Music

Abstract

Abstract The growth of Jewish studies has made it possible to talk about Jewish music in entirely new and even radically different ways. Since the 1970s, the study of music has developed as one of the most productive areas of research in Jewish studies itself, and since the early 1990s discussions about Jewish music have assumed a position as one of the most challenging arenas for research and debate in musicology and ethnomusicology. For the purposes of this article, the subdisciplines and subfields of musical scholarship that have entered into productive dialogue with Jewish studies are included under the larger disciplinary umbrella of ‘Jewish music research’. The shift from Judaism and Jewish practice to music and musical practice has unfolded slowly during a period of about two centuries, but accelerated rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century, during which Jewish music research has virtually exploded.