Musica Mizrakhit Essay

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Musica mizrakhit (Middle Eastern Music, literally "Eastern Music") is a style of music in Israel that has evolved from its community of Oriental Jews. In terms of sound, it blends both Western and Eastern motifs. The majority of Jews in Israel, during the time musica mizrakhit was developing in its early stages, were of European origin. Despite the fact that both communities were Jewish, the European Jews considered the Oriental Jewish community primitive, low-class, and unsophisticated because of its different, unfamiliar, and exotic cultural and religious traditions. This distinction created conflicts between the two communities that affected the Oriental Jewish community’s musical culture. Composers of musica mizrakhit tried to make their music sound appealing to their Western audience in order to more easily assimilate and gain some sort of equal cultural status. One musician took this act of acculturation to another extreme, he changed his name: Zohar Orkabi (a characteristically Oriental Jewish family name) became Zohar Argov (a characteristically European Jewish family name). Overall, musica mizrakhit is not only a musical genre, but also must be thought of as a musical culture because its musical style is defined by its historical background and future. A musical culture is a distinct entity enclosed within the context of the past, present, and future. Therefore, this paper attempts to define musica mizrakhit as a musical culture by using Zohar Argov’s "Ha Perah BeGani" ("The Flower in My Garden") as a paradigm of musica mizrakhit. It is generally accepted that musica mizrakhit is the musical genre to which Zohar Argov’s music belongs. According to researchers Jeff Halper, Edwin Seroussi, and Pamela Squires-Kidron, musica mizrakhit is defined as "a complex of elements, both musical and non-musical”. Musica mizrakhit stems from the culture of Sephardic
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