Shbahoth – Songs of Praise in the Babylonian Jewish Tradition

From Baghdad to Bombay and London

Sara Manasseh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754662990
• eBook ISBN: 9781351900430
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Etnomusicologia

Sara Manasseh brings a significant, but less widely-known, Jewish repertoire and tradition to the attention of both the Jewish community (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Oriental) and the wider global community. The book showcases thirty-one songs and includes English translations, complete Hebrew texts, transliterations and the music notation for each song. The accompanying downloadable resources include eighteen of the thirty-one songs, sung by Manasseh, accompanied by 'ud and percussion. The remaining thirteen songs are available separately on the album Treasures, performed by Rivers of Babylon, directed by Manasseh -: www.riversofbabylon.com. While in the past a book of songs, with Hebrew text only, was sufficient for bearers of the tradition, the present package represents a song collection for the twenty-first century, with greater resources to support the learning and maintenance of the tradition. Manasseh argues that the strong inter-relationship of Jewish and Arab traditions in this repertoire - linguistically and musically - is significant and provides an intercultural tool to promote communication, tolerance, understanding, harmony and respect. The singing of the Shbahoth (the Baghdadian Jewish term for 'Songs of Praise') has been a significant aspect of Jewish life in Iraq and continues to be valued by those in the Babylonian Jewish diaspora.

1
Prelude

Working on this collection has been like going on a voyage with my family – both past and present. I grew up singing many of these songs during Sabbaths and festivals in the company of the extended family, in a sociable atmosphere of camaraderie and enjoyment. My experience of the repertoire is of a tradition that travelled from Baghdad to Bombay (today’s Mumbai) and now to the UK. It continues to be informed by performance practice of the tradition elsewhere, for example, in Israel, in an age when information is rapidly and easily disseminated.

Members of my own family left Baghdad to settle in India during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ezekiel Reuben Manasseh (Ḥisqél Rubén Mnashshi), my father’s paternal great-great-grandfather, settled for some years in Calcutta, from about the 1820s, before returning to Baghdad in 1840; he is cited, in 1825, as one of 36 signatories of what was probably the first constitution of the Calcutta Jewish community, and again as a member of a Jewish tribunal in 1826.¹ Later, his great grandson, Manasseh J. Manasseh (Mnashshi Ya^caqob Mnashshi), my paternal grandfather, settled in Bombay from about the late 1890s. David Sassoon (1792–1864), the head of the Sassoon dynasty in Bombay, was the first member of my own family to emigrate from Baghdad and settle permanently in Bombay, arriving in 1832; he was my father’s maternal great-great-grandfather. Writing in the early twentieth century, about the Baghdadian-Jewish ‘daughter’ community in Bombay, David Solomon Sassoon, the author and bibliophile (grandson and namesake of David Sassoon, the elder), gives a flavour of nineteenth-century community life and of the importance of spiritual life among Babylonian Jewry in their new home:²

Illustration 1.1 David Sassoon, with his sons (L–R), Elias, Abdullah and Sassoon, Bombay, c.1858 (courtesy of the Sassoon Family, Jerusalem)

Among the later settlers in Bombay was David Sassoon (born in Baghdad, 1792, died in Poona, 1864) … Here he began his prosperous commercial activities, and with his growing influence he endeavoured to improve the spiritual and religious life of the community …

Another Baghdadian immigrant was David Ḥai b. Ezekiel Abraham Maṣliaḥ, who was an owner of a considerable library, consisting of manuscripts and valuable printed books. An account of this collection is preserved by another traveller and visitor to Bombay, Jacob Saphir, the author of Eben Saphir.³ Among the Baghdadians in Bombay Saphir found Moses b. Mordecai Gabbai, his son-in-law David Ḥai, Ezekiel b. Joshua Gabbai⁴ the son-in-law of Sir Albert Sassoon and others. About David Ḥai he says: ‘In his house I found many and valuable books, ancient and modern, among them a considerable Diwan [collection of poems] in an old manuscript containing poems of the classical period, by Solomon ibn Gabirol, Judah ha-Levy, Moses and Abraham ibn Ezra … and other Spanish poets’. Besides Baghdadians, the Bombay community consisted of Jews coming from Basra and others who escaped religious persecutions in Persia in those days …

As soon as the Baghdad Jews took root in the new country they endeavoured to transplant their old longing for spiritual wealth and traditional Judaism to their new homes. In the years of struggle for life many of them had to go without their learning and books. Before they could afford to establish a printing press of their own the necessary books had to be imported from Europe. Then they availed themselves of the device of lithographing books for their ordinary needs; for example, the Sefer ha-Pizmonim, a book of songs providing more than 250 songs and hymns without which a Baghdad Jew could not celebrate his festivals or enjoy his festivities. The first collector and lithographer of these Pizmonim was David b. Ḥayyim. David who was also the editor of the Bombay Jewish-Arabic periodical called Doresh Ṭob le-’Ammo [Heb.: He Seeks Good for His People].⁵ (ibid., pp. 206–9)

Illustration 1.2 Flora Sassoon, on the occasion of her Presentation at Court, London, 1907 (courtesy of the Sassoon Family, Jerusalem)

Illustration 1.3 R. David Solomon Sassoon, son of Flora Sassoon, London, 1937 (courtesy of the Sassoon Family, Jerusalem)

Today, the Manṣour collection of songs, reissued in many reprints, is perhaps the most widely used.⁶ The singing of shbaḥoth (literally: ‘praises’, s.: shbaḥ; mainly paraliturgical hymns, also known as pizmonîm) has been and continues to be valued by the community, both in Baghdad and the Babylonian Jewish diaspora – countries to which Jewish people emigrated from the land that is present-day Iraq. By a happy coincidence, Idelsohn, the pioneer of Jewish musicology, shows transcriptions of six shbaḥoth sung by Flora Sassoon (1856–1936),⁷ my father’s maternal aunt, who was born in Bombay. Idelsohn writes: ‘189—194 sung for me by Mrs. Flora (Farḥa) Sassoon in London; they are from Bagdad [sic] and are sung in India.’⁸ Commercial recordings made in Baghdad, in the 1920s, document the tradition at the time (reissued on Twaina and Avishur; Futter and Manasseh),⁹ while 78 rpm recordings made in Bombay (1937) document the continuation of the Babylonian Jewish tradition in its Bombay Diaspora.¹⁰ Some 80 years later, the same repertoire continues to be performed and recorded, with attention to maintaining the melodies and the rich palette of sounds of the Babylonian Jewish pronunciation of Hebrew; these include compilations on CD by the Salman-Bassoun family in Israel, the Rivers of Babylon ensemble in London and India and the present CD accompanying this book.¹¹ A recent compilation of field recordings of Jewish Babylonian song spanning some 50 years highlights some of the diasporic routes of its practitioners: in recordings from the collections of Margaret Kartomi, Sara Manasseh and those of the National Sound Archives in Jerusalem, informants in India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Australia, the UK and Israel, present comparative versions of shbaḥoth in addition to material in the wider repertoire, such as Penitential hymns (sélîḥoth) and Psalms.¹²

In many cases, a strong sense of shared identity, history and culture characterizes Babylonian Jewish communities and individuals now far-removed, in time and space, from their spiritual and ancestral home. The historical, musical and poetic dimensions of their collective experience serve as a backdrop to the words and music of the songs in this collection.

Illustration 1.4 Family portrait on the occasion of the marriage of Rachel Ani and Albert Manasseh, with parents, Manasseh J. Manasseh (seated L), Georgette (née Jeddah) and Reuben E. Ani (seated R), and siblings (L–R: Marcelle, seated; Henry, standing; Violet and Edward, standing), Bombay, 1944 (courtesy Rachel Manasseh)

¹ Ezekiel N. Musleah, On the Banks of the Ganga: The Sojourn of Jews in Calcutta (North Quincy, Mass., 1975), pp. 29, 35.

² David S. Sassoon, A History of the Jews in Baghdad (Letchworth, 5709/1949), pp. 205–209. A substantial quotation is shown, as the material is particularly pertinent (ibid., pp. 206, 207, 208–9).

³ Jacob Saphir, Eben Saphir, (2 vols, Lyck and Mainz, 1874), vol. 2 (Mainz), p. 41 [Hebrew]. (Referred to by Sassoon, A History of the Jews in Baghdad, p. 207, fn. 2.)

⁴ Also known as Ezekiel Joshua Abraham, Ḥesqél Shou^ca Ḥesqél El-Kebîr, Ezekiel Gubbay.

⁵ This first appeared in 1856 and was the earliest periodical to be printed in India: Walter J. Fischel, ‘Bombay in Jewish History in the Light of New Documents from the Indian Archives’, Pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Supplementary Resources Disclaimer
• List of Illustrations
• List of Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• Pronunciation Guide for Transliterated Characters
• Transliteration of Hebrew Characters
• Names and Pronunciation of Hebrew Alphabet and Vowels According to the Babylonian Jewish Custom: Hebrew Alphabet (Consonants)
• Song Repertoire List of Songs, with Corresponding Pages for Texts, Music Notation and CD Track Numbers
• Accompanying CD – More Precious than Pearls: List of 18 Tracks with Corresponding Page Numbers for Texts and Music Notation
• Conventions and Terminology
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Prelude
• 2 Historical, Social and Musical Background
• 3 The Poetry in Its Historical Context
• 4 Song Texts and Music Notations
• 5 Coda
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Discography, Videography and Websites
• Index of Song Titles
• Index of Song Titles (Hebrew)
• General Index