DUDU TASSA, NASRIN QADRI AND THE FUTURE OF MIZRACHI JEWS
My brother who was born in Bombay but grew up in Kobe and
now lives in Portland, Oregon and I share a great love for Mizrachi music. We
were happy when Putumayo Records began bringing out Middle Eastern Music (such
as Cairo to Casablanca).
Nearly a million Jews were expelled and made refugees when
the State of Israel was founded, and especially after the victory in the War of
Independence. Those who know the history of Jews who lived in the Orient would
know that they were well integrated into the Levantine and Asiatic societies,
dressed, ate and dressed like the local people.
Literature of the Mizrachim (in, through and at transition
from their homelands to the new ones in Europe, Asia and USA) were easily
available in translation, as many of the Mizrachim were educated in French
Albert Cohen Le
Livre de ma mère
Corfu to Marseille to Genève. Belle de Seigneur is his best known work
Albert Memmi Tunis to Alger to Paris who has written about
growing up Jewish in Tunisia. His best
known work is Pillar of Salt
I made a mental note of the fact that Albert Memmi ended up
in France which in Hebrew is Sarfat. His mother’s name was Marguerite Sarpathi…a
lucky coincidence or a deserved return?
Just two examples, above.
There are many of a younger generation of the Arab Jews who
have become activists and journalists and writers among other professions. (http://www.rachelwahba.com)
But thousands like my brother Eliyahu and myself remained
faithful to the music and food of our ancestors. Years later I formulated the
theory of Genetic Food, that one must eat ones ancestral food however far
removed you may be, even after multiple migrations! Needless to say, this can
now be scientifically proved by the fact that the microbiome within our bodies
have a memory of their ancestors as well and don’t like it very much when they
are fed food not to their genetic taste!
I remember arriving in Israel to visit family in Haifa I
noticed that the reception to my Mizrachi tastes were not enthusiastic, Yael
and Zahava were not the music they listened.
Baruch Hashem, all that is changing. Not only the young
Israelis listening to Mizrachi music in Hebrew, it is very popular among
Palestinians from the Territories!
Today I was reading a story about Daoud and Saleh
Al-Kuwaiti, famous musicians from Kuwait (of Iraqi Jewish origin) who were made
refugees by the regime. They were popular with the King of Iraq (Faisal) and
throughout the ranks of the Arab citizenry of Trucial States of the region. I
can imagine that their music did not find a place in the struggling society of
Israel which was far more concerned about just survival from the five powerful Arab
neighbours...
Now Daoud’s grandson is a well-known Israeli musician Dudu
Tassa and I have been watching videos of his group on YouTube… Dudu started as
a rock musician but now has combined the Mizrachi elements and now popular not
only with Israelis but Arabs as well.
What happened to the great Jewish musicians who lived in the
Arab and Persian world before 1948? From Casablanca to Kabul? Why is their
exile and suffering not documented and publicized? Equal numbers, more or less,
of Arabs and Jews were exiled from their lands of birth, but are there any
Jewish refugee camps? Why are there Palestinian Refugee camps, paradoxically
even within Palestine? Explain to me.
A tragic irony of the Palestinian refugees who lived in
refugee camps in Syria and now made homeless by their brethren, arriving in
Europe, are not accorded the same rights as Syrians who are accepted with open
arms as refugees.. Bizarre turn of events of history..
Shiraz, in Iran once boasted of large number of Jewish orchestras? What happened to them? Where are their
grandchildren? Jews lived in Iraq and Iran longer than the Moslems, yet were
forced to become refugees. In Israel there are no Jewish Refugee camps under
the direction of UN High commission for Refugees!
Coming back to music, it warmed my heart to watch the video
of DUDU singing. I am very interested in the fate of Jews from very small
outlying communities around the world and have been fortunate to visit many of
them. So the Israeli grandson of a Kuwaiti Jew (no Jews left in Kuwait but
there are some Jews including an ambassador in Bahrain) is singing Mizrachi
music (Mizrachi refers to the east, like Maghreb refers to the West, even
though those familiar with the Haggadah will recall Mizrahim as Egypt) popular
in Israel and Arab countries. The despots of the Arab countries including
Nasser suppressed music by Jewish Arab musicians in the aftermath of their
losses to the Israeli Defense Forces, so that Jewish writers and musicians and
intellectuals are forgotten in Arab lands but many of their descendants survive
in France (Jacques Attali, Bertrand-Levy, Patrick Bruel, Enrique Macias among
others, also the DJ that I like to listen, Claude Challe of Tunisian Jewish
origin)
Here is Dudu singing the song Wayak with a video made with
another artist Borgore
Wayak an old song by the Egyptian great, Farid El Atrache
Here he is singing the song WAYAK
An anthropological observation.
This video was long before the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo,
you can see the women were treated much better and they were free to dress the
way they wanted. For comparison you can also watch videos pre Radical Islam
occupation of Iran, the women were not forced to wear hijab and cover
themselves up, as they have to do now.
Secondly, a fond memory of a lovely man, Monsieur Maurice W,
who despite being made stateless and forced to leave his beloved Egypt by Gamel
Abdul Nasser, from whom I first heard about Farid El Atrache.
Many years later I came across the music of El Anka and
Chaabi of Alger and I as so captivated. Checking into the history of the music,
it was heartwarming to note that it was a point where both Arabs and Jews
living in Alger. Much like the Buena Vista Social Club brought together, by Ry
Cooder, the old musicians who had been out of fashion, old Jewish and Arab
musicians (almost all the Jewish musicians living in France) got together in
Alger and the get together, Orquestra El Gusto directed by El Anka’s son Abdel
Hadi Halo was phenomenal. You can listen and watch In YouTube. That led me to
discover Lili Boniche and Maurice El Medioni.
We have almost toured the entire world of the Arab Jews!
This is the music of the land, which was Zoroastrian, then
Bedu, then Arab, in the Maghreb Amazigh long before the Arab conquerors came,
but always with a strong presence of Jews, made homeless by the tyrants most of
whom are wiped out of the collective Arab memory joining the Jewish refugees
before them.
So it is warming to the heart that one of the popular Mizrachi
singers in Israel is actually an Arab, Nisrin Qadri who seems be well accepted
for her musical talent and given respect and equality denied to most women in
Moslem societies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIl-kEN_nyY
Umm Kulthoum was the greatest female singer in the Middle East until her death in 1975. She was the compatriot of Farid El Atrache. When I was a child I was told that the song lasted 40 minutes!
here is a translation of this song into English
http://lyricstranslate.com/en/Inta-omry-You-are-My-Life.html#ixzz45fadhxG4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIl-kEN_nyY
the song she has chosen with the Andaluz orchestra of Israel is the one we associate with the great Umm Kulthoum,
Enta Omri You are my Life Umm Kulthoum was the greatest female singer in the Middle East until her death in 1975. She was the compatriot of Farid El Atrache. When I was a child I was told that the song lasted 40 minutes!
here is a translation of this song into English
http://lyricstranslate.com/en/Inta-omry-You-are-My-Life.html#ixzz45fadhxG4
You are My Life
Your eyes returned me to the days that had gone by
They taught me to regret the past and its wounds
That which I experienced before my eyes saw you
What is the wasted life to me?
You are my life whose morning began with your light
How much of my life before you has passed and gone by
My darling, how much of my life has gone
My heart never experienced one bit of joy before you
And had never tasted in this world anything but the flavor of injury
I've now just begun to love my life
I've now begun to fear for the passing of my lifetime
Every joy that I longed for before you was fantasy
My heart and mind meet find it in the light of your eyes
Oh life of my heart, oh you who is more precious than my life
Why didn't I meet your love, my darling, sooner?
The sweet nights and the desire and the love
For so long my heart carried them for you
Taste love with me
Taste love with love
From the feeling of my heart whose desire extended to your feeling
Give me your eyes they reflect my eyes in their world
Give me your hands their touch calms my hands
Oh my darling come on forget about that which has passed us
Oh you who is more precious than my days
Oh you who is sweeter than my dreams
Take me to your longing take me
Pull me away from the universe
Far, far away you and I
From the love that awakens our days
From the desire than sleeps our nights
I've reconciled time my days with you
I've reconciled time with you
I forgot my pains with you
And I forgot with you my woes
Your eyes called me to the days that have passed
They taught me to regret the past and its wounds
That which I experienced before my eyes saw you
What is the wasted life to me?
This is the sweet life of the Mizrachim. A glorious past striped with tears and sadness and a wonderful future to look forward to in Eretz Israel and Elsewhere..
This one written with my sweet brother Eliyahu in mind..and dedicated to our mishpuchah..
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