J

Jewish Orchestra Mannheim (in preparation)

What makes a music "jewish" ?
There could be many reasons for a piece of music to be assigned the label "jewish", such as but not limited to the following:
- the religious belonging (jewish) of the composer
- the persecution of the composer in the Schoah (and there have been too many persecutions of jewish musicians simply cause of their faith .. from middle ages to current era )
- the biblical subject

- some specific instruments (e.g. the traditional natural Horn called Schofar)

- a specific music style (e.g. Klezmer)
- its use in Synagogue services or jewish life
- its origin from Yeshiva or Rabbinical schools

- many more

Purpose of the Orchestra of the Jewish Community of Mannheim is to bring to new life the wealth of beauty and diversity that is available in the Jewish music. Spanning wide geographies and centuries, the Jewish music allows to build bridges with all cultures across the world and offer a message of peace, tolerance and love to this suffering world.

Being a community orchestra, the primary aim is not the competition with professional orchestras or the music perfection required for recording disks. Surely we want to make the black dots on white paper to became alive again - through the means available in the orchestra. Thus the rehearsals are focused on including everyone and make sure that everyone goes home wanting to come back to the next rehearsals with joy, happiness and positivity. Aware of the music inheritage and also of the human enjoyement of the rehearsals.

Here some links to jewish music:

-Milken Archives

-Yivo Institute for Jewish Research

-Ruth Rubin archive at Yivo

-European Institute of Jewish Music

-European Center for Jewish Music

Concentration Camps

-Terezin Music Foundation

-Fondazione Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria

-Musica Reanimata e.V.

Yiddish

-Yiddish Book Center