On Radioguide you can listen to a lot of music in many different genres. The music genre that will be discussed in this article is Jewish music. An interesting genre with unique elements that reflect the many sides of the Jewish culture. First you can read about the rich history of Jewish music, including information about Klezmer music, and after that the musical characteristics of Jewish music will be discussed. This article ends with 10 recommendations for Jewish radio stations on Radioguide that you can listen to after reading this article.

History of Jewish music

The history of Jewish music begins a long time ago and is very complex because of the spread of Jewish people during the centuries. We will start around the year 500, i.e. the period of the Middle Ages. In that period the ancestors of the Sephardic Jews came to Spain, where they were welcomed by the Arabs, who ruled Spain at that time. At that time, Jewish music came into being in Spain by women who during the work. Because they were at work, this music consisted mainly of singing, but sometimes drums were used to indicate the rhythm. These songs were mostly about love. They were ballads, love songs or wedding songs, in which courtly love was central, which means it was about knights in love. Religious songs were also sung in that time. So the culture of the Sephardic Jews has flourished since the year 500 in cooperation with the Arabs. The culture flourished especially around the year 1000. But in 1492, during the fall of Gradana, the cultural mix with the Arabs caused the Sephardic Jews to be expelled from Spain. This caused a lot of traditional music to be lost.

An important style of music within Jewish music is the Klezmer. This music originated in the year 70 and is therefore already very old, but it has changed a lot over time. In the year 70, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. This caused the spread of Jews to all kinds of other countries in the centuries that followed. Through this spread, the Jews came into contact with many other musical styles, which they then adopted in their own music. This even leads to a great prejudice about Jewish music, namely that the Jews do not really have their own music, but that it is only a mix of all kinds of other music from other countries and cultures. Around 1600 the Klezmer music sounded as we would recognize it now. At that time, the music culture around weddings was growing and this was an important development for the Klezmer music. Klezmer is music that is played during Jewish weddings. These can last for several days and music plays an important role. The Klezmer music is often dance music for the wedding, but also ritual music for the ceremony or listening music for when the wedding guests are eating. It was not until 1970, when the Klezmer music emerged as a musical genre, that it was named 'Klezmer'. Before this, most of the times it was called 'Jewish wedding music' or 'Yiddish music' (Yiddish is the language spoken by Jews in Eastern Europe). 

Musical characteristics of Jewish music

How can you recognize Jewish music? These are some musical characteristics. First of all, Jewish music can be recognized by a specific pitch in the scale. In most music there is a clear division between major and minor, but in Jewish music both major and minor occur in the scale. This ensures that Jewish music always has both cheerful and sad elements in it. Another important characteristic of Jewish music is that it is often heterophonic. This means that you hear several musical parts and singing at the same time.

It is certainly worthwhile to immerse oneself in Jewish music, because music plays an important role in the Jewish culture. Music has been immersed in Jewish culture since the beginning and is closely connected to their religious and cultural rituals and experience.  

Are you interested in Jewish music and do you want to listen to it? That is possible here on Radioguide, under the genre Jewish music. You can find many online radio stations from Israel that broadcast Jewish radio music. We will list 10 stations we can recommend you to listen to:

·      Geula FM: Jewish rock music from Israel

·      Jewish hits: Jewish hits from Israel

·      Agape radio: Religious Jewish music

·      Toker FM: Jewish music and rock music

·      Radio Israel 1: Internet radio from Israel

·      Jewish broadcast: Jewish broadcast internet radio

·      Israel national radio: The national radio station from Jerusalem

·      BB vostok: Radio station of the bukharian Jewish community

·      Kolhalev: Kolhalev worldwide Jewish Israeli Radio

·      Radio Galey Israel: Jewish pop music

We hope you learned something about the history of Jewish music and that you will enjoy listening to it!