Across the United States, Jews come together every week to sing and pray in a wide variety of worship communities. Through this music, made by and for ordinary folk, these worshippers define and re-define their relationship to the continuity of Jewish tradition and the realities of American life.
Combining oral history with an analysis of recordings, The Lord's Song in a Strange Land examines this tradition incontemporary Jewish worship and explores the diverse links between the music and both spiritual and cultural identities. Alive with detail, the book focuses on metropolitan Boston and covers the full range of Jewish communities there, from Hasidim to Jewish college students in a transdenominational setting. It documents a remarkably fluid musical tradition, where melodies
are often shared, where sources can be as as diverse as Sufi chant, Christmas carols, rock and roll, and Israeli popular music, and where the meaning of a song can change from one block to the next.
The Lord's Song in a Strange Land is the first volume in Oxford's new American Musicspheres series. Featuring a CD of field recordings for many of the songs discussed, the book will prove an invaluable guide for a wide range of scholars and students of ethnomusicology and religion.
- ISBN10 0195161815
- ISBN13 9780195161816
- Publish Date 15 May 2003 (first published 2 November 2000)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 8 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Format Paperback
- Pages 218
- Language English