Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T16:49:58.497Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From Galilee Villages to the Mountains of Al-Sham: Local and Regional Musical Networks among Palestinian Arab Wedding Musicians in Northern Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2020

Abstract

Based on recent ethnographic work, we explore the ways in which transnational cosmopolitan music crosses, creates, and reinscribes borders as it is performed by Palestinian Arab wedding musicians in northern Israel. While Palestinian nationalism and the hard political borders between Israel and its neighbouring states frame immediate questions of identity and mobility, in describing their musical practices, musicians turn to a complex, interleaved series of geographies that highlight past and contemporary processes of musical flow. On one hand, they foreground the continuing relevance of the historic al-Sham region as an area of shared musical practice, identifying with the jabali (“mountain”) musical style of the elevated region that marks the borderlands between today’s Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. On the other hand, they embed this regional style within a series of micro- and macro-geographies, from detailed knowledge of the subtle differences in tempo and style between neighbouring Galilee villages to connections with the wider Arabic-speaking world via old and new media. While recent research on music in the Middle East has often foregrounded the role of music in constructing and reinforcing national identities, this research illustrates how transnational flows continue to shape the experience and imagination of musical borderlands in the region.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© International Council for Traditional Music 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Abbasi, Mustafa. 2014. The Cities of Galilee During the 1948 War: Four Cities and Four Stories. Saarbrücken: LAP Lambert.Google Scholar
Belkind, Nili. 2014. “Music in Conflict: Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Aesthetic Production.” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
Brinner, Benjamin. 2009. Playing Across a Divide: Israeli-Palestinian Musical Encounters. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Dalia and Katz, Ruth. 2006. Palestinian Arab Music: A Maqam Tradition in Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Danielson, Virginia. 1997. The Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Shawan, Salwa. 1980. “The Socio-Political Context of Al-mūsīķa Al-carabiyyaii in Cairo, Egypt: Policies, Patronage, Institutions, and Musical Change (1927–77).” Asian Music 12(1):86128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farraj, Johnny and Shumays, Sami Abu. 2019. Inside Arabic Music: Arab Maqam Performance and Theory in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Furani, Khaled and Rabinowitz, Dan. 2011. “The Ethnographic Arriving of Palestine.” Annual Review of Anthropology 40:475491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karkabi, Nadeem. 2013. “Staging Particular Difference: Politics of Space in the Palestinian Alternative Music Scene.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 6:308328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lohman, Laura. 2009. “‘The Artist of the People in the Battle’: Umm Kulthum’s Concerts for Egypt in Political Context.” In Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, ed. Nooshin, Laudan, 3354. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Manabe, Noriko. 2015. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music After Fukushima. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Manna’, Adel and Haj-Yehia, Kussai. 1995. Mabruk: The Wedding Culture among the Arabs in Israel (Hebrew). Raanana: The Institute for Israeli Arab Studies.Google Scholar
McDonald, David A. 2013. My Voice Is My Weapon: Music, Nationalism, and the Poetics of Palestinian Resistance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabinowitz, Dan and Abu-Bakar, Khawla. 2005. Coffins on Our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Racy, Ali Jihad. 2003. Making Music in the Arab World: The Culture and Artistry of Tarab. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Regev, Motti. 1993. Oud and Guitar: The Musical Culture of the Arabs in Israel (Hebrew). Raanana: The Institute for Israeli Arab Studies Beit Berl.Google Scholar
Sa’ar, Amalia. 2016. Economic Citizenship: Neoliberal Paradoxes of Empowerment. New York: Berghahn.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salamandra, Christa. 2004. A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Seikaly, Mai. 1995. Haifa: Transformation of an Arab Society 1918–1939. London: IB Tauris.Google Scholar
Shannon, Jonathan. 2006. Among the Jasmine Trees: Music and Modernity in Contemporary Syria. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Stokes, Martin. 2009. “’Abd al-Halim’s Microphone.” In Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, ed. Nooshin, Laudan, 5574. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Stokes, Martin. 2010. The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamari, Salim. 2009. Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar

Multimedia Sources

Elias Glyanos Official الياس جوليانوس. “.الياس جوليانوس – سهرنا كل الليل” YouTube video, 19 September 2014. http://tinyurl.com/YTMGalileeEx4. Accessed 10 May 2020.Google Scholar
Kadri, Esam. “.2014 عصام قادري || وصلة طرب” YouTube video, 6 October, 2014. http://tinyurl.com/YTMGalileeEx3. Accessed 10 May 2020.Google Scholar
MusiC, NissiM KinG. “.الياس جوليانوس – نصرويات – يا قلبي كلمل جفني بكي مشي – يا مهاجرين ارجعوا” YouTube video, 15 June 2019. http://tinyurl.com/YTMGalileeEx2. Accessed 10 May 2020.Google Scholar
Wood, Abigail. “Esam Kadri Performs at Wedding in Kufr Yasif, 15.12.16.” YouTube video, 10 May, 2020. http://tinyurl.com/YTMGalileeEx1. Accessed 10 May 2020.Google Scholar