Jewish Contiguities and the Soundtrack of Israeli History revolutionizes the study of modern Israeli art music by tracking the surprising itineraries of Jewish art music in the move from Europe to Mandatory Palestine and Israel. Leaving behind cliches about East and West, Arab and Jew, this book provocatively exposes the legacies of European antisemitism and religious Judaism in the making of Israeli art music. Shelleg introduces the reader to various aesthetic dilemmas involved in the emergence of modern Jewish art music, ranging from auto-exoticism through the hues of self-hatred to the disarticulation of Jewish musical markers. He then considers part of this musics' translocation to Mandatory Palestine, studying its discourse with Hebrew culture, and composers' grappling with modern and Zionist images of the self. Unlike previous efforts in the field, Shelleg unearths the mechanism of what he calls "Zionist musical onomatopoeias," but more importantly their dilution by the non-western Arab Jewish oral musical traditions (the same traditions Hebrew culture sought to westernize and secularize). And what had begun with composers' movement towards the musical properties of non-western Jewish musical traditions grew in the 60s and 70s to a dialectical return to exilic Jewish cultures. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War, which reaffirmed Zionism's redemptive and expansionist messages, Israeli composers (re)embraced precisely the exilic Jewish music that emphasized Judaism's syncretic qualities rather than its territorial characteristics. In the 70s, therefore, while religious Zionist circles translated theology into politics and territorial maximalism, Israeli composers deterritorialized the national discourse by a growing return to the spaces shared by Jews and non-Jews, devoid of Zionist appropriations.

About the Author
Assaf Shelleg is the Schusterman Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology and Jewish Studies in the Department of Religious Studies and the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Virginia. He was previously the visiting Efroymson Scholar in the Jewish, Islamic & Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department at Washington University in St. Louis. Specializing in twentieth-century Jewish and Israeli art music, Shelleg's research has been published in some of the leading journals in both musicology and Israel Studies. A trained pianist, he is also a regular musical contributor to Ha'aretz newspaper.

Reviews
Jewish Contiguities and the Soundtrack of Israeli History is a complex, bold and highly original study of the history of art music in pre- and post-state Israel. With an exceptional erudition in each field he brings to bear (musicology, Hebrew literature, Israel history, cultural studies) and superb command over the musical metier, Assaf Shelleg stages an arresting narrative about a unique musical modernism, adding an exemplary chapter to our understanding of how music negotiates with nationalism, exoticism, and dislocation, gradually allowing for a repressed sonic past to emerge into a vexed foreground. * Ruth HaCohen, Artur Rubinstein Professor of Musicology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem *
This path-breaking book demolishes old myths about Israeli music's origins; transforms our understanding of the relationship between Jews, antisemitism, and classical music; and introduces a powerful new voice into the field of Israeli cultural history. -James Loeffler, Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia and author of The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire


Awards
Winner of Winner of the 2015 Joel Engel Prize ; Winner of the 2016 Jordan Schnitzer Book Prize, Association for Jewish Studies.



Book Information
ISBN 9780199354948
Author Assaf Shelleg
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 535g
Dimensions(mm) 165mm * 241mm * 26mm