D.Phil in Social Anthropology of Music at Oxford University. Author of "Gondar's Child: Songs, Honour and Identity Among Ethiopian Jews in Israel". https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gondars-Child-Marilyn-Herman/dp/156902328XArticles include: -"Relating Beta Israel History in its Ethiopian Context: defining, creating, constructing identity." https://www.isca.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/ISCA/JASO/Archive_1996/27_1_Herman.pdf"The secular music of the Yemenite Jews as an expression of cultural demarcation between the sexes." https://www.isca.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/ISCA/JASO/Archive_1996/27_2_Herman.pdfTaught at Oxford University and San Francisco State University. Composes classical music strongly influenced by jazz and world musics. Supervisors: Dr PTW Baxter; Professor Howard Morphy; Dr Hélene La Rue.
This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collabor... more This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library
This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collabor... more This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library
JEWISH men and women in Yemen are portrayed in the sociological and anthropological literature as... more JEWISH men and women in Yemen are portrayed in the sociological and anthropological literature as having lived in separate conceptual and spatial worlds. As a result, two very separate bodies of song existed, one pertaining to men and the other to women. In this paper, I show how the culturally defined demarcation between the sexes is reflected and epitomized in the music of the Jews who lived in Yemen. i The key to this separation lies in the fact that women were banned from the synagogue altogether. This exclusion is not prescribed by Jewish law, and there is no precedent for it in the Bible or other Jewish literature or communities. The reason given for women being banned from the synagogue in Yemen was the fear that they might be menstruating. The condition of menstruation is, in Jewish law,
Gondar's child : Songs, Honor and Identity among Ethiopian Jews in Israel, 2012
A profile of Bet Israel (Ethiopian Jews living in Israel) viewed through the microcosm of the Bet... more A profile of Bet Israel (Ethiopian Jews living in Israel) viewed through the microcosm of the Bet Israel Band of Porachat HaTikva. Traditional Ethiopian song-types forming the repertoire of the band are turned to the Israeli context of time amid major international political events, including the first Gulf War. Among these songs, those relating to Bet Israel's migration to Israel provide a special focus on this unique ethnic group.
Review of Martin Gilbert: The Boys: Triumph Over Adversity, about a group of young holocaust su... more Review of Martin Gilbert: The Boys: Triumph Over Adversity, about a group of young holocaust survivors who were admitted as refugees into the United Kingdom after WWII, their wartime experiences, and their new lives begun in the UK.
JASO (Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford), 1996
Jewish women in Yemen were prohibited from entering the synagogue for the reason given that they ... more Jewish women in Yemen were prohibited from entering the synagogue for the reason given that they might be menstruating. This exclusion epitomised the position of women in Yemenite Jewish society, and was the source of a wider distinction between the sexes. Through their connection with the synagogue – primary source of literacy, religious education, and serving also as a public forum, men were the educated, trilingual, publicly-operating and sacred sex, in contrast to women as the illiterate, uneducated, unilingual sex, and – unequipped to practise formal religion - the relatively secular sex.
Their music, too, differed along the lines of this ideal demarcation between the sexes. Whatever limitations may have existed to this sharp dichotome did not affect their conceptualisation of the ideal situation: that men and women had totally different bodies of song; that the songs of the former constituted a sacred, higher art form while those of the latter belonged in the realms of “folk” and the profane, reflecting the ideal characterisation of masculinity in terms of religion, education and superiority, in contrast to, and clean separation from, earthy femininity.
JASO (Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford), 1996
Review article of: JAMES QUIRIN, The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews: A History of the
Beta Is... more Review article of: JAMES QUIRIN, The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews: A History of the
Beta Israel (Falasha) to 1920, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1992 and
STEVEN KAPLAN, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century, New York and London: New York University Press 1992
Review of Shelemay's autobiographical and fascinating book relating to her doctoral fieldwork on ... more Review of Shelemay's autobiographical and fascinating book relating to her doctoral fieldwork on the liturgical music of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia. Her fieldwork is interrupted by the Ethiopian revolution which greatly impacts on her research methods and outcomes. 171-177
This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collabor... more This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library
This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collabor... more This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library
JEWISH men and women in Yemen are portrayed in the sociological and anthropological literature as... more JEWISH men and women in Yemen are portrayed in the sociological and anthropological literature as having lived in separate conceptual and spatial worlds. As a result, two very separate bodies of song existed, one pertaining to men and the other to women. In this paper, I show how the culturally defined demarcation between the sexes is reflected and epitomized in the music of the Jews who lived in Yemen. i The key to this separation lies in the fact that women were banned from the synagogue altogether. This exclusion is not prescribed by Jewish law, and there is no precedent for it in the Bible or other Jewish literature or communities. The reason given for women being banned from the synagogue in Yemen was the fear that they might be menstruating. The condition of menstruation is, in Jewish law,
Gondar's child : Songs, Honor and Identity among Ethiopian Jews in Israel, 2012
A profile of Bet Israel (Ethiopian Jews living in Israel) viewed through the microcosm of the Bet... more A profile of Bet Israel (Ethiopian Jews living in Israel) viewed through the microcosm of the Bet Israel Band of Porachat HaTikva. Traditional Ethiopian song-types forming the repertoire of the band are turned to the Israeli context of time amid major international political events, including the first Gulf War. Among these songs, those relating to Bet Israel's migration to Israel provide a special focus on this unique ethnic group.
Review of Martin Gilbert: The Boys: Triumph Over Adversity, about a group of young holocaust su... more Review of Martin Gilbert: The Boys: Triumph Over Adversity, about a group of young holocaust survivors who were admitted as refugees into the United Kingdom after WWII, their wartime experiences, and their new lives begun in the UK.
JASO (Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford), 1996
Jewish women in Yemen were prohibited from entering the synagogue for the reason given that they ... more Jewish women in Yemen were prohibited from entering the synagogue for the reason given that they might be menstruating. This exclusion epitomised the position of women in Yemenite Jewish society, and was the source of a wider distinction between the sexes. Through their connection with the synagogue – primary source of literacy, religious education, and serving also as a public forum, men were the educated, trilingual, publicly-operating and sacred sex, in contrast to women as the illiterate, uneducated, unilingual sex, and – unequipped to practise formal religion - the relatively secular sex.
Their music, too, differed along the lines of this ideal demarcation between the sexes. Whatever limitations may have existed to this sharp dichotome did not affect their conceptualisation of the ideal situation: that men and women had totally different bodies of song; that the songs of the former constituted a sacred, higher art form while those of the latter belonged in the realms of “folk” and the profane, reflecting the ideal characterisation of masculinity in terms of religion, education and superiority, in contrast to, and clean separation from, earthy femininity.
JASO (Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford), 1996
Review article of: JAMES QUIRIN, The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews: A History of the
Beta Is... more Review article of: JAMES QUIRIN, The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews: A History of the
Beta Israel (Falasha) to 1920, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1992 and
STEVEN KAPLAN, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century, New York and London: New York University Press 1992
Review of Shelemay's autobiographical and fascinating book relating to her doctoral fieldwork on ... more Review of Shelemay's autobiographical and fascinating book relating to her doctoral fieldwork on the liturgical music of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia. Her fieldwork is interrupted by the Ethiopian revolution which greatly impacts on her research methods and outcomes. 171-177
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Music recordings accompanying this book can be accessed here:
https://marilynherman.blog/2016/07/26/gondars-child-recordings/
Their music, too, differed along the lines of this ideal demarcation between the sexes. Whatever limitations may have existed to this sharp dichotome did not affect their conceptualisation of the ideal situation: that men and women had totally different bodies of song; that the songs of the former constituted a sacred, higher art form while those of the latter belonged in the realms of “folk” and the profane, reflecting the ideal characterisation of masculinity in terms of religion, education and superiority, in contrast to, and clean separation from, earthy femininity.
Beta Israel (Falasha) to 1920, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1992 and
STEVEN KAPLAN, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century, New York and London: New York University Press 1992
Music recordings accompanying this book can be accessed here:
https://marilynherman.blog/2016/07/26/gondars-child-recordings/
Their music, too, differed along the lines of this ideal demarcation between the sexes. Whatever limitations may have existed to this sharp dichotome did not affect their conceptualisation of the ideal situation: that men and women had totally different bodies of song; that the songs of the former constituted a sacred, higher art form while those of the latter belonged in the realms of “folk” and the profane, reflecting the ideal characterisation of masculinity in terms of religion, education and superiority, in contrast to, and clean separation from, earthy femininity.
Beta Israel (Falasha) to 1920, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1992 and
STEVEN KAPLAN, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century, New York and London: New York University Press 1992