Jews, music, and the American West

"Music and the American West are oft-neglected topics in Jewish studies. Compared to other aspects of the Jewish experience, music is rarely engaged in as a subject unto itself. That which is written tends to be confined either to remote musicological studies and specialized professional journals, or tangential anecdotes in writings on other things. Thus, despite being a central sustaining element of Jewish life, music generally takes a backseat in the social-historical narrative. Reasons for this include the emphasis on text study in Jewish communities, the presumed secondary status of music vis-à-vis text, the requisite skillset for assessing and analyzing music, and the relatively recent historical moment when Jews began notating their music and calling it "Jewish" (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). Musicologist Edwin Seroussi calls music the "Jew" of Jewish studies, referencing its marginalized and "wandering" status in the larger field. He notes the absence of "music" in the indexes of most textbooks on Jewish cultural history"-- Provided by publisher.