In this paper, I consider the collection of short stories and photographs Neighborhood Album A by Yemeni Israeli author Simha Zaramati Asta. I argue that Asta contributes to a distinctively Yemeni Jewish literature and identity in Israel. While Asta could be considered a Mizrahi author, I claim that a study of Asta’s text as Mizrahi in fact erases the distinctive Yemeni elements of Asta’s writing. Instead, Asta is purposeful about her inclusion of Yemeni culture and her establishment of Yemeni identity in her text. This Yemeni culture is evident in Asta’s inclusion of the songs of Yemeni Jewish women which constitute an oral tradition of memory within Yemen and Israel. Asta further creates a distinctive Yemeni identity through a sense of place in the Yemeni Quarter of Tel Aviv in both her stories and photographs. Through descriptions of the sights, smells, and traditions of the Yemeni Quarter of Tel Aviv, Asta elevates the neighborhood, claiming it as a place where the divine spirit can be found. While Asta is purposeful in her creation of a distinctively Yemeni Jewish literature and identity, she demonstrates the hybridization of this Yemeni Jewish literature and identity with Israeli literature and identity. By noting the importance of Yemeni Jews to the creation of Israel and the influence of Israel on these Yemeni Jews, Asta claims Israeli identity for Yemeni Jews. She demonstrates the hybridization of the Yemeni Jewish identity and Israeli identity through intertextual references to canonical Israeli poets and authors. Yet while Asta values this hybridization, she uses the characters in her stories to question whether the hybridization of Yemeni Jews in Israel can in fact succeed. / text

The compositions of Steve Reich and György Ligeti both contain periodic rhythmic structures. Although periods are not usually easily perceived, the listener may perceive their combinations in a hierarchy of rhythmic structures. This document is an attempt to develop an analytical method that can account for this hierarchy in periodic music. I begin with an overview of the features of Reich's and Ligeti's music that contribute to the property of periodicity. I follow with a discussion of the music and writings of Olivier Messiaen as a precedent for the periodic structures in the music of Reich and Ligeti. I continue by consulting the writings of the Israeli musicologist Simha Arom and describing the usefulness of his ideas and terminology in the development of my method. I explain the working process and terminology of the analytical method, and then I apply it to Reich's Six Pianos and Ligeti's Désordre.