Following last year’s popular performance/lecture series by Asher Shasho Levy, we present a panel of scholars and musicians discussing and performing Jewish prayer in many languages. Which communities and which individuals recited prayers and other sacred music in languages other than Hebrew? Were these translations of traditional prayers or original compositions? What is the historical process for vernacular prayers becoming sacralized and part of the liturgical canon? What do the rabbis have to say about prayers in the vernacular?​

Moderators:
-Linguist Sarah Bunin Benor
-Musicologist Mark Kligman

Panelists:
-Musician/researcher Asher Shasho Levy: Contemporary Ladino and Judeo-Arabic
-Anthropologist/musician Galeet Dardashti: Modern Persian and Moroccan Arabic
-Liturgy scholar Ruth Langer: Ancient Judeo-Aramaic
-Linguist Michael Ryzhik: Renaissance Judeo-Italian
-Linguist Ora Schwarzwald: Early Modern and Modern Judeo-Spanish

​Sponsored by the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project and the Lowell Milken Center for Music of Jewish Experience