SUSANA WEICH-SHAHAK
Zejel structure in the Judeo-Spanish
repertoire
by Susana Weich-Shahak (Hebrew
University)
ABSTRACT: The zejel structure is one of the main
literary structures in the Judeo-Spanish
repertoire, characteristic of the Sephardi Coplas – one of the
three genres that constitute, together with the Romancero and the Cancionero,
the Sephardi musico-poetic repertoire. It provides the formal structure of
several songs that are performed in the year-cycle repertoire, sung for the
Jewish festivities.
The contents of these coplas are didactical in their
purpose, offering information about each festivity, its reason and its mores.
Such songs belong both to the oral tradition and to the written one, as they
appeared in booklets especially printed for each festivity, and therefore, they
belong to the male’s repertoire, performed by men (who were those that could
read) and, among our informants, also by women who learned it by heart from
their male elders. The language is Judeo-Spanish, thus being the vehicle to
provide the community’s values and beliefs to the women and younger members of
the family who did not know Hebrew.
One of these coplas belongs exclusively to the oral
tradition, used as a children song.
Examples will be offered in audio and video recordings.
Among the examples:
Las tablas
de la Ley (Simhat Torah)
Manjares y
dadivas de Purim (Purim)
El
testamento de Aman (Purim)
Noche de
Alhad (Shabbat)
Aguinaldo de
Hanukka (Hannukka)