The Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780195161816)

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 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.


Author: Jeffrey A. Summit
ISBN-10: 0195161815
ISBN-13: 9780195161816
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Language: English
Published: 03/27/2003
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.84lbs
Size: 9.42h x 6.24w x 0.68d

About the Author

Jeffrey Summit is the Rabbi and Director of the Hillel Foundation at Tufts University, where he also teaches ethnomusicology and Judaic Studies.