Everybody's favourite classic Hava Nagila’s lyrics were penned by legendary musicologist Abraham Zevi Idelsohn who devoted his life to studying, gathering, and classifying Jewish music in all of its forms in order to better understand the very nature of Jewishness itself. Hava Nagila “Come, Let's Rejoice” saw him setting his own text to a melody that he adapted from a Hasidic melody.
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם צְבִי אידלסון; middle name also rendered Tzvi, Zvi, Zwi, or Zebi; July 14, 1882– August 14, 1938) was a prominent Jewish ethnologist and musicologist, who conducted several comprehensive studies of Jewish music around the world.
Idelsohn was born in Feliksberg, Latvia [part of what was then the Russian Empire] and trained as a cantor from childhood. Idelsohn later studied music in Berlin and Leipzig.
FIRST SA LINK:According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Idelsohn practiced as a cantor in Leipzig and Regensberg, in Germany, and then in Johannesburg, South Africa, before emigrating to Jerusalem in Palestine in 1905.
There, too, he served as a cantor and in 1910 founded the Institute for Jewish Music. The previous year, funded by the Vienna Academy of Sciences, he had begun collecting material.
For those who like to learn new words, Wikipedia describes Idelsohn as the “founder of the modern study of the history of Jewish music, and one of the first important ethnomusicologists.”
In 1922 Idelsohn moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to take a position as professor of Jewish music at Hebrew Union College. His works include the Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies (10 volumes, 1914-1932) and Jewish Music (1929).
SECOND SA LINK: Idelsohn is the maternal grandfather of local boy Joel Joffe, Baron Joffe, born in SA in 1932 and now a Labour peer in the House of Lords.
Born in SA, Joffee was educated at Wits (BCom, LLB 1955), and worked as a human rights lawyer 1958-65, including representing Nelson Mandela at the 1963-4 Rivonia Trial. Later he moved to the UK and worked in the financial services industry, setting up Hambro Life Assurance, as well as the voluntary sector. He was associated with Oxfam in various roles between 1982 and 2001, including being its Chair 1995-2001. He was awarded the CBE in 1999, and made a Life peer in 2000. Baron Joffe on Wiki
Here is more interesting history on Abraham Zevi Idelsohn
His father who was a cantor introduced him to the zmirot and Jewish folksongs. At home he received an orthodox education and learned for five years in a Lithuanian Yeshiva. He trained to be a cantor with Chazan Mordechai Rabinowitz. Then he pursued his musical education in Berlin and Leipsig. Idelsohn was immersed in two rich musical backgrounds, the Eastern cantorial tradition and the Western classical music. This duality paved the way of his journey from liturgy to ethnomusicology.
He worked as a cantor in Germany and Joburg but, as a fervent supporter of Zionism, Idelsohn moved with his family to Jerusalem. He was overwhelmed by the diversity and riches of the Jewish traditional communities and their musical tradition and he knew that he will devote his time researching this musical and linguistic heritage. Armed with a phonograph (for recording on cylinders) and a notebook he started what will become a phenomenal, monumental ten-volume Thesaurus of Hebrew-oriental melodies. (Hebraisch-Orientalischer Melodienschatz).
He was a multi-disciplines researcher and opened new fields in musicology like the influence of the languages and different dialects on music expression. He made over one thousand original field recordings and countless transcriptions. It was the first integration of never heard ancient traditional oriental melodies with Eastern European Jewish music.
Deduced that all Western music founded Biblical temple music
The approach to the Yemenite community was particularly resourceful because this community was geographically secluded for many centuries thus less prone to external cultural influence. Their Hebrew pronunciation and their musical tradition had to be the closest to these of the Biblical epoch. This particular study exposed Idelsohn to the fact that there were affinities between the microtonal and monodic Yemenite songs with the Gregorian Chant.
The conclusion was that the Roman Christianity adopted the music of the temple as its own liturgical music. A step further in the argumentation led him to the deduction that all the Western music was founded on the ground of Biblical temple music.
Idelsohn also studied the traditions of Persian, Syrian, Bukharian, Babylonian, Moroccan, Samaritan (Shomronim), Oriental and Ladino Sephardi, German and Hassidic communities.
To really understand the core of Klezmer and Jewish music it is of the utmost importance to master the Biblical cantillation (intoned recitation), so he recorded samples of the Haftara and festival days, Birkat Hacohanim (Priestly Blessing) and various liturgical music and reading.
Conscripted into the Turkish army
His devoted work was only interrupted by the WW1, when he was enrolled in the Turkish army (Palestine was then part of the Ottoman Empire).
This monumental work spread over twenty years; another milestone of his numerous publications is "The Jewish Music Its Historical Development" (1929) which is a book of reference to people involved in klezmer and Jewish studies.
Composed “Yphtah” - the first Hebrew opera ever written
In 1922 he composed the first Hebrew opera ever written, "Yphtah," which was performed in Jerusalem the same year (he used a lot of musical material collected in the Thesaurus).
In 1924 he settled down in Cincinnati as a professor of Hebrew and liturgy. He published his Thesaurus in ten volumes in English, German and Hebrew editions. (In the Hebrew edition he made the first attempt to write the score from right to left according to the Hebrew writing. This initiative had no follow-up, musicians were reluctant to learn a new way of music reading.)
Idelsohn died in 1938.
He was an humanist, a multi-domains researcher, a man whose goal was to gather an almost lost heritage and bequeath it to future generation, thanks to him an invaluable patrimony was preserved and transmitted to us. The Klezmer revival proofed that the tradition is still alive and prosperous thanks to pioneer like Abraham Zvi Idelsohn.
Composed Hava Nagila and recorded it in 1915
The song Hava Nagila, the best known Israeli song and an international standard, was first recorded in Sadigura Hasidim in Jerusalem, in 1915, by Idelsohn.
Hava Nagila Lyrics
English Transcription >> Translation
Havah nagilah >> Let's rejoice
Havah nagilah >> Let's rejoice
Havah nagilah venismechah >> Rejoice and be happy (repeat stanza once)
Havah neranenah >> Let's sing
Havah neranenah >> Let's sing
Havah neranenah venismechah >> Sing and be happy (repeat stanza once)
Uru, uru achim! >> Awake, awake, brothers!
Uru achim b'lev sameach >> With a happy heart (repeat line three times)
Uru achim, uru achim! >> Awake, brothers, awake, brothers!
B'lev sameach >> With a happy heart
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