Qasidat Yossef

Editor's info:
This CD is the second part of the special collaboration that has developed between the singer, poet and cantor Joe Amar and the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra. One of the outstanding pioneers of Oriental song, Joe Amar immigrated to Israel in 1956, at the age of 26. As soon as he arrived in Israel, he embarked on a diverse musical career which introduced the songs of traditional Moroccan Jewry to every home in Israel.
Whereas the first CD contained a selection from the singer's more popular repertoire, this CD explores Moroccan Jewry's classical Arabo-Andalusian musical heritage in greater depth, containing rich and varied arrangements by Dr. Avi Eilam Amzalag (musical director and conductor of the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra).
The CD centers round the famous prayer "Qasidat Yossef ha-Tsaddik".
This is the first time that this type of qasida, based on a biblical subject, has been recorded and distributed.
The qasida is one of the most interesting and important musical forms in North African music, originating in pre-Islamic Jahelian Arab culture (pre-sixth century). These rhyming, chanted stories contained detailed topical information about what was happening in the kingdom.
Apart from its cultural, political, and religious role, the qasida had great importance in the life of the North African Jewish communities.
For many Jews of the time, handicapped by poor knowledge of Hebrew and a concomitant problem in reading the Five Books of Moses, the biblical qasida, sung in the spoken form of Arabic, was a way of becoming familiar with biblical stories and having a connection with the biblical heritage.
The qasida of Yossef ha-Tsaddik, sung in spoken Maghrebi Arabic, unfolds the fascinating story of Yossef Ben Ya'akov, known in Oriental Jewish culture as Yossef ha-Tsaddik ("The Righteous") for his courageous resistance to the wiles of Zulikha, the wife of Potiphar (Genesis, Chapter 39, Torah portion VaYeshev).