Pizmonim
Encyclopedia
Pizmonim are traditional Jewish songs and melodies with the intentions of praising God as well as learning certain aspects of traditional religious teachings. They are sung throughout religious rituals and festivities such as prayers, circumcision
s, bar mitzvah
s, weddings and other ceremonies. Pizmonim are generally sung in Hebrew
.
Pizmonim are extra-liturgical, as distinct from piyyut
im, which are hymns printed in the prayer-book
and forming an integral part of the service
. Similar songs sung in the synagogue
on the Sabbath
morning between midnight and dawn are called baqashot
(שירת הבקשות).
, although they are related to Ashkenazi Jews
' zemirot
. The best known tradition is associated with Jews descended from Aleppo
, though similar traditions exist among Iraqi Jews
(where the songs are known as shbaḥoth, praises) and in North Africa
n countries. Jews of Greek
, Turkish
and Balkan origin have songs of the same kind in Ladino, associated with the festivals: these are known as coplas.
or earlier. Many are taken from the Tanakh
, while others were composed by poets such as Yehuda Halevi
and Israel Najara
of Gaza
. Some melodies are quite old, while others may be based on popular Middle Eastern music
, with the words composed specially to fit the tune. A prolific composer of pizmonim of this last kind was Hakham Refael Antebi Tabbush (Aleppo 1830-Cairo 1919), who is regarded as the founder of the tradition in its present form. The tradition has since been exported to Syrian Jewish
communities in the Americas by his pupils, principally Moses Ashear. Pizmonim are composed for special occasions such as weddings and bar mitzvahs by Cantors in the past, as well as the present, by Ezekiel Albeg, Gabriel A. Shrem (a student of Ashear), Eliyahu Menaged (a student of Tabbush), Rabbi Raphael Yair Elnadav, and others.
s (musical modes), of which there are about ten in common use. Maqam Ajam, which sounds a little like a Western major scale
, is the thematic maqam that contains many holiday melodies. Maqam Hijaz, which corresponds to the Phrygian dominant scale
, is the thematic maqam that contains many sad melodies. Maqam Sikah (or Siga), containing many three-quarter-tone intervals, is used for the cantillation
of the Torah. Maqam Saba is the maqam used for circumcisions.
discouraging the use of piyyut
im in core parts of the prayer service. These rulings were taken seriously by the Kabbalistic
school of Isaac Luria
, and from the sixteenth century on many hymns were eliminated from the service. As the community did not wish to lose these much-loved hymns, the custom grew up of singing them extra-liturgically. Thus, the original core of the pizmonim collection consists of hymns from the old Aleppo ritual (published in Venice in 1560) and hymns from the Sephardic service by Yehuda Halevi
, Solomon ibn Gabirol
and others. A few hymns were also taken from the liturgy of the Romaniotes
.
Further pizmonim were composed and added to the collection through the centuries.
This practice may have arisen out of a Jewish prohibition of singing songs of the non-Jews (due to the secular character and lyrics of the songs). This was true in the case of Arabic
songs, whereby Jews were allowed to listen to the songs, but not allowed to sing them with the text. In order to bypass the problem, many composers, throughout the centuries, wrote new lyrics to the songs with the existing melodies, in order not to violate the tradition of not singing non-Jewish songs.
assigned to the cantor according to the theme of the given Torah portion of the week. A pizmon may also be sung in honour of a person called up to the Torah, immediately before or after the reading: usually this is chosen so as to contain some allusion to the person's name or family.
Pizmonim, or any melodies, are generally not applied throughout the week during prayer services.
The book, which was published by the Sephardic Heritage Foundation, was started in 1949 by Gabriel Shrem and was completed in 1964. It aimed to include the ancient [Baqashot and Petihot], the old [Israel Najara, Mordechai Abadi, Refael Taboush, Moshe Ashear], and the new material (Refael Elnadav, Ezra Dweck, Gabriel A. Shrem, Ezekiel Albeg, Haim Saban, Ezra Mishaniye, and other modern Israeli melodies). The book also has innovative features very useful for a cantor, such as a list of Maqams to go with the specific perasha, as well as which pieces of Sabbath prayers fit with the melodies of certain pizmonim. In later editions, more songs were added to the book in their appropriate sections.
The classic red pizmonim book mentioned above serves Syrian Jews today as their official canon of pizmonim.
The book is currently in its ninth edition.
's Cantorial Institute (Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music), cantor of B'nai Yosef Synagogue
, and editor-in-chief of the "Shir uShbaha Hallel veZimrah" pizmonim book.
The idea of the project began in the late 1970s when Shrem started teaching a course at Yeshiva University. As a demonstration tool, Shrem recorded the bulk of the pizmonim for classroom distribution. The collection resulting from these recordings encompassed roughly 65% of the Sephardic pizmonim liturgy.
The Sephardic Pizmonim Project organisation re-released all of Shrem's recordings on a large CD collection in September 2004 selling approximately 6,050 CDs throughout the world. The organisation opened a website in 2006 with the goal of "continuing the work that Gabriel Shrem started and preserving all [Middle Eastern Jewish] liturgical traditions". In the process, cantors throughout the world have contacted the organisation and provided recordings to further enhance the project. The project's website (www.pizmonim.com) contains recordings of the Biblical taamim
and the baqashot
, together with pizmonim not included in the CD collection.
More recently, the project has announced that it has reached the benchmark of only missing 90 melodies of pizmonim from the 'Shir Ushbaha Hallel VeZimrah' pizmonim book. When the project first began, they were missing over 300 pizmonim. The last 90 pizmonim that are still missing will be more difficult to obtain due to the aging population and the general difficulty of those specific pizmonim. However, the project is currently attempting to reach Syrian Jews across the world (from Jerusalem, to New York, to Buenos Aires, to Mexico, and to Panama...) in order to track down those who know the missing songs and then get them recorded for the website.
Significant contributors to this project include the venerated cantor, Isaac Cabasso, of Congregation Beth Torah in Brooklyn, New York, and Joseph Mosseri, the founder and moderator of the Sephardic Hazzanut Forum.
Brit milah
The brit milah is a Jewish religious circumcision ceremony performed on 8-day old male infants by a mohel. The brit milah is followed by a celebratory meal .-Biblical references:...
s, bar mitzvah
B'nai Mitzvah
Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah are Jewish coming of age rituals. According to Jewish law, when Jewish boys reach 13, they become responsible for their actions and become a Bar Mitzvah . The age for girls is 12...
s, weddings and other ceremonies. Pizmonim are generally sung in Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
.
Pizmonim are extra-liturgical, as distinct from piyyut
Piyyut
A piyyut or piyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Piyyutim have been written since Temple times...
im, which are hymns printed in the prayer-book
Siddur
A siddur is a Jewish prayer book, containing a set order of daily prayers. This article discusses how some of these prayers evolved, and how the siddur, as it is known today has developed...
and forming an integral part of the service
Jewish services
Jewish prayer are the prayer recitations that form part of the observance of Judaism. These prayers, often with instructions and commentary, are found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book....
. Similar songs sung in the synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
on the Sabbath
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
morning between midnight and dawn are called baqashot
Baqashot
The Baqashot are a collection of supplications, songs, and prayers that have been sung by the Sephardic Aleppian Jewish community and other congregations for centuries each week on Shabbat morning from midnight until dawn. Usually they are recited during the weeks of winter, when the nights are...
(שירת הבקשות).
Geographical background
Pizmonim are traditionally associated with Middle Eastern Sephardi JewsSephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
, although they are related to Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
' zemirot
Zemirot
Zemirot or Z'mirot are Jewish hymns, usually sung in the Hebrew or Aramaic languages, but sometimes also in Yiddish or Ladino. The best known zemirot are those sung around the table during Shabbat and Jewish holidays...
. The best known tradition is associated with Jews descended from Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
, though similar traditions exist among Iraqi Jews
History of the Jews in Iraq
The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BCE. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities....
(where the songs are known as shbaḥoth, praises) and in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
n countries. Jews of Greek
History of the Jews in Greece
There have been organized Jewish communities in Greece for more than two thousand years. The oldest and the most characteristic Jewish group that has inhabited Greece are the Romaniotes, also known as "Greek Jews"...
, Turkish
History of the Jews in Turkey
Turkish Jews The history of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey covers the 2,400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey. There have been Jewish communities in Asia Minor since at least the 5th century BCE and many Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Spain were welcomed to the...
and Balkan origin have songs of the same kind in Ladino, associated with the festivals: these are known as coplas.
History of texts
The texts of many pizmonim date back to the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
or earlier. Many are taken from the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
, while others were composed by poets such as Yehuda Halevi
Yehuda Halevi
Judah Halevi was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in Palestine in 1141...
and Israel Najara
Israel ben Moses Najara
Israel ben Moses Najara was a Jewish liturgical poet, preacher, Biblical commentator, kabbalist, and rabbi of Gaza.- Biography :...
of Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
. Some melodies are quite old, while others may be based on popular Middle Eastern music
Middle Eastern music
The music of Western Asia and North Africa spans across a vast region, from Morocco to Afghanistan, and its influences can be felt even further afield. Middle Eastern music influenced the music of India, as well as Central Asia, Spain, Southern Italy, the Caucasus and the Balkans, as in chalga...
, with the words composed specially to fit the tune. A prolific composer of pizmonim of this last kind was Hakham Refael Antebi Tabbush (Aleppo 1830-Cairo 1919), who is regarded as the founder of the tradition in its present form. The tradition has since been exported to Syrian Jewish
Syrian Jews
Syrian Jews are Jews who inhabit the region of the modern state of Syria, and their descendants born outside Syria. Syrian Jews derive their origin from two groups: from the Jews who inhabited the region of today's Syria from ancient times Syrian Jews are Jews who inhabit the region of the modern...
communities in the Americas by his pupils, principally Moses Ashear. Pizmonim are composed for special occasions such as weddings and bar mitzvahs by Cantors in the past, as well as the present, by Ezekiel Albeg, Gabriel A. Shrem (a student of Ashear), Eliyahu Menaged (a student of Tabbush), Rabbi Raphael Yair Elnadav, and others.
Maqamat (maqams)
All pizmonim can be classified under different maqamMaqam
- Musical structures :* Arabic maqam, melodic modes* Mugam genre of Azeri-speaking cultures* Maqam al-iraqi genre of Iraq* Weekly Maqam prayer services of Sephardic Jewish culture* Makam, melody types of Turkey* Muqam, melody type of Uyghur culture...
s (musical modes), of which there are about ten in common use. Maqam Ajam, which sounds a little like a Western major scale
Major scale
In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...
, is the thematic maqam that contains many holiday melodies. Maqam Hijaz, which corresponds to the Phrygian dominant scale
Phrygian dominant scale
In music, the altered Phrygian scale or Freygish scale , featuring an unusual key signature and a distinctive augmented second interval, is the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale, the fifth being the dominant...
, is the thematic maqam that contains many sad melodies. Maqam Sikah (or Siga), containing many three-quarter-tone intervals, is used for the cantillation
Cantillation
Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points...
of the Torah. Maqam Saba is the maqam used for circumcisions.
Origins of tradition
The origin of the tradition must be seen in the context of certain rulings of the GeonimGeonim
Geonim were the presidents of the two great Babylonian, Talmudic Academies of Sura and Pumbedita, in the Abbasid Caliphate, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the Jewish community world wide in the early medieval era, in contrast to the Resh Galuta who wielded secular authority...
discouraging the use of piyyut
Piyyut
A piyyut or piyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Piyyutim have been written since Temple times...
im in core parts of the prayer service. These rulings were taken seriously by the Kabbalistic
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
school of Isaac Luria
Isaac Luria
Isaac Luria , also called Yitzhak Ben Shlomo Ashkenazi acronym "The Ari" "Ari-Hakadosh", or "Arizal", meaning "The Lion", was a foremost rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Palestine...
, and from the sixteenth century on many hymns were eliminated from the service. As the community did not wish to lose these much-loved hymns, the custom grew up of singing them extra-liturgically. Thus, the original core of the pizmonim collection consists of hymns from the old Aleppo ritual (published in Venice in 1560) and hymns from the Sephardic service by Yehuda Halevi
Yehuda Halevi
Judah Halevi was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in Palestine in 1141...
, Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol, also Solomon ben Judah , was an Andalucian Hebrew poet and Jewish philosopher with a Neoplatonic bent. He was born in Málaga about 1021; died about 1058 in Valencia.-Biography:...
and others. A few hymns were also taken from the liturgy of the Romaniotes
Romaniotes
The Romaniotes or Romaniots are a Jewish population who have lived in the territory of today's Greece and neighboring areas with large Greek populations for more than 2,000 years. Their languages were Yevanic, a Greek dialect, and Greek. They derived their name from the old name for the people...
.
Further pizmonim were composed and added to the collection through the centuries.
This practice may have arisen out of a Jewish prohibition of singing songs of the non-Jews (due to the secular character and lyrics of the songs). This was true in the case of Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
songs, whereby Jews were allowed to listen to the songs, but not allowed to sing them with the text. In order to bypass the problem, many composers, throughout the centuries, wrote new lyrics to the songs with the existing melodies, in order not to violate the tradition of not singing non-Jewish songs.
Liturgical use
During typical Shabbat and holiday services in the Syrian tradition, the melodies of pizmonim are used as settings for some of the prayers, in a system of rotation to ensure that the maqam suits the mood of the holiday or the Torah reading. Each week there is a different maqamThe Weekly Maqam
In Mizrahi and Sephardic Middle Eastern Jewish prayer services, each Shabbat the congregation conducts services using a different maqam. A maqam , which in Arabic literally means 'place', is a standard melody type and set of related tunes. The melodies used in a given maqam aims effectively to...
assigned to the cantor according to the theme of the given Torah portion of the week. A pizmon may also be sung in honour of a person called up to the Torah, immediately before or after the reading: usually this is chosen so as to contain some allusion to the person's name or family.
Pizmonim, or any melodies, are generally not applied throughout the week during prayer services.
Red book
In 1959, the Syrian community of Brooklyn, New York, acted on the need of compiling their own pizmonim book based on their ancient traditions from Aleppo. Prior to this, there were many older pizmonim books circulating around the community, but they didn't have Hebrew vowels, and were generally difficult for the masses to utilize.The book, which was published by the Sephardic Heritage Foundation, was started in 1949 by Gabriel Shrem and was completed in 1964. It aimed to include the ancient [Baqashot and Petihot], the old [Israel Najara, Mordechai Abadi, Refael Taboush, Moshe Ashear], and the new material (Refael Elnadav, Ezra Dweck, Gabriel A. Shrem, Ezekiel Albeg, Haim Saban, Ezra Mishaniye, and other modern Israeli melodies). The book also has innovative features very useful for a cantor, such as a list of Maqams to go with the specific perasha, as well as which pieces of Sabbath prayers fit with the melodies of certain pizmonim. In later editions, more songs were added to the book in their appropriate sections.
The classic red pizmonim book mentioned above serves Syrian Jews today as their official canon of pizmonim.
The book is currently in its ninth edition.
Sephardic Pizmonim Project
The Sephardic Pizmonim Project, founded by David M. Betesh, is a foundation dedicated to the scholarship, restoration and preservation of the ancient music of the Sephardic-Syrian Jewish community. The project is dedicated to the memory of Cantor Gabriel A. Shrem, the former director of Yeshiva UniversityYeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
's Cantorial Institute (Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music), cantor of B'nai Yosef Synagogue
B'nai Yosef Synagogue
The B'nai Yosef Synagogue, , formerly Magen David Congregation of Ocean Parkway, is an Orthodox Sephardi synagogue at the 1616 Ocean Parkway and Avenue P in Brooklyn, New York....
, and editor-in-chief of the "Shir uShbaha Hallel veZimrah" pizmonim book.
The idea of the project began in the late 1970s when Shrem started teaching a course at Yeshiva University. As a demonstration tool, Shrem recorded the bulk of the pizmonim for classroom distribution. The collection resulting from these recordings encompassed roughly 65% of the Sephardic pizmonim liturgy.
The Sephardic Pizmonim Project organisation re-released all of Shrem's recordings on a large CD collection in September 2004 selling approximately 6,050 CDs throughout the world. The organisation opened a website in 2006 with the goal of "continuing the work that Gabriel Shrem started and preserving all [Middle Eastern Jewish] liturgical traditions". In the process, cantors throughout the world have contacted the organisation and provided recordings to further enhance the project. The project's website (www.pizmonim.com) contains recordings of the Biblical taamim
Cantillation
Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points...
and the baqashot
Baqashot
The Baqashot are a collection of supplications, songs, and prayers that have been sung by the Sephardic Aleppian Jewish community and other congregations for centuries each week on Shabbat morning from midnight until dawn. Usually they are recited during the weeks of winter, when the nights are...
, together with pizmonim not included in the CD collection.
More recently, the project has announced that it has reached the benchmark of only missing 90 melodies of pizmonim from the 'Shir Ushbaha Hallel VeZimrah' pizmonim book. When the project first began, they were missing over 300 pizmonim. The last 90 pizmonim that are still missing will be more difficult to obtain due to the aging population and the general difficulty of those specific pizmonim. However, the project is currently attempting to reach Syrian Jews across the world (from Jerusalem, to New York, to Buenos Aires, to Mexico, and to Panama...) in order to track down those who know the missing songs and then get them recorded for the website.
Significant contributors to this project include the venerated cantor, Isaac Cabasso, of Congregation Beth Torah in Brooklyn, New York, and Joseph Mosseri, the founder and moderator of the Sephardic Hazzanut Forum.
See also
- BaqashotBaqashotThe Baqashot are a collection of supplications, songs, and prayers that have been sung by the Sephardic Aleppian Jewish community and other congregations for centuries each week on Shabbat morning from midnight until dawn. Usually they are recited during the weeks of winter, when the nights are...
- MaqamMaqam- Musical structures :* Arabic maqam, melodic modes* Mugam genre of Azeri-speaking cultures* Maqam al-iraqi genre of Iraq* Weekly Maqam prayer services of Sephardic Jewish culture* Makam, melody types of Turkey* Muqam, melody type of Uyghur culture...
- Syrian JewsSyrian JewsSyrian Jews are Jews who inhabit the region of the modern state of Syria, and their descendants born outside Syria. Syrian Jews derive their origin from two groups: from the Jews who inhabited the region of today's Syria from ancient times Syrian Jews are Jews who inhabit the region of the modern...
- Syrian CantorsSyrian CantorsThe Syrian Cantor or hazzan leads the traditional prayer rituals in the synagogues of the Syrian Jews. He conducts the services using ten maqamat or musical modes. A cantor must be fully cognizant of these maqamat and their applications to the prayers...
- The Weekly MaqamThe Weekly MaqamIn Mizrahi and Sephardic Middle Eastern Jewish prayer services, each Shabbat the congregation conducts services using a different maqam. A maqam , which in Arabic literally means 'place', is a standard melody type and set of related tunes. The melodies used in a given maqam aims effectively to...
- Sephardic JudaismSephardic JudaismSephardic law and customs means the practice of Judaism as observed by the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, so far as it is peculiar to themselves and not shared with other Jewish groups such as the Ashkenazim...
- Central Synagogue of AleppoCentral Synagogue of AleppoThe Central Synagogue of Aleppo, , also known as the Great Synagogue of Aleppo or Joab's Synagogue, has been a Jewish place of worship since the 5th century C.E. When it functioned, it was considered the main synagogue of the Syrian Jewish community. The synagogue is noted as being the location...
- Ades SynagogueAdes SynagogueThe Ades Synagogue, , also known as the Great Synagogue Ades of the Glorious Aleppo Community, located in Jerusalem's Nachlaot neighborhood, was established by Syrian immigrants in 1901...
Books
- Aboud, Ḥayim Shaul, Sefer Shire Zimrah, Jerusalem, 1936.
- Aboud, Ḥayim Shaul, Sefer Shire Zimrah Hashalem im Sefer le-Baqashot le-Shabbat, Jerusalem, 1953, repr. 1988.
- Antebi Tabbush, Refael Yiṣḥaq, Shirah Ḥadashah, Aleppo, 1888.
- Ashear, Moshe, Hallel Vezimrah, Jerusalem, 1928.
- Cohen, Refael Ḥayim ("Parsi"), Shir Ushbaḥah, Jerusalem, 1905 and 1921.
- Shrem, Gabriel, Shir Ushbaḥah Hallel Vezimrah, Sephardic Heritage Foundation, New York, 1964, 1983.
- Sefer Shirah Ḥadashah Hashalem (second edition), Zimrat Ha'Aretz Institute, New York, 2002.
- Shir Ushbaḥah, Machon Haketab, Jerusalem, 2005.
- Sefer Pizmonim Hameforash - Od Yosef Ḥai, 2006/7.
Secondary literature
- Langer, Ruth, To Worship God Properly: Tensions Between Liturgical Custom and Halakhah in Judaism. Hebrew Union College Press, 1998. ISBN 0-87820-421-0
- Shelemay, Kay Kaufman, Let Jasmine Rain Down: Song and Remembrance among Syrian Jews. University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
, 1998. ISBN 0-226-75211-9 - Sutton, David, Aleppo - City of Scholars. ArtScroll PublicationsArtScrollArtScroll is an imprint of translations, books and commentaries from an Orthodox Jewish perspective published by Mesorah Publications, Ltd., a publishing company based in Brooklyn, New York...
, 2005. ISBN 1-57819-056-8 - Kligman, Mark, Maqam and Liturgy: Ritual, Music and Aesthetics of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn, Detroit 2009
- "Pizmonim Book Goes Digital", Community Magazine, Aleppian Publication Society, November 2004.
External links
- Piyut (in Hebrew), also contains hymns from other traditions.
- Sephardic Pizmonim Project by David M. Betesh, includes samples of pizmonim and a table of contents of the Shir Ushbaִhah Hallel Vezimrah Pizmonim book; identifies songs currently in active transmission.