Music is considered both a universal language and a hallmark of culture and tradition.
For the Jewish people, living in the Diaspora for thousands of years led Jewish communities to develop their own unique musical traditions and legacies, and blending with those of the cultures around them.
Israel is where these Hebrew music cultures often led to, with immigrants bringing them with them. Sharona Deri, manager of Jerusalem’s Hebrew Music Museum, is helping to preserve those unique traditions.
The museum is a treasure trove of history, featuring the musical melodies and instruments of Jewish communities worldwide. Going through its halls, including those guided by the museum’s virtual guide and mascot Grandpa Levy, people can see the evolution of Hebrew music before their own eyes.
In Jerusalem sat down with Israeli-born Deri to discuss the legacy and evolution of Jewish music, as well as how she became involved with them.
How did you become interested in Hebrew music?
I grew up in a large home with a mix of Diaspora tradition. My parents came from different places. It was a very musical house. No one played any instrument, but we listened to a lot of music from all over the world.
When I went to school, I heard Ashkenazi music for the first time, and I loved it. I recognized that it wasn’t my roots, but I have a very deep connection with Ashkenazi music. I realized it isn’t just the differences in our histories but our cultures.
Later, my brother started to play music, and he would mix the clarinet, piano, and the oud – a fusion of East and West. I have found that this is the highest level of music that can exist, a mix of all the shades of music – and it can only exist in Israel. If you go to China, for instance, you’ll only hear Chinese music. But only in Israel can you hear this rainbow.
My brother and I would go to concerts of musicians who would bring instruments from other countries, such as Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan. We listened to the melodies and recognized the soul and longing of the Jewish people. That inspired me to start researching.
Where did your parents come from?
My mother made aliyah from Iran as a teenager; my father was born in Jerusalem to a Moroccan family. He grew up in a neighborhood with many Romanian and Yemenite immigrants. The children who grew up there learned European music, Moroccan music – everything.
How did the different Jewish musical traditions evolve over time, and how is it changing in Israel today?
When you hear the sounds, you’ll immediately recognize the differences. Jewish communities of Africa mostly only sing about the Torah. Yemenite Jews also only sing spiritual songs, but they also never use instruments. The Yemenite Jews swore they would never use instruments until they returned to Jerusalem, and they only started to do so when they moved to Israel. In the early days of the State of Israel, the Yemenite Jews met Ashkenazim and were exposed to musicians like Arik Einstein.
It was very hard to mix them together at first, and we only really started seeing this in the past 20 years. Nowadays, you can turn on the radio and hear oud and kamancheh [an Iranian bowed string instrument], but before 20 years ago you’d only hear European music.
Musicians nowadays have started blending these traditions together, though. Idan Raichel in particular is really good at this, bringing a lot of Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions together.
But on a broader level, you can still hear the distinct traditions among different types of Jews. They have gone everywhere in the world and brought their culture and instruments with them. There are common roots, but you can still find differences among different groups of Jews.
For example, among Jews of the Caucasus Mountains, a big characteristic was a melancholic longing for Jerusalem. You can feel the longing, the sense of incompleteness. But when those Jews came here, that music became happier and felt more complete.
What is it like working at the Hebrew Music Museum?
Our goal at the museum is to show everyone that harmony isn’t just with music but with people. If a Yemenite drum can be played with German music, then we as a people can live together, too.
The museum isn’t just a visit to see instruments and leave – it’s a deeper experience. Our visitors develop a connection with the instruments – they find their own roots in the exhibitions. We teach our visitors beautiful stories and hold fun activities that makes them feel connected to each other, too.
We can have a group of people, some of them from Haifa, some of them from the United States, some who are old and some who are younger. At the end of their visit, they all make music together. By the end of their hour in the museum, our guests feel like they didn’t just visit the museum – they come out changed. It’s a deep, beautiful experience.
Where did Grandpa Levy come from?
We thought about making an animated guide. Sometimes, people don’t want to follow a person around and would rather go at their own pace. So we decided to make the museum very interactive. We developed an application so everyone can follow a virtual guide who we named Grandpa Levy.
We chose the name after being inspired by the Levites, the fathers of Hebrew music and the traditional musicians of the Jewish people. The Levites were great musicians, and the Bible tells us that they played music that made people feel better – similar to musical therapy that we have today. Anyone who came to Jerusalem, to the Temple, and heard their music would become better.
We chose the idea of a grandpa to make the character timeless. You can’t tell if he’s from the past or from the present day, but everyone loves their grandpas.
When we opened, he was the face of the museum, so we have lots of merchandise about him, such as mezuzot and key chains. But now, our in-person guides became better, and more of our visitors prefer using them and listening to the instruments instead. Now at our gift shops, people want to buy replicas of ouds or other instruments. But we never got rid of Grandpa Levy – he’s always there and is still an important part of the museum. ■