Vanessa Paloma Elbaz on Sephardi Song as Transmission: Sontinuity

Описание: The study of sound explains how Sephardic Jews have been able to transmit tradition and culture over time despite a history of traumatic rupture. Sephardim have guaranteed transmission of cultural information through a system that involves verbal and non-verbal knowledge transfer. I have named this system of multidirectional transmission: “Sontinuity: The Tree and the Web.”
As a Western Sephardi intellectual of Moroccan, Italian and British ancestry, for decades I have undertaken serious study in analyzing the unspoken patterns embedded within Sephardi history and music. The Tree explains the manners in which Sephardim established lineages and networks of knowledge to ensure a foolproof system for transmission after the expulsion. Using a complex system that deploys multidirectional influence between formal institutions, informal networks, family, gendered spaces, life cycle events, and the yearly cycle of festivals, the Sephardi diaspora has ensured its continuity through challenges such as multilingualism, repeated migrations, forced conversions, assimilation, and genocide. When we understand Sephardi resilience through this system of transmission, it becomes clear that every member of the community plays an important role in maintaining the eco-system so that future generations will access ancestral knowledge.
-- Vanessa Paloma Elbaz
Gaon Web Films.