Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Introduction: Musical outcomes of Jewish migration into Asia via the Northern and Southern routes c .1780– c .1950

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17411910410001692274

1741-1920

Margaret J. Kartomi, Andrew D. McCredie,

Diverse Musicological Studies

Abstract Jewish migration into Asia is of ancient origin. However, the migrations over the two centuries since c. 1780 have been driven by distinctive historical circumstances. Those of the "southern Asian diaspora route", which coincides approximately with the ancient "spice routes" by sea and land, were largely homogeneous, voluntary and family and trade based, supported by British and Dutch colonial expansion into India, Southeast Asia and East Asia. Those of the "northern diaspora route" were heterogeneous and often involuntary, as central and eastern European refugees followed the expansion of the railway system along the old "silk road" to East Asia. While exploring the historical background to these migrations, this introductory article investigates the role of music as an expressive marker of Jewish identity in the Asian diaspora and beyond. Keywords: Jewish-AsianNorthern and Southern Diaspora RoutesBaghdad-JewishCentral and Eastern European JewishMerchantsRefugeesMusicIdentity Acknowledgments Professors Kartomi and McCredie would like to acknowledge generous financial support from the Australian Research Council and a grant from the Monash University Publications Grants Committee. The guest editors would like to thank Drs Janet Topp Fargion and Caroline Bithell, editors of Ethnomusicology Forum, for the opportunity to put together this issue and for their support and advice at all stages of its preparation. Our special thanks go to all those who have contributed to the journal – the authors, referees and production team, and to Nissim Ben-Salamon for technical and linguistic assistance. Thanks also to those members of the Journal's Editorial Board who have been forthcoming with advice and assistance, in particular Drs Jonathan Stock and Martin Clayton. Notes Margaret Kartomi, Dr Phil., AM FAHA, is Professor of Music at Monash University where she pioneered the teaching and research of Asian music and co-founded the Australian Archive of Jewish Music. She has published extensively on Indonesian, Southeast Asian, Australian Aboriginal and European music as well as on musicological/ethnomusicological theory. She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1984 and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1994 for her services to music. Andrew D. McCredie, Dr Phil., AM (1984) FAHA (1975) and Edward J. Dent Medallist (1974), was formerly foundation Professor of Musicology at the University of Adelaide and Adjunct Professor of Musicology and Research Associate in the School of Music-Conservatorium, Monash University (1998–2002). His publications deal mainly with North German Baroque music-theatre and instrumental forms, Australian music, Byzantine-Slavic chant and German composers from the Renaissance to the contemporary. Correspondence to: Tintoretto Strasse I/II, 80638 Munich, Germany. In this study, the "early colonial period" dates from the early 17th to the late 18th or early 19th centuries, the "middle colonial period" from the early to late 19th century, the "high colonial period" from the late 19th century to the First World War and the "late colonial period" from the end of the Second World War until the mid-1970s (see Kartomi Citation1995). Given its chronological frame, this article uses Wade-Giles spellings for the romanization of Chinese names. Studies of the musical processes and results of culture contact resulting from single and double migration are summarized in Kartomi (Citation1981), Nettl (Citation1978) and Shiloah and Cohen (Citation1983). The difference between the Sephardi and the Ashkenazi experience is also an historical one (Gubbay and Levy Citation1992, 23). The attitudes and traditions of the Ashkenazi Jews were forged first in the cramped and hostile environment of Roman Palestine, then under the harsh repressive regimes of medieval Christianity. Sephardim, on the other hand, developed their way of life in the comparative freedom and prosperity of Babylon, later under the sometimes persecuting but generally more benevolent rule of Islam. CitationReyes observes that "refugees barely cast a shadow on the ethnomusicological landscape" (1999, xiii). According to the census, in the 1920s the Jews constituted the largest minority ethnic group in Baghdad. In the early 1950s, the movement known as Operation Ezra and Nehemiah brought 120,400 people to Israel, the second largest population transfer in Jewish history. By the end of 1951, only 9,000 Jews remained in the Iraqi capital. In February 2003, there were exactly 38 Jews left in Baghdad (Potter Citation2003). Through the Babylonian Talmud, Babylonian influence persisted even after the closure of the principal academies at Sura and Pumbedita saw the spiritual centre of Jewry shift to Iberian Spain, particularly Andalusia. Use of the term "post-colonial" is not meant to imply that we now live in a non-imperialist age, only that colonization in the sense of the direct, political, economic and cultural subjugation of a people by a mainly non-resident nation (such as the British and Dutch in Southeast Asia between the 17th and 20th centuries) has been replaced in independent Southeast Asian nations by other forms of political, economic and cultural control, in part via foreign governments and multinational companies. An ethnic group is a reference group invoked by people who share a common historical style (which may only be assumed), based on overt features and values, and who, through the process of interaction with others, identify themselves as sharing that style (Royce Citation1982, 18). Publication of McCredie's extensive study of Fraenkel is also forthcoming. Repressive measures under Turkish rule in the 18th and 19th centuries, however, did result in large numbers of Iraqi Jews emigrating to India, China, Indonesia and the Sudan (Encyclopedia Judaica Citation1974, 8: 1447). Jews interviewed by the authors of this journal in Bombay, Rangoon, Penang, Mandalay, Singapore, Batavia/Jakarta, Semarang, Hong Kong, Shanghai and other Asian cities say that they were well accepted in their local communities and experienced no racism at all, though when the British in Singapore, for example, classified Jewish people as "Orientals" and did not allow them to join their social clubs (Nathan 1986, 16, 67–9) they were certainly demonstrating passive prejudice. Thus it was that Baghdad-Jewish tycoon dynasties became leading philanthropists and holders of high office in the Asian diaspora. For example, Lord Lawrence Kadoorie (born in Hong Kong in 1899) who, with his family, set up and maintained the public electricity commission in Shanghai, acted as Chair of the China Power and Lighting Company. The Kadoorie, Sassoon and other families set up hospitals, orphanages and water supply systems, while Sir Matthew Nathan was Governor of Hong Kong from 1904 to 1907. Similarly, David Marshall became the inaugural Chief Minister of Singapore in 1965. Accounts of the history and musical history of the Singapore community respectively are given in Nathan (Citation1986) and Kartomi (Citation1999); for sources on the Calcutta and Bombay communities, see Manasseh (this volume). A discussion of Jews in the plural society of the Netherlands East Indies is found in Hadler (Citation2000). Accounts of the communities in Rangoon, Mandalay, Penang, Labuan, Batavia, Semarang, Surabaya and Hong Kong are currently being prepared by Kartomi. For examples of a growing literature concerned with Exilmusik, emigration and culture politics in Nazi Germany during the Third Reich, see Weber (Citation1994), Böhne and Motzkau-Valeton (Citation1992), John (Citation1994), Wulf (Citation1966) and Pass et al. (Citation1995). Refugees fleeing to the Far East in the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht made their way via the southern maritime route from ports in Italy; after Italy's entry into the war in June 1940, refugees were diverted to the trans-Siberian land route (Kranzler Citation1971, 1–2). Kranzler further characterizes two distinct periods of migration via the land route, according to the people involved and the degree of their refugee status (1971, 22–4). These numbers have been variously measured and represented, but totalled over 17,000 people by 1941 (Kranzler Citation1971, 425–7). For details of other publications by Xu Buzeng, see the article by Utz in this volume. A corollary of this dilemma is the fact that to date most scholarly writing about Jewish culture has been done by Jewish scholars (Sklare 1982, 269) whose work is often in part autobiographical. Summit (Citation2000, 5–9) and Koskoff (Citation2001, xii–xvi) exemplify Slobin's idea of "[self-]reflexive ethnography". The present volume includes articles by both Jewish and non-Jewish scholars, thus perhaps cracking the mould of what Marshall Sklare has called "in-group ethnomusicology" (quoted in Slobin Citation1989, xiv). Kolatch continues: "Even the geonim [the scholars of the great Babylonian academies of Sura and Pumpedita], who were very influential with the Jews of the Diaspora between the seventh and eleventh centuries, refused to tamper with local customs…[even supporting] the retention of local practices of which they personally did not approve (1995, 5). "Plural societies" are those in which the various communities associated in public places but kept separate identities. Sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset (Citation1963) lamented the paucity of comparative studies of Jewish communities and the lack of attention paid to variations in the behaviour of Jews around the world which, he believed, were linked to the structures and values of the larger non-Jewish societies in which they lived. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMargaret Kartomi Margaret Kartomi, Dr Phil., AM FAHA, is Professor of Music at Monash University where she pioneered the teaching and research of Asian music and co-founded the Australian Archive of Jewish Music. She has published extensively on Indonesian, Southeast Asian, Australian Aboriginal and European music as well as on musicological/ethnomusicological theory. She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1984 and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1994 for her services to music. Andrew D. McCredie, Dr Phil., AM (1984) FAHA (1975) and Edward J. Dent Medallist (1974), was formerly foundation Professor of Musicology at the University of Adelaide and Adjunct Professor of Musicology and Research Associate in the School of Music-Conservatorium, Monash University (1998–2002). His publications deal mainly with North German Baroque music-theatre and instrumental forms, Australian music, Byzantine-Slavic chant and German composers from the Renaissance to the contemporary. Correspondence to: Tintoretto Strasse I/II, 80638 Munich, Germany.