“We’ve Got the Music”: Orthodox Jews Asserting a Sonic Identity

Mark Kligman is the inaugural holder of the Mickey Katz Endowed Chair in Jewish Music at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music where he is a professor of ethnomusicology and musicology and former chair of the Department of Ethnomusicology. He has published on the liturgical music of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn in journals as well as his book, Maqam and Liturgy: Ritual, Music and Aesthetics of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn (Wayne State UP, 2009), which shows the interconnection between the music of Syrian Jews and their cultural way of life. His other publications focus on the intersection of contemporary Jewish life and various liturgical and paraliturgical musical contexts.