sheva), or Benjamin Yusupov (born Tajikistan, 1962; lives in Kfar Sava) is unwelcome in Orthodox circles.

Paradoxically, both opposing forces — each acting when dominant, and especially in their balanced tension — achieve nearly the same result regarding contemporary liturgical music: they keep it in perpetual stagnation. It is safe to guess that as long as no new force enters this game, synagogue music by Israeli composers will remain suppressed. Only a strong, continuous push from outside Israeli society and culture might break the local version of mutual deterrence. Then Jewish liturgical music by Israeli composers might first find a place at the edges of the synagogue and possibly later inside it — as well as in concert halls. That would also hinge on the artistic quality of the works, which still largely await creation.

Paranthetically and with a melancholic tone: Schoenberg’s Psalm 130 (Op. 50B) and Weill’s Kiddush, for instance, have still not received the position they deserve in the Israeli concert repertoire. This indicates how complex the problem really is and how much imagination and effort are still needed.

The number of liturgical works by Israeli composers is extremely small. Notable examples include:

• Mark Lavry’s (born Riga, 1903; died Haifa, 1967) oratorio Avodat Hakodesh (Sacred Service), written in 1955 for a commission from Temple Emmanuel in San Francisco (which earlier had commissioned Ernest Bloch and Darius Milhaud)
• Paul Ben-Haim’s (born Munich, 1897; died Tel Aviv, 1984) Kabalat Shabat (Welcoming the Sabbath), written 1966/67 and commissioned by the National Federation of Temple Youth, New York; also his Kedusha (Sanctification), written 1971 for Temple Emmanuel
• Yehezkel Braun’s (born Breslau, 1922; lives in Tel Aviv) Tefilat Aravit LeShabat (Friday Evening Service), written in 1968 in Ashkenazi pronunciation for Kehilat Benei Yeshurun, Temple of the Heights, Cleveland, Ohio
• Sergiu Natra’s (born Bucharest, 1924; in Tel Aviv since 1961) Avodat Hakodesh, written 1976 for Temple Emmanuel
• Menachem Zur’s (born Tel Aviv, 1942; lives in Jerusalem) Kedusha, written 1983 for a Reform synagogue on Park Avenue, USA

Essentially no other Israeli liturgical music exists. Most of these works have never been performed in Israel, have never been properly recorded, and are seldom broadcast. All were commissioned by Reform or Conservative congregations across the Atlantic. The Israeli music establishment should not be proud of this stark non-coincidence. Composers have had to be very resourceful even to let Israeli audiences hear parts of this music. Sergiu Natra, for instance, split his Avodat Hakodesh into three separate works — Three Sacred Songs for choir and organ, Two Sacred Songs for soprano, cello, harp and organ, and Three Interludes for orchestra — having them performed independently. Such stratagems fail except on rare occasions, thwarted by what I elsewhere called multifaceted indifference.

A brief excursus. To be precise: a simultaneous prelude and postlude, in the form of an interlude.

Unlike traditional societies that evolved into modern nation-states, Israeli music — like all Israeli art — did not develop organically over centuries. From its very beginning, it was imitative. It arrived late, was derivative, and generally unoriginal; it supported the political ideology of the developing and later young state. Following the cultural hegemony (which itself took shape according to the chronology of Jewish migration), Israeli music evolved under the influence of Western modernity without rebelling against any earlier tradition. No Jewish artistic tradition existed that Zionist ideology wanted to — or could — claim. This situation mirrors Israeli society’s ongoing disconnection from its own recent and distant cultural history and values. Regarding the Jewish element in music, this relationship left scorched earth behind it.

Some of the most acute questions about Israeli identity in music and society stem from this point of origin. The apparently sublime — which at that time was accessible only to certain groups — was Western in character. At the same time, broad circles of society equated the modern and avant-garde with the foreign. The West became synonymous with alienation. Faced with the inherently contradictory ethnic diversity of Israeli society, the question of Jewish art — especially Jewish music — in Israel turned into an explicitly political problem.

The catalog of Jewish liturgical works by Israeli composers is relatively short and, regrettably, holds almost no significance in the Israeli musical canon. On the other hand, Jewish sacred music of other types by Israeli composers across the generations makes a more worthy showing. Outstanding examples of this kind include:

• Kantata LeShabat (Sabbath Cantata, 1940), Shirei Mo'ed (Festive Songs, 1943), Mo'adim (Festivals, 1946), Motets (1940/1951), and Hallel (Dithyramb, 1966) — all by Mordecai Seter (born Novorossiysk, 1916; died Tel Aviv, 1994)

• Cantata Liturgica (1946–50) by Paul Ben-Haim
• Kantata LeSukot (Succoth Cantata, 1955) by Josef Tal (born Pinne, near Posen, 1910; lives in Jerusalem)
• The cantata Bat Yisrael (Daughter of Israel, 1960) by Alexander U. Boskovich (born Klausenburg, 1907; died Tel Aviv, 1964)
• Mizmorim (Psalms, 1966–68) by Ben-Zion Orgad (born Gelsenkirchen, 1926; lives in Tel Aviv)
• Mizmorei Tehilim (Psalms, 1967) by Tzvi Avni (born Saarbrücken, 1927; lives in Tel Aviv)
• Hilkhot Tekiat Shofar (Festive Horns, 1977) and Hallel (1983) by Yehezkel Braun
• Bakashot (Supplications, 1996) and Hosha'anot (2000) by Betty Olivero (born Tel Aviv, 1954; lives in Tel Aviv)

Not every one of these works is suitable for traditional religious service. They may include passages based on prayer texts but only follow the service partially, and not necessarily in order. Many actively avoid or sidestep open religiosity in the sense of traditional rite. Religious texts often appear not — or not only — as such, but for their poetic value or to serve intentions that composers deem suited to the modern spirit. Sometimes texts appear simply as vehicles for traditional melodies; at other times they are combined with contemporary poetry. Psalms and piyyutim (religious poems for synagogue use) are preferred for musical setting.

A substantial minority of these works are rooted in a single musical tradition. Many others are arranged potpourri-style. Still others — especially from the earliest period of Israeli music — draw on traditional melodic material manipulated through various Western compositional techniques. One can study these works in terms of how traditional materials are incorporated into an artistic fabric and realize how deeply the folkloristic interweaves with the artistic. Based on the blending of traditional with composed elements, one can not only differentiate works artistically but also read entire chapters of Jewish and Zionist ideology. Traditional Jewish musical sources from diverse origins, along with biblical and religious texts, served most of these composers primarily in their drive to create a Jewish or Jewish-Mediterranean music, and for others simply to express a pre-existing inner spiritual world.

Recently, an old-new attitude has appeared — evoking Jewish sacred musical themes not for their own sake but for their national meaning or for a wished-for, speculative aura. Jewish sacred music by Israeli composers is in danger of losing its integrity. It awaits masters marked by daring imagination and endowed with high, broad, and deep intelligence.