Abstract
As specific melodic motifs and tunes within the Ashkenazi ritual chant system and its local traditions are understood as symbols, ‘melodic codes’, bearing specific spatial and temporal connotations and other meanings recognizable by insiders, they become both the ‘subject’ and the ‘means of remembering’ - the performative means of establishing certain imagined culturally specific continuities from the past in the present. Similar applies to different ways of pronunciation of Hebrew language during the vocal performance of the ritual.
Prayer leaders choose a dominant ‘language code’ to perform certain type of Jewish diasporic identity (and refuse another). This paper focuses on the social process of negotiation of the sound of the language as reflected by the local prayer leaders.