This special collection of studies is dedicated to Prof. Israel Adler, the founder of the Jewish Music Research Centre of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It includes a variety of articles on diverse issues related to different Jewish musical cultures. General topics such as the problematic and the development of the concept of Jewish music are discussed in this volume amid specific articles on Ashkenazi and Sephardi liturgical music, kabbalistic writings on music, Jewish composers and performers, the presence of non-Jewish music genres in Jewish musical cultures and more.

For four years between 1982 and 1986 the Jewish Music Research Centre hosted research seminars devoted to the Jewish oral traditions. Researchers in different fields (linguistics, musicology, literature and folklore) met and worked together and dealt with shared material that they approached with their own tools and research habits in the attempt to achieve results of an interdisciplinary type. Several topics were chosen – biblical and post-biblical cantillation; aspects of the Judeo-Spanish folk song; specific rituals of the Hassidic communities and the majority of studies are to be found in the present volume.