The MiraculousDec/Jan 2023–24Music
56. Late 19th-Early 20th Centuries, Aleppo
Word count: 143
Paragraphs: 3
Despite being blinded as a young boy, this inhabitant of the Syrian city of Aleppo gains fame for composing some 400 pizmonim, songs sung on special occasions by Sephardic Jews. While able to effortlessly improvise verses to any melody even, it is said, to the sound of water dripping from buckets on a waterwheel, this sightless composer feels his greatest musical affinity for Arab music. A familiar figure among the city’s coffeehouses, traditionally frequented by musicians and music lovers, he is always in search of melodies to which he can add Hebrew verses. Hence the salutation that often greets his arrival: “Here comes the thief, the thief of songs,” which is less a criticism than an acknowledgement of his prodigious musical skills. Long after his death, his students carry his songs, and their Arab melodies, throughout the Syrian-Jewish diaspora.
(Raphael Taboush)
Raphael Rubinstein is the New York-based author of The Miraculous (Paper Monument, 2014) and A Geniza (Granary Books, 2015). Excerpts from his recently completed book Libraries of Sand about the Jewish-Egyptian writer Edmond Jabès have appeared in Bomb, The Fortnightly Review and 3:AM Magazine. In January 2023, Bloomsbury Academic will publish a collection of his writing titled Negative Work: The Turn to Provisionality in Contemporary Art. Since 2008 he has been Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Houston School of Art.