268 r Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad
products of other cultures at different times. Still, this doesn’t make it less
extraordinary, particularly when bearing in mind its intensity, which is
rooted in all layers of the para-liturgical realm, and its duration for centu-
ries on end.
What are the reasons for this extraordinary phenomenon? What makes
these elements, which create a coherent genre, complementary yet contra-
dictory at the same time? These questions are no doubt two of many other
questions that invite further study of the PLS of the Babylonians, as well
as of all Arab-Jews.
Notes
- The period of 2,600 years begins from the first exile of the leadership of the king-
dom of Yehudah to Babylon in 597 and 598 bce. Rappel 1978, 33. - Edited and published by Saleh Mansur, a Babylonian Jew who immigrated to Pal-
estine in 1929. Ben Ya ̔akov 1965, 208; 1980, 405 (Hebrew). - Edited and published by Rabbi ̔Ezra Dangur (1848–1930), who was a prominent
talmid hakham (religious sage) and the hakham bashi (chief rabbi) of the Babylonian
Jewry (1923–27). Ben Ya ̔akov 1965, 172. - For Sa ̔adyah’s knowledge of Arabic meter, see Tobi 2000, 58. For the debate among
scholars on whether Dunash was the first to write metered poetry, see Tobi 1995, 9. - For earlier attempts made by Hebrew poets to write qa sīda, see Tobi 2000, 51.
- For example, first two lines: 1-De; 2-ror; 3-yiq; 4-ra; 5-le; 6-ven; 7-’eim; 8-bat; 9-ve;
10-yin; 11-sor; 12-khem; 13-ke; 14-mo; 15-ba; 16-vat. - Other words were retrieved from Ezekiel, Psalms, Zechariah, Numbers, Ruth, and
Exodus. - For Jewish sources in Ibn Gabirol’s work, see Levin 1986, 65.
- For the original function of this poem in the liturgy, see Fleischer 1975, 51, 397, 401.
- For example, first line: 1-She; 2-fal; 3-ru; 4-ah; 5-she; 6-fal; 7-be; 8-rekh; 9-ve; 10-
qo; 11-mah. - He quotes from Isaiah, Proverbs, Ezekiel, Micah, Exodus, Psalms Leviticus, I and
II Kings, I and II Chronicles, Numbers, Psalms, and Job. - See the Mu ̔alem Collection of liturgical and paraliturgical songs and recitation
of various biblical passages at the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Centre in Or-Yehudah;
Havushah 2009. - The shva n ̔a is pronounced in English like the letter t in the word train, but will
be considered as the letter t in the word terrain, and thus in Hebrew it is regarded as a
syllable. - Also from Persian and Greek songs. Benayahu 1990, 221.
- God of Moab and Edom.
- The chief god of Babylon, known also as Merodakh.
- For example, first stanza and refrain: AB AB AB CB DB (DB is also the refrain);
second stanza: EF GF HF IB.