Iconography and Photo Gallery

Musicians on Stamps of Israel
A webpage with several stamps with images of musicians. Click on the stamp and you get a brief bio of the musician. Fun.

Below are some images connected with Jewish music. Thanks to: Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology at Bowdoin College, James Higginbotham, for permission to use some of his photos below.

The holy vessels from the Jerusalem Temple were captured by the Romans and taken as booty to Rome. The triumphal procession was depicted in stone bas-relief on the Arch of Titus, which still stands today in Rome.

arch of titus

Bar Kochba Coins

Coins depict musical instruments from the Second Temple kinnor

Kinnor. Generally considered a lyre. Bar Kokba's coins were minted around 132-135 C.E. during the revolt against the Emperor Hadrian. The placement of the strings in relation to the stripe on the casing is speculated to concern the tuning of the instrument. However, it is more likely that the actual instruments had more strings and this is representation.

Silver Trumpets, usually depicted as a pair.

To read more about instruments in ancient Israel, read or refer to:

Alfred Sendrey
Music in Ancient Israel
London: Vision Press, Ltd., 1969.

or
Bathja Bayer
The Material Relics of Music in Ancient Israel and its Environs
Tel Aviv: Israel Music Institute, 1963.

Some Pictures of Jewish Musicologists and Musicians

AZ Idelssohn Abraham Zvi Idelsohn portrait. Idelsohn was the "father of Jewish musicology". This painting hangs just outside the National Sound Archives in the Jewish National Library at Hebrew University, Givat Ram campus. Photo taken by J. Pinnolis in August, 2001.

Israel Adler is musicologist at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. This photo was taken in June, 2000 at the SOAS, University of London by J. Pinnolis.

Alexander Knapp is the Joe Loss Lecturer in Jewish Music and professor at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of London. this photo was taken at the London Third International Conference of Jewish Music, London, June, 2000.

Klezmer in Buenos Aires. In performance. (Well, they're not musicologists, but they sure play amazing klezmer).

Ari Davidow with Moshe Berlin Ari Davidow, the author of the "KlezmerShack" visits Moshe Berlin in his home in Israel. Moshe Berlin is one of the leading klezmer clarinetists in Israel and around the world. He taught Giora Feidman and an entire generation of clarinetists in Israel. While not a formally trained musicologist, Davidow has done some of the finest field work in the last ten years in the area of klezmer music.

Edwin Seroussi and Kay Shelemay Edwin Seroussi, Head of the Jewish Music Research Centre at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Kay Shelemay is Professor of Music, Harvard University. This picture taken at the Yale music conference, New Haven, CT, Spring, 2003.

Mark Slobin is an ethnomusicologist and teaches at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He is one of the premier ethnomusicologists on American Jewish music.

Mark Kligman is Professor of Music at the Hebrew Union College-School of Sacred Music, New York, New York. Mark specializes in music of the Sephardic Jews, but has also written on the American Jewish community. This picture was taken at the Yale conference.

Judith Frigyesi specializes in music of Eastern European Jewish community, especially Hungarian Jewish music and liturgical music.

Gila Flam collected the songs of the Lodz Ghetto, and is the current Head of the National Sound Archives in the Jewish National University Library, Jerusalem, Israel.