North African Jewish Songbooks

Since the 18th century Sephardi men and women throughout the Mediterranean basin have notated songs they want to remember or transmit in personal songbooks in the vernacular. These songbooks were created for both personal use and transmission to their descendants. My research will show the initial findings from a larger project that maps Western and Eastern Judeo-Spanish songbooks of the Mediterranean. Focusing on heritagization through transmission, encoding and absorption of textual and sonic elements, addresses the details gleaned from songbooks written by both men and women from the late 18th century until today. A distinct difference appears when taking a closer look between the songbooks notated by men and those notated by women. Men’s songbooks appear earlier, due to their access to education centuries before women. When women’s songbooks appear, the repertoire they choose to immortalise respond to precise social, cultural and communal needs. This gendered aspect has not even been alluded to in any of the previous scholarship. The porousness of repertoire found within these private books which function as objects of orality demonstrate the continued absorption and interpenetration of language and cultural references during various centuries of this community’s heritage building. Songbooks served as cultural reminders of the layered identities that Judeo-Spanish speakers sought to preserve. While keeping traditional repertoire, the writers of these songbooks simultaneously absorbed important elements from their surroundings, demonstrating a multiplicity of cultural codes that coexist dynamically. This continual construction of their seemingly opposing roles as preservers and innovators of repertoire breaks all attempts at strict regionalism, while ensuring that certain traditional specificities remain untouched and unchanged.