Singing the Land: Hebrew Music and Early Zionism in America examines the proliferation and use of popular Hebrew Zionist music amongst American Jewry during the first half of the twentieth century. This music—one part in a greater process of instilling diasporic Zionism in American Jewish communities—represents an early and underexplored means of fostering mainstream American Jewish engagement with the Jewish state and Hebrew national culture as they emerged after Israel declared its independence in 1948. This evolutionary process brought Zionism from being an often-polemical notion in American Judaism at the turn of the twentieth century to a mainstream component of American Jewish life by 1948. Hebrew music ultimately emerged as an important means through which many American Jews physically participated in or ‘performed’ aspects of Zionism and Hebrew national culture from afar.
Exploring the history, events, contexts, and tensions that comprised what may be termed the ‘Zionization’ of American Jewry during the first half of the twentieth century, Eli Sperling analyzes primary sources within the historical contexts of Zionist national development and American Jewish life. Singing the Land offers insights into how and why musical frameworks were central to catalyzing American Jewry’s support of the Zionist cause by the 1940s, parallel to firm commitments to their American locale and national identities. The proliferation of this widespread American Jewish-Zionist embrace was achieved through a variety of educational, religious, economic, and political efforts, and Hebrew music was a thread consistent among them all.
Singing the Land was published open-source by the University of Michigan Press (2024), and can be dowloaded for free in the Amazon Kindle Store.
Reviews:
"Eli Sperling’s pioneering monograph opens unexpected new vistas for the understanding of contemporary American Jewry during its critical formative stages in the period between the two World Wars and expands the study of the modern Hebrew song beyond the borderlines of Israel. He has judiciously selected a group of key figures from Reform and Conservative institutional backgrounds who engaged with the “Palestinian song” as an indispensable tool for “musicking” a modern sense of Jewish peoplehood without forsaking American loyalty. Zionism, however, was a disruptive force within Jewish modernity in the sense that it polarized Jews who found themselves in increasingly diverse existential situations and divisive political camps." -- Edwin Seriousi, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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"This book, concerning the role of songs in shaping Zionist affinities among American Ashkenazi Jews during the twentieth century, presents astounding archival details that are woven together in a historical narrative making for an edifying and enjoyable read. Sperling demonstrates a fantastic handling of the evolution of individual mindsets and broader ideological discourse of American Jews regarding Palestine." -- Michael Figueroa, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Singing the Land introduces an important new way to consider the means through which Zionism, Hebrew language, and Hebrew culture became vital components of American Jewish identity in the 20th century. While many histories of American Jews see the interwar period as a time of relative weakness for Zionism in the United States, one of this book's major contributions is that it suggests that, at least at a cultural level, support for Zionism was steadier and more wide-spread among different segments of the American Jewish public during this period than is usually appreciated." -- Jessica Cooperman, Muhlenberg College
"The book is crisply written and full of insights not only for Jews but also for non-Jews seeking to understand the evolution of the complex concept of national Zionism in the present. Rated: recommended." -- Choice
"Singing the Land is an important archival work that examines the pre-1948 period in American Jewish history...Overall, this book--while concentrating specifically on music--sheds light on the way Zionism was incorporated into American Jewish life in a manner that is still present today." -- Musica Judaica