Mizrahi Music

The Hebrew word Mizrahi means “eastern.” In musical usage, it may describe the Mizrahi stream of Jewish music associated with Eastern Jewish communities or musiqa mizrahit, the Israeli popular genre associated with mizrahiyut, a cultural identity formed in Israel among Jews originating in Arab countries in North Africa and the Near East.[2][1] The broader musical field includes communities stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean eastward into Asia, with connections to the cultures of Arabia, Turkey, and Persia.[2]

These traditions do not constitute a single uniform sound: Moroccan Jewish music has strong connections to Spain and Andalusian music, while Iraqi Jewish music reflects Persian influence.[4] Hebrew is a principal language of song, alongside local languages, especially Arabic.[2] Contemporary performers also draw on particular inherited languages and repertoires: A-WA sings in Yemenite Judeo-Arabic, while Neta Elkayam performs Moroccan Jewish songs.[3]

Music connects religious observance, domestic life, and public celebration within this field.[3] Hebrew poetry sung in worship, Judeo-Arabic wedding songs, and melodies shared with Muslim and Christian neighbors formed parts of Jewish communal life from Aleppo to Casablanca.[3] In Israel, those inheritances entered new combinations through encounters among immigrant communities and through arrangements incorporating Turkish, Yemenite, and Kurdish music, rock beats, and pop styles.[1] The resulting popular music became a vehicle for expressing Mizrahi identity as well as a component of Israel’s wider musical culture.[1]

Jewish singers and instrumentalists were prominent participants in Arabic and Persian radio, records, and film during the twentieth century.[3] Baghdad’s chalghi ensembles, consisting of oud, fiddle, qanun, drum, and singer, were largely made up of Jewish musicians who performed at weddings, in coffee houses, and on radio.[3] Their activities placed Jewish musicians within both communal celebrations and the wider urban musical world.[3]

The brothers Saleh and Daoud al-Kuwaity were born in the early twentieth century in Kuwait City’s Jewish quarter and moved to Iraq in the early 1930s.[5] Their careers flourished in Baghdad, their music circulated over the airwaves, and they performed before Arab royalty.[5] Saleh played violin and led the Iraqi state radio ensemble, while Daoud played oud.[3] After their departure for Israel in 1951, their names were removed from their recordings in Iraq; in Israel, they played in the Arabic orchestra of the national broadcaster, Kol Yisrael.[3]

A review in the Jewish Review of Books presents Jewish musicians as central to the Maghreb’s Arabic musical scene in the first half of the twentieth century, moving between concert halls and synagogues and performing across ethnic lines.[6] It recounts how the Jewish mandolin player Edmond Nathan Yafil collected hundreds of Algerian melodies in a 1904 compendium, mentored Jewish and Muslim musicians, conducted a radio orchestra, and helped shape Algeria’s early recording industry.[6]

Yemeni Jewish musicians also contributed to the formation of Israeli song before statehood.[7] Bracha Zefira was fundamental to that development and was the first singer heard when the Palestine Broadcasting Service began transmission in 1936.[7] Early Israeli songs with biblical themes incorporated Yemenite-associated guttural pronunciation, woodwinds, hand drums, and cymbals.[1] Performers including Zefira and Shoshana Damari gained popularity, and songs performed by Yemenite singers could be heard as “Oriental” or “Yemenite” even when their arrangements combined Eastern and Western elements.[1]

Immigrants carried their musical traditions into Israeli homes, neighborhoods, synagogues, and celebrations.[3][4] Groups from Tel Aviv’s Kerem HaTeimanim neighborhood and wedding bands on Rehov HaMasger performed mixed repertoires that included Hebrew “Land of Israel” songs, Yemenite piyyutim, and songs by Moroccan singer Sami El-Maghribi, using their own vocal styles and instruments.[4] These family and wedding traditions preceded Zohar Argov’s career and provided an existing musical environment from which later popular styles developed.[4]

Greek music supplied another important influence.[8] During the late 1950s and 1960s, Aris San attracted Greek and Mizrahi Jewish audiences in Haifa and Jaffa, popularizing Greek sounds through the bouzouki and an electric guitar played in a high-pitched, staccato manner that imitated it.[8] The Greek hybrid style laika helped influence the emergence of Mizrahi music in the 1970s.[8] The 1970s brought a surge in Mizrahi music, with arrangements combining Turkish, Yemenite, and Kurdish traditions with rock beats and pop styles.[1]

Independent distribution became particularly important to the growing audience.[9] Recalling the early 1970s, Nissim Sarusi described placing copies of his record “I Cannot” in clubs and shops with collaborators; he said 17,000 copies sold within a month and the full album eventually sold 70,000 despite receiving no radio airplay.[9] Cassette recordings circulated through informal channels, including Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station, linking performers directly with listeners.[9] Dekelon’s recollection of releasing an album with Tzliley HaKerem in 1975 similarly described strong public demand without comparable media exposure.[9]

Zohar Argov developed a following in the late 1970s through community-center appearances and cassettes sold at the bus station.[10] Other performers associated with the cassette period included Haim Moshe and Jackie Mekayten.[11] The format helped spread sounds brought to Israel by immigrant communities, creating a distribution route outside conventional record-company and broadcast channels.[3][9]

The Mizrahi Song Festival, initiated, organized, and produced by Israel Radio editor Yosef Ben-Israel, ran from 1971 to 1982.[12] It provided exposure for composers Yehuda Badihi and Avihu Medina and singers including Uri Shevach, Shimi Tavori, Zohar Argov, and Ofra Haza.[12] Its enduring songs included “Yaakov HaTamim,” “Hida At Li,” “Oneg Shabbat,” and “HaPerach BeGani.”[12] Tavori won first place in 1977 with “Schora Ani u Na’ava”; after he opted out in 1982, Argov entered and won with “HaPerach beGani,” or “The Flower in My Garden.”[13]

Argov, born Zohar Orkabi in 1955 to a Yemenite Jewish family in Rishon le-Zion, began singing in a local Yemenite synagogue as a child.[14][15] He began releasing music in his early twenties and made his debut album, “Eleanor,” with guitarist Yehuda Keisar; released in 1981, it sold more than 500,000 copies.[14] His 1982 festival performance of Avihu Medina’s “The Flower in My Garden” reached viewers and listeners through a live television and radio broadcast.[15][16] Before that breakthrough, he had chiefly performed at weddings, small clubs, and dance halls, while most Israeli radio DJs refused to play Mizrahi music.[16]

Ofra Haza’s career provided another route to a broad audience.[17] Born into a Yemeni family in Tel Aviv, she had an immediate hit with her 1973 performance of “Ga’agu’im,” or “Yearning,” and placed third in the 1974 Mizrahi Music Festival with “Shabbat ha-Malkah.”[17] She was named Israel’s Singer of the Year in each year from 1980 through 1983, and her second-place Eurovision finish in 1983 marked an international breakthrough.[17] Her 1984 album Shirei Teiman, or “Yemenite Songs,” drew on songs heard in childhood and combined Middle Eastern percussion with classical instruments.[18]

Electronic production extended Haza’s reach further: Izhar Ashdot added electronic instruments to “Galbi,” and a version passed from a Voice of Peace radio DJ to European contacts before distribution there by BMG.[18] Her music combined Israeli and Yemenite folk melodies, Middle Eastern percussion, Western classical instrumentation, and synthpop dance beats.[19] Shirei Teiman brought international recognition, and Haza collaborated with international recording artists during the 1990s.[19]

Broadcast access expanded through a series of institutional changes.[20] Galei Tzahal began a nightly cassette-music program, “Al HaDvash Ve’al HaKefak,” in 1978; in 1980, Israel Broadcasting Authority director Tommy Lapid instructed Kol Israel to create a slot for the music.[20] The resulting “Agan HaYam HaTichon” initially combined Israeli songs with Greek, Turkish, and Spanish music in a reported ratio of 70 percent Israeli to 30 percent Mediterranean material.[20] Regional radio and Reshet Gimel’s conversion in November 1997 to an all-Israeli-music station further enlarged the genre’s public presence.[20]

“Agan HaYam HaTichon” became a platform for artists including Eyal Golan, Sarit Hadad, Amir Benayoun, and Shimon Buskila.[20] Later performers and ensembles advancing non-Western material included Ehud Banai, Habreira Hativit, the East-West Ensemble, and Bustan Avraham.[11] Mizrahi music moved from the socially charged label “bus station music,” derived from cassette sales at Tel Aviv’s old bus station, into mainstream radio and a more upscale audience; recordings also reached fans in the United States.[21]

A piyyut is a Hebrew liturgical poem sung before or within prayers, and individual poems may be performed to dozens of different melodies.[3] Piyyutim were written across the Jewish world, from Spain to Iraq and Lithuania to Azerbaijan; works by medieval Spanish poets Solomon ibn Gabirol, Yehuda Halevi, and Abraham ibn Ezra remain in use.[3] Their performance links inherited Hebrew texts with the musical resources of particular communities.[3]

The bakkashot, or “petitions,” are sung in synagogue before morning prayers on winter Sabbaths in traditions associated with Aleppo, Morocco, and later Jerusalem.[3] The custom most likely acquired its present form among Safed’s kabbalists in the sixteenth century.[3] Moroccan communities use Shir Yedidot, a collection published in 1921 containing about 550 poems set to Arab Andalusian melodies.[3] These practices preserve distinctive communal repertoires within a broader tradition of sung Jewish poetry.[3]

The maqam is a musical mode defined by a set of notes, mood, and melodic habits.[3] Syrian and other Jewish communities employ Arabic and Turkish maqamat in prayer, and Syrian cantors select a different mode for each Sabbath to correspond to the Torah reading.[3] Rast accompanies the opening readings of the Torah’s first four books, while Hijaz is used for readings describing biblical deaths.[3] Syrian pizmonim, Hebrew hymns for celebrations, often draw on Arabic classical music.[3]

Popular performance also uses recognizable vocal techniques.[1] Singers emphasize silsul, described as vibrato, and may begin with a muwal, a vocal prelude using utterances such as “yalel” or “lelele” to establish a mood and introduce the scales of the composition.[1] Argov’s singing combined Eastern and Western musical elements with mawwal, a form of vocal improvisation derived from Arab art music.[15] Arrangements could place such techniques alongside Turkish, Yemenite, or Kurdish material and rock or pop accompaniment.[1]

Religious and secular repertoires influence each other, including through the setting of religious texts to secular melodies.[2] Jewish secular music accompanies weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other communal celebrations, using both voices and instruments and sometimes popular or romantic texts.[2] Popular Mizrahi melodies have also entered Orthodox worship in many Mizrahi synagogues; “Shabekhi Yerushalyim,” or “Sing Praises, Oh Jerusalem,” is a prominent example.[22]

A revival of piyyut brought sacred poetry into pop, rock, jazz, and even heavy-metal settings.[23] From 2003, the Avi Chai Foundation funded Kehillot Sharot, or “singing communities,” where musicians, writers, and paytanim—singers of traditional poetry—taught participants to study and sing piyyutim.[23] Municipalities and universities subsequently supported classes, collaborations developed between traditional singers and pop and rock performers, and Jerusalem’s annual Piyut Festival drew thousands.[23]

Avi Chai also launched a website compiling thousands of piyyutim.[23] At the time of one report, its funding for the singing-community courses had ended, but the revival continued, and the government was making the website more accessible and incorporating it into the National Jewish Library.[23] That report recorded 75,000 monthly site hits and a government grant intended to support teaching piyyutim to Israeli kindergartners.[23]

Concert festivals created additional settings for inherited repertoire.[24] The first event under the Jerusalem International Oud Festival name took place in December 2000, two months after the second intifada began.[24] Its opening concert brought Arab attendees from Nazareth and nearby villages together with Israeli Jews from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.[24] The festival offered a venue for traditional Middle Eastern music that had previously been difficult to find in public performance.[24]

Contemporary revivals connect Israeli performers with repertoires inherited from particular Jewish communities.[3] In 2011, rock musician Dudu Tassa, Daoud al-Kuwaity’s grandson, released new versions of the al-Kuwaity brothers’ songs.[3] Neta Elkayam’s repertoire includes Moroccan Jewish singers Samy El Maghribi and Zohra El Fassia as well as original compositions in Darija, Moroccan Arabic; she grew up hearing Moroccan songs sung at home in Netivot.[25] A-WA’s Yemenite Judeo-Arabic performances likewise bring an inherited language into contemporary popular music.[3]

Yemeni Jewish singers including Aharon Amram and Zion Golan have preserved traditional Yemeni music and, through the internet and social media, reached listeners in Yemen itself.[7] Music helps the Yemeni Jewish diaspora in Israel and elsewhere sustain connections with Yemeni culture while developing a modern Yemeni Jewish culture.[7] Zohar Argov, Haim Moshe, and Margalit Tzanani are among the Yemeni Jewish artists associated with musika mizrahit, alongside other Yemeni Jewish performers who pioneered different Israeli genres.[7]

The relationship between ritual texts and modern popular music provides a continuing dialogue with Jewish tradition.[22] Mizrahi music offers an alternative to a sharp separation between “Israeli” and “Jewish” music by maintaining connections among religious texts, modern arrangements, and traditional rhythms.[22] A recent example is Sasson Shaulov’s 2024 hit “Tamid Ohev Oti,” or “Always Loves Me,” combining Mizrahi, Hasidic, and Mediterranean influences with lyrics inspired by Breslov Hasidism and Rabbi Shalom Arush.[26] The song topped pop radio charts, accumulated millions of YouTube views, and circulated at weddings and other events.[26]

Musical combinations also extend beyond expressly religious repertoire.[10] Ethnix and Tipex fused Middle Eastern and Mediterranean melodies and motifs with pop and rock, contributing to a distinctive Israeli popular sound.[10] Contemporary Israeli music blends Mizrahi and Western influences with pop, hip-hop, and rock.[20] Independent production, marketing, and distribution networks helped Mizrahi performers reach audiences outside the established industry and made a specifically Mizrahi identity audible in public culture.[27]

The Jewish Review of Books interprets Mizrahi pop as an altered, “Israelified” reappearance of North African Jewish sounds preserved for decades in small clubs and private homes.[6] It identifies performers Sheikh Muijo and Pétit Armand and Jaffa record seller Raphael Azoulay as participants in that continuity, and points to Kobi Oz of Teapacks and the Jerusalem East and West Orchestra as later projects drawing on the same musical world.[6]

The history of institutional exclusion remains a significant interpretive dispute.[4] Accounts connect limited access to radio, record companies, and critical recognition with Ashkenazi cultural dominance, nation-building priorities, and discomfort with Arabic culture.[1][24] Oral transmission and limited Western musical training also restricted access to established musical canons.[1] Other accounts emphasize wider exclusions: Yiddish and klezmer music also lacked mainstream radio access, and the effort to create a limited common culture need not be understood as a specifically anti-Mizrahi policy.[4] The music’s growing popularity involved performers, producers, editors, and listeners over a long period rather than a single political victory.[4]

Individual careers illustrate the stakes of recognition.[23] Yona Dardashti, a celebrated singer of classical Persian-Jewish music in Iran, was largely ignored in Israel and returned to perform in pre-revolutionary Iran, where he retained star status.[23] The Jewish Review of Books similarly portrays Zohra el-Fassiya’s move to Israel in 1962, after a career filling Moroccan concert halls and performing at the royal court, as a loss of public recognition shaped by prejudice against North African culture.[6] Performers who became major stars in the 1980s could still face ethnic caricature, while Margalit Tzanani’s television visibility and Zehava Ben’s successful song and film “Tipat Mazal” marked broader representation.[9]

Terminology and cultural inheritance also remain complex.[2][28] Mizrahi and Sephardi music are often named interchangeably, although distinctions can be drawn between their musical sources and between Mizrahi traditions and Ladino repertoire.[2] Zehava Ben’s performances of Egyptian singer Um Kulthum’s songs combine Arab, Turkish, and Western rock elements and raise questions of cultural inheritance across Israeli–Egyptian and Jewish–Muslim divisions; musical engagement does not erase those divisions.[28]

Argov’s commemoration presents a separate controversy: he was convicted of rape in 1978, and municipal officials later cited his criminal record and drug abuse when rejecting street-naming proposals.[14] Debate continues over how to acknowledge his musical influence without minimizing his crimes.[16] Other criticism has concerned artistic judgments, including claims that Mizrahi lyrics were overly simplistic and objections that the upbeat message of “Tamid Ohev Oti” could sugarcoat social hardship.[10][26]