jews vs. gypsies!

a · December 2007

also check this out:

Elliot · December 2007

As a member of a small minority within a small minority I suppose I would be derelict if I didn’t point out that while there are certainly similarities between Klezmer and Gypsy, the lineage of Gypsy music goes back to the music of the Sephardic Jews of Spain, and not the Ashkenazy! 8)

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

a · December 2007

yeah, this a very stereotyped clip.

it would be interesting to trace the crossovers/differences between these 'outsider' cultures' musics.

MichaelHorowitz · December 2007

Wow...do they do Bar Mitzvahs??

ddoneill · January 2008

that first clip is from a wonderful movie called "train of life". it's similiar to roberto benigni's "life is beautiful". highly recommended.

Joli Gadjo · January 2008

Elliot,

Could you elaborate a little more. Gypsies have egyptian origins, and Jews were also there at some point. But I don't reconciliate this with Spain ?
Sorry for my ignorance, I just a member of a large majority of goys within a large majority of gadjes !!

Elliot · January 2008

Hi Joli:

I picked this off the net:

Spanish gypsies are also referred to as gitanos or by more general term Roma. They played a major role in the development of flamenco. Historians generally agree that they originated in the area of Northern India and Pakistan and travelled a northern route towards the Balkans. However, there are those who maintain that they reached Andalucia from Egypt after sailing along the coast of Africa. This is despite the lack of any real evidence. The Spanish Gypsies had no Arabic words in their vocabulary. The implication of this belief is that they may have accompanied the invading Muslims in 711AD.

Regardless of which theory you believe in, they traveled far and wide in their wanderings and made a home for themselves in many countries including the Middle East. Since there were no real records to prove or disprove their true origins, Egyptian Gypsies themselves came to believe they were descended from the Pharaohs. "This is a legend to which many of their songs still refer - as a result of which they were called Egyptians, or "Gypcians" in English; while, in old Spanish, gitano was simply a way of saying 'Egyptian'." (1) Unlike the Jews and Muslims, the Roma did not leave Spain after the Christian reconquest of 1492.

European origin
This is what Werner Cohn has to say in his book "The Gypsies" (1973), which you can download from his website "....there would be little doubt that a very sizable portion of the Gypsies' ancestors came from among Europeans....Indeed the Gypsies are thouroughly European. Not only does a majority of their ancestors probably come from old European stock, but the group as a whole has also lived within the Euopean cultural area for many centuries." (Pg 65)

He is in no doubt that the first gypsies came from India. Linguistic evidence in all gypsy dialects shows Indic origin. However, the Rom language also shows traces of of Persian, Kurdish and Armenian and Greek. "Beyond this basic material in all the gypsy languages and dialects, The Rom speak a language that European scholars classify within the Vlax group of gypsy dialects, named after the Romanian province of Wallachia....We must conclude from this that the Rom are descendants of the people who lived in Romanian language areas for considerable periods of time."

It is hard to nail down when they weren't writing about much prior to the 15th century and as subjects these were people who were often 'under the radar'. I'm not sure we even know who the Romans were, exactly...Italians?

Hope that helps,

Elliot

a · January 2008

so the word 'gypsy' comes 'eygptian' or 'gypcican'..? that's interesting.

scot · January 2008

Gypsies don't have any true ties to Egypt but it's true that the word "gypsy" is a corruption of Egyptian. On their migrations west some gypsies split off (probably in the Caucasus) and travelled south into asia minor and on into Saharan Africa, where they have been for a very long time and are known as dom. They have been subjected to poor treatment there, too. Since many of them were metal workers, a legend grew up that the smith who forged the nails used to crucify Jesus Christ was a gypsy. Never mind that there was no such this as a gypsy in Christ's time...

African Gypsies almost certainly did migrate into Spain during the Moorish occupation (711-1492AD) - the late era, after 1100AD. This is assumed because according to many linguists, there are many arabic words in Calo, the Spanish gypsy dialect. Sadly Calo is very nearly extinct today and hasn't been documented nearly as well as other dialects. Matelot Ferret spoke it, but according to Francis Moerman he had mostly forgotten it by 1960 - it was not useful for him to speak it in Paris. There was also an edict from Philip II granting the gitanos limited civil rights in exchange for them giving up their nomadic ways. And in gitano communities in Iberia and southern France, the sedentary way of life continues today.

I have not read Professor Cohn's book, but I suppose I that I will. The idea that gypsies come from or even contain more than a tiny trace of European stock is a novel one. About the only thing that is an absolute constant among gypsies wherever you look is that they never assimilate, and nowhere is this more true than in eastern Europe.

The nature of gypsy culture, like gypsy music, is that it combines their ways with the ways of wherever or whatever region they happen to inhabit. Sadly it does not always take the good aspect from either... Clear study has to consider this circumstance. An interesting recent book about gitanos is "Little Money Street" by Fernanda Eberstadt, a NY intellectual who spent a lot of time with gitanos in Perpignan. Another informative book on the history of gypsy music and culture is "Gypsy Music" by Balint Sarosi, a Hungarian musicologist. I haven't read it yet, but I expect that Michael Dregni's newest book will have a lot of related information on this murky subject.

My friend Vadim Kolpakov has done a number of "gypsy-klezmer" concerts with Arkady Gips, a Ukrainian klezmer violinist who lives in Ohio, where they play in a combination of the styles. I have a CD of one of these concerts and I'll see if I can get a clip or two up on youtube. There is a concert with some of this style coming up in February, I'll post more information as I have it.

Regards
Scot