Gestures accompanying Torah learning/recital among Yemenite Jews

Abstract

The article discusses one of the most ancient and unique customs in Jewish liturgy -the hand movements that accompany the Torah recital ritual in the Yemenite Jewish tradition. They are usually perceived as connected to the melody path of the recital: as a technique for its memorization and performance. For the first time, these movements and the technique of their performance are being recorded, classified and described in a systematic scholarly way, particularly in terms of anthropokinesics and task dynamics. Their connection is discussed to other elements and techniques of the ritual. The gestures have been studied in two major frameworks: Torah learning in a children's religious class, and Torah recital in the synagogue. The article argues that the recital gestures function as a kind of body technique, whose cultural, symbolic, aesthetic and psycho-dynamic significance reaches much farther than memorization of the recital melody.

Looking beyond memory studies: Comparisons and integrations

“…So each of the domains and topics listed above overlaps with memory studies, bearing a stronger relation to remembering than mere analogy. Some specifi c theoretical, historical and empirical questions about jazz or gesture or cloth, for example, are at the same time questions about remembering (Berliner, 1994 andMonson, 1996 on jazz;Clark, 2008: 123-33 andKatsman, 2007 on gesture; Jones andStallybrass, 2000 andStallybrass, 1993 on cloth). So memory studies is not insulated and isolated from these and other domains of enquiry.…”

Gesture and melody in Indian vocal music

“…Singers of Peking Opera assume stylized gestural dispositions according to specific role types. Systems of chironomy are an integral part of Yemenite Torah recitation (Katsman, 2007) and are found in other liturgical chant traditions as well.Indian classical vocalists use gesture space together with sonic space as a medium for the depiction of improvised 1 melody. Vocal forms such as dhrupad, khyal, and thumri in the North, and ragam-tanam-pallavi in the South feature highly cultivated vocal improvisation practices that give rise to ever-novel melodic utterances.…”

“…Singers of Peking Opera assume stylized gestural dispositions according to specific role types. Systems of chironomy are an integral part of Yemenite Torah recitation (Katsman, 2007) and are found in other liturgical chant traditions as well.…”