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setting of which has not survived), from his Hebrew SoloSongs; Ali b’eir (Ascend My Well, on a poem by ḤayyimNaḥman Bialik); Al admateinu (In [on] Our Land) andHaḥayalim tz’u lilḥom (Soldiers Going to War)—On ThisOur Blessed Land and Know How to Fight, in their Englishversions, respectively—from his Four Songs from “Balladof the Unknown Soldier”; and songs about rebuildingthe land, such as Saleinu al k’tafeinu (Our Baskets on OurShoulders), Lamidbar (To the Desert), Tel Aviv hi ir y’hudit(Tel Aviv Is a Jewish City), and Ra’inu amalenu (We BeholdOur Toil), included in the collection Folk Songs of the NewPalestine (1938), solicited and edited by Hans Nathan.Although they do not necessarily imply political involvementor action, these pieces and their freely selected textssuggest Wolpe’s new receptivity to the Zionist enterpriseand its premise of a dispersed nation now reclaiming andrebuilding its legitimate ancestral homeland in sociallycollective and egalitarian contexts. For one already drawn tothe vision of a new world order as a remedy for entrenchedinjustice and subjugation, we may imagine the initial appealof that radical “new Jewish world order,” in which selflessidealism, common spirit, labor organization, and collectiveagricultural endeavor were viewed as replacing individualmaterial quest. And for Wolpe the artist, there was alsoa newborn sense of identification with the aesthetic aurasurrounding the fashioning of that new society.Nor did that adopted, expanded identity dissolve withWolpe’s departure from Palestine. To the contrary, variouspieces from his subsequent American years underscoreits transcendence, such as Zemach Suite (inspired by anddedicated to the celebrated Jewish dancer BenjaminZemach, who was instrumental in developing a new genreof modern Jewish choreography), in which an Arabicmodal cell influences the two fugues, and whose finalmovement is based on the rhythm of the Israeli hora dance(notwithstanding its title, Dance in the Form of a Chaconne);Three Time Wedding, which comprises movements suchas Yiddish Wedding Dance, Yemenite Dance, and Hora;Two Songs of Bialik; Seven Arrangements of Palestinian[Hebrew] Folksongs, which include an early Zionist song,Lo nelekh mipo (We Will Not Go Away from Here); biblicalsettings in English, Hebrew, and even Yiddish (on Yiddishtranslations from Jeremiah by the well-known Yiddishpoet Yehoash [Solomon Blumgarten]); Piyyutim k’tanim:“Shaḥar a lei,” to words by the medieval Spanish Hebrewpoet Solomon Ibn Gabirol; fragmentary or uncompletedworks and sketches such as Israel and His Land (a cantata);The Prophets, a cantata on a text by Saul Tchernikowsky;Molad’ti; and Palestine at War, music for a film for thePalestine Labor Committee composed jointly with German-Jewish refugee Trude Rittman (in which the number JewishSoldier’s Day was recycled and adapted from his earliersong Rote Soldaten, written in Germany from a differentperspective as part of his Four Antiwar Songs). One of hismost arresting completed Judaic works is Yigdal Cantata—ahymn summarizing Maimonides’ thirteen principles of faith,believed to have been penned in the 14th century by Danielben Yehuda of Rome but sometimes alternatively attributedto his contemporary, Immanuel ben Solomon, also ofRome. Though the hymn appears in the prayerbook at thebeginning of the morning service, it is also frequently recitedat the conclusion of Sabbath and High Holy Day eveningservices. The complex setting of the hymn was commissionedby Cantor David Putterman for the third annual service ofnew music at New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue in 1945(although only portions of the piece were performed then).Once in Palestine, Wolpe immersed himself in localJewish and other indigenous folk cultures. He exploredwith enthusiasm Arabic and Turkish music traditions, aswell as the musics of oriental (viz., Mediterranean andNear Eastern) Jewish communities that had resettled inPalestine. He was soon intrigued by a subjective feelingthat his own ethnic roots somehow lay in the Near East.That self-discovery, of course, was more emotional reactionand adopted cultural perception than historical reality for aJew with so firmly rooted a European heritage. But it mighthave satisfied some dormant spiritual instinct, almost asa realization of a theretofore missing link. In Jaffa, he is15 8.559439