Jablonski, Marek (Michael)

3. Ashkenazi.

(i) Historical background.

The Ashkenazim trace their ancestry and cultural origins to the Jewish settlements established on the banks of the Rhine during the early Middle Ages. By the end of the 13th century Ashkenazi communities flourished in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland; northern Italy, northern and central France, the Low Countries and England. Beginning in the 14th century, persecution and expulsion led to the migration of many Jews to northern Germany and Bohemia, and later to Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Russia. The Ashkenazim who settled in eastern Europe merged with the local Jewish populations and gradually came to dominate them, replacing their religious and liturgical customs with Ashkenazi practices. Yiddish, a modified version of Middle High German, became the vernacular and lingua franca of east European Jewry. By the end of the 15th century two separate, though related, Ashkenazi traditions had evolved: the Western, which continued to be influenced by German culture; and the Eastern, which adopted many Slavic and Ottoman characteristics. Both traditions, however, maintained cultural links with each other through the exchange of rabbinical literature and sacred music. The ties grew stronger during the late 18th century and the 19th when Jews emigrated from eastern Europe to Germany.

In the 19th century Ashkenazi communities were also established in North and South America, South Africa, Australia and Palestine. During World War II most of the European Ashkenazim perished in the Holocaust. Those that survived and re-established communities in eastern Europe were religiously and culturally suppressed by the Communist regimes. However, those who joined the Ashkenazi populations in western Europe, North America, Israel and elsewhere effected profound changes in the character, liturgy and music of their foster communities. As a result of the Holocaust and the demographic changes that ensued, the original German Jewish tradition, the minhaġ ashkenaz, and its music have become almost extinct.

As with many other aspects of the Ashkenazi tradition, the early liturgical chants first developed in the Rhineland and then spread throughout Europe; in the east they absorbed and modified various Slavic elements. The migration of chants, however, was not exclusively in one direction. Some songs and melodies originated among the Eastern Ashkenazim and were introduced into the central European communities by itinerant cantors. This trend increased from the second half of the 18th century with the growing demand in Germany for east European hazzanim, who were noted for their sweet voices.