Transcript:

PIZMON-- Bridging Two WorldsHere's a program from our archives.Music: Pizmon-- Tsur Ya'elFor a group of Jews whose ancestral home is the Arabic country of Syria, the bridge between old and new is passed down through generations in the form of a song of celebration called Pizmon. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.These days, most Syrian Jews live outside of the Middle East, including a tightly knit community in Brooklyn, New York where these recordings were made. Like any living oral tradition, Pizmon music has come to reflect influence of new cultures."The melodies of the Pismonim can come from just about any sound that enters into the Syrian orbit. Most of the songs, maybe ninety percent of them, come from Arabic melodies. In the twentieth century these are primarily taken from recordings. Also Assyrian Jews lived in the United States, they adopted and adapted songs they heard around them-- everything from national anthems to Christmas carols to actually songs sung by organ grinders on the lower east side of Manhattan in the early part of the century." Kay Kaufman Shelemay is a Professor of Music and a Chair of the Department of Music at Harvard University."In a sense these songs provide unity in a center to diaspora life. You have a community that has migrated and remigrated over the centuries. They all sing and they sing together and they visit each other and when they do this, one of the first things they do is sing. So I see here song anchoring and validating the present while maintaining a tie to the past but providing a path to the future."We've been listening to a program from our archives. Check out our website, pulseplanet.com for a link to my latest project - a novel. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.