Jewish dance is part of the richest culture of the ancient people

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Jewish dance can be called an integral part of the richest culture of this ancient people. According to legend, the Jews first began to dance immediately after they found the Torah, at the foot of Mount Sinai. True, they say that the circumstances of their first dances were not as pious as is commonly supposed. People were simply tired of waiting for Moses to talk to the Lord, so they built an idol - a calf of gold, made sacrifices to him, and then arranged dances and chants around him. It was this behavior of the Jews that was the reason why the tablets were broken: Moses was outraged by what he saw and in anger threw them with such force that they split on the mountain.

There is also a mention of how the Jewish princess Salome performed the Jewish dance of the seven veils in front of King Herod. He was so fascinated that he vowed to do whatever the girl wanted. And she wished the death of the prophet John the Baptist - and his head was brought to her on a platter. As for the history itself, the facts are known that the Polish gentry at the timeThe Commonwe alth was very fond of having fun by forcing every captured Jew to dance the Jewish wedding dance Mayufis to the Sabbath anthem. This was considered humiliating, and subsequently the phrase “dance Mayufis” became a household word and was used in the meaning of “to fawn, to crawl before someone.”

Traditionally, it is believed that Jews are not allowed to dance together by religion, that is, women should not dance with men - only separately from them. But this is only partly true, since so many branches of Judaism quite allow for the Jewish dance to be performed by all together. Moreover, it is even practiced to hold special dance evenings at which young men get to know girls in order to create a family in the near future (it is not customary for Jews to meet and care for too long, most often a guy is determined after the first or second meeting whether he will marry a specific girl or not).

The Hawa Nagila dance deserves special mention. This name is translated from Hebrew as "Let's rejoice", and initially there was only a song. It was written by Abraham Zvi Idelson, based on an old Hasidic melody. At one time, he studied the folklore of his people and heard the melody of the future masterpiece by chance in 1915. He entered it in his notebook, where a large number of other melodies, legends and legends had already gathered. He came up with the words for her later. He dedicated his song to the holiday that came for all Jews at the moment when it was made public. The Balfour Declaration, which gave the people the right to build their own state on one of the plots that belonged to Palestine.

But because it was a song of joy, it just couldn't help but develop into Jewish dances. "Hava Nagila" is very simple in its execution. The words of the song are as simple as the dance moves, so even those who have never danced Hawa Nagilu will find them easy to remember. It is so incendiary that to this day it is sung and danced at every celebration, gathered in a friendly, cheerful round dance. The beginning of the dance is slow, but gradually the melody speeds up, and after it the movements of the dancers speed up, which causes a lot of positive emotions.