Yemenite Jewish poetry
The Jews of Yemen have preserved a well-defined singing arrangement which not only includes the very poetic creation itself, but also involves a vocal and dance performance, accompanied in certain villages outside Sana'a by drumming on an empty tin-can (tanakeh) or a copper tray.
The social strictures and norms in Yemenite Jewish culture provide for separate settings for men and for women, where the sexes are never mixed.
Men’s song usually expressed the national aspirations of the Jewish people,[5] and it was far removed from the singing associated with the Muslim environment, whereas folk songs of Jewish women were sung by rote memory (unwritten poetry) and expressed the happiness and sorrows inherent in their daily life and was, as a rule, closer to that of Muslim women.
[6] In terms of the formal structure, men’s songs during social gatherings among Yemenite Jews are of three genres: nashīd (introduction), shirah (poem) and hallel (praise).
[14] Although it might incorporate themes of wine and of love, or that of a bridegroom and bride, it is, nonetheless, distinctly set apart from songs of hedonism sung in revelry and in drinking bouts.
In Yemenite poetry, such themes serve a mystical meaning, not to be understood in its literal context of a marriage between a man and a woman in the flesh, but of the bridegroom being the Holy One, blessed be He, and his bride, the people of Israel (Knesset Yisroel).
One example is Sapari Tamo, two stanzas of which are as follows, and where birds are used allegorically for the gentile nations: There is a tree bearing citrus fruit in my garden; עֵץ פְּרִי הָדָר בְּגַנִּי My nectar is there, as also my wine.
מִיּמִין אַל תִּשׂמְאִילִי In Yemen (as also in Israel), the all-male social-gathering always takes place around set tables, on which a variety of dainties have been laid up, with beverages (never actually solid foodstuffs), and traditionally opens with a nashīd.
After he commences with the nashīd, the performance passes unto a more experienced man in the congregation, known for his musical talents and who is called by the Hebrew word, meshorer (precentor; singer of poetry, usually one with a natural forte for singing).
Only at the conclusion of the nashīd or shirah is it permissible for those lounging to partake of the dainties and beverages, and to bless aloud each man his neighbor.
The melodies of the Sabbath and holiday meals are very similar[8] to those related to prayers and liturgical poems and which are said in the synagogue, and belong to the ancient musical heritage of the Jewish people.
[8] In contrast, the melodies of the shirot (poems) in wedding celebrations and in the dances that accompany them are borrowed, without doubt, from the Muslim surrounding.
There is evidence that Jews occasionally sang erotic poems of Muslims–known as ash‘ār–a matter that provoked in its wake harsh criticism from the religious leadership of the Jewish community.
Dr. Yosef Tobi possesses a video dating back to the 1980s in which a young Muslim from Yemen is performing an Arabic song in the same melodious tune, and with full of yearning, as is found in the poem, Qiryah yafefiyah (O Beautiful City), an emotional song of yearning for Jerusalem by Rabbi Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī who lived in the 16th century.
There is to be noted in Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī's (circa 1531 – d. 1608)[22] poetic style a marked transition from the early Spanish-type of poetry typical of Yemen prior to his time (depicted in the prosaic writings of Daniel berav Fayyūmī and Avraham b. Ḥalfon, both, of Yemenite Jewish provenance) and the later classical Yemenite poetic writings (as depicted in the liturgical poems composed by Yosef ben Israel and Shalom Shabazi).
[24] Some of al-Ḍāhirī's poems are panegyrics influenced by the Arabic madiḥ, in praise of great Jewish scholars, such as Rabbeinu Yerucham (1290-1350),[25] a Provençal rabbi who moved to Spain in 1306, following the expulsion of the Jews from France.
This process, however, involved two other phenomena that are interrelated: (a) the subject matter of the poems written in Arabic was very diverse and incorporated in them virtually all the genres known to poetry, especially poems containing an epic nature; (b) the linguistic register which serves in a particular part of the poetry written by Shabazī distances itself from the classical Judeo-Arabic spoken in the Middle-Ages, and becomes more like a colloquial language.
[21] These two phenomena characterize in a small measure the poetic work of Yosef ben Israel, who frequently wrote about philosophical issues, and, consequently, preserved the “purity” of the classical Arabic language and wasn’t drawn after the colloquial tongue.
Furthermore, in those liturgical poems whose nature is obviously epic, and apparently closer to folk literature, such as the poem entitled Asabbiḥ ilāh al-kull wa-aʻla bi-ṭāʻatoh (or: bi-ḥikmatoh), which brings down the story of Joseph and his brothers, the poet has preserved a high “classical” register of Judeo-Arabic and has distanced himself from the colloquial (Ḥafeṣ Ḥayyim, 1966, p. 215–219).
Under the influence of the Yemeni-Muslim Ḥumaynī poetry, Yosef ben Israel and Shabazī often wrote muwaššaḥāt of double structure, were lenient regarding the rigid rules of Arabic metre, and were not even deterred from using extreme erotic expressions in describing an allegorical lover – whether it happened to be the Messiah or God.
It is nearly always the fruit of a single poet, and while bearing precise rules of meter and rhyme, it is still artificial and cumbersome, only a few being able to learn it by heart, and remember it only for short periods of time.
The use of the qaṣīd genre in Yemenite Jewish poetry was unknown prior to Yosef ben Israel and Shalom Shabazī.
However, due to this debased and low characteristic, the qaṣīd was completely detached from the national-religious experience, and was never performed in the aforementioned social gatherings, except toward the end, after the distinguished guests, including rabbis, had abandoned the party.
This is absolutely non-existent with respect to the “classical” genres of nashīd, shīrah and hallel that were performed with vocal music in para-liturgical social gatherings.
[34] The following nashid was composed by the arch-poet, Shalom Shabazi, and bears the author's kunya (cognomen) in acrostics; the first letter of each strophe spelling out the name, Abu Shimon Al-Shabazi.
If you should desire, O son of man, the choicest of all secrets, you will find that nothing surpasses that of your gaining a companion, and your endearing unto yourself friends; Such an accomplishment brings with it a quickening of heart, and gives you a real cause for rejoicing within the soul; A sound mind and the elevation of one's inner-self will, on its account, be indelibly bound together for good.
Search, therefore, in the treatises compiled by the geonim; [In] the oral recital of the Sages, which they received from their forefathers, on that very day when they did go about Sinai, and their minds were perfectly enlightened; The father of all prophets went up on high, even into the dark cloud, whence he did hasten his footsteps; And whence a host of heavenly angels did favourably escort him.
