Ellen Koskoff's Music in Lubavitcher Life, published by the University of Illinois Press in 2001, is an ethnomusicological study of the niggun, the wordless devotional melody central to Chabad-Lubavitch practice, based on fieldwork conducted over twenty two years chiefly in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The book received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award and was reviewed in American Anthropologist and the Yearbook for Traditional Music, standard peer venues for ethnomusicology. Its strength is that sustained fieldwork and the recognition the book received within its field. Its limit is that it studies one Hasidic community's musical practice specifically, so a claim generalising from Lubavitcher niggun practice to Hasidism as a whole, or to Jewish liturgical music generally, needs a broader comparative source rather than this single community study.
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Reliability Tier1
Ellen Koskoff's Music in Lubavitcher Life, published by the University of Illinois Press in 2001, is an ethnomusicological monograph grounded in fieldwork within the community, treated at the top tier. NotesEthnomusicological study of the niggun in Chabad practice, based on fieldwork in Crown Heights.
Citation
AuthorEllen Koskoff
PublisherUniversity of Illinois Press
Publication Year2001
Source TypeEthnography
Claims Backed By This Source (21 claims)
This source backs 21 claims across the atlas. As facts: 13 well-attested. As cited relationships: 3 holds, 1 held Differently. Plus 4 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
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- Sources, 7 claims: 7 well-attested.
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- Sacred Sound, 6 claims: 4 well-attested, 1 holds, 1 general references.
- Articles, 2 claims: 2 well-attested.
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