What is Chasidic (חסידיש) (חסידי) music?

חסידישYiddishחסידיHebrewalso spelled Hasidic, Chassidish Pronunciation: Jewish English Lexicon (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Chasidic (חסידיש) (חסידי) music is the singing of Chasidic (חסידיש) (חסידי) communities: often a nigun (ניגון) with few words or none, and holiday songs passed from voice to voice at the table, in cheder (חדר) , and in yeshiva (ישיבֿה) . You recognise it by a melody people know by heart and sing together, more than by a band arrangement or a named show tune.

Chasidic (חסידיש) (חסידי) courts have carried tunes since the eighteenth century, many of them wordless. The repertoire also took in older Jewish songs, and later poems, once communities sang them as their own. Avraham Reisen’s 1902 poem “In suke” is that second life: singers made it “A sukkele a kleyne,” and children still learn it before Sukkot. Klezmer (כּלי־זמר) is the professional wedding music beside this shelf, not the same practice.