"She who mourns will cry" emotion and expertise in Yemeni-Israeli wailing

Wailing, a mourning ritual that still persists in the Yemeni community in Israel, is performed by a special woman waller who composes memorial lyrics for the deceased and chants them in a sorrowful melody in the home of the bereaved family. Having been created in Yemen and brought to Israel with Yemeni immigrants, wailing is currently waning and belittled by the younger Yemeni-Israeli generation, possibly because of its apparent emotionality and religiosity. These characteristics, which locate wailing in the realm of the traditional, also appear to prevent it from being assimilated into modern Israel. Participant observations and twenty in-depth interviews conducted with wailers as well as other members of the Yemeni-Israeli community in 2001-2002 demonstrate how the construction of wailing consists of several interwoven perspectives. One perspective analyzes wailing as a post-traditional phenomenon contrasting with the emotionally restrained mourning rituals of Ashkenazi-dominated secular Israeli society, while another perspective focuses on the interplay of personal feelings and the wailing performance in order to problematize modern constructs suchas "hybridity"and "professionalism."