Modes of Tradition? Negotiating Jewishness and Modernity in the Synagogue Music of Isadore Freed and Frederick Piket

This article examines the discourses surrounding musical constructions called the ‘synagogue modes’ in post-Second World War America. After providing a historical account of the modes in Jewish musical thought, the article looks at the writings and compositions of Isadore Freed (1900–60) and Frederick Piket (1903–73), two prominent Reform movement composers with opposing viewpoints on modal usage within modern synagogue composition. Through this comparison, I show that the modes were a site for negotiating many of the same issues of Jewish continuity, American identity, and the relationship with ‘Tradition’ that pervaded American Jewish life at the time.