Jewish prayer song in Israeli popular music: Social and educational implications.

This article examines the integration of Jewish prayer songs (piyutim and niggunim) into Israeli popular music from 1990 to the present, highlighting a four-part typology of engagement: faithful re-arrangements of canonical liturgical texts, contemporary musical settings of historic prayers, original prayer-style compositions, and secular pop songs embedding religious motifs. It traces how Israeli artists blend Western harmonic frameworks with Middle Eastern modal systems, reflecting Israel's complex geopolitical and cultural positioning between East and West, and how this musical hybridity negotiates communal and religious identities. The study also explores the sociopolitical and educational implications of incorporating prayer-infused popular music into Israel's segmented education system—comprising Jewish secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox, and Arab streams—addressing both its potential for cultural bridging and concerns about religious coercion. Through case studies and pedagogical reflections, the article underscores how prayer song rock serves as a dynamic site for identity negotiation amid Israel's religious–secular and ethnic divisions, while calling for sensitive curricular approaches that foreground musical heritage as cultural rather than doctrinal content.