Jewish art music is music written using Western classical techniques, but with melodic, rhythmic and textual content taken from traditional Jewish folk or liturgical music. The Jewish art music movement began at the end of the 19th century in Russia, with a group of Russian Jewish classical composers dedicated to preserving Jewish folk music and creating a new, characteristically Jewish genre of classical music. The group founded the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music, a movement that spread to Moscow, Poland, Austria, and later Palestine and the United States. Although the original society existed formally for only 10 years (from 1908 to 1918), its impact on the course of Jewish music was profound. The society, and the art music movement it fostered, inspired a new interest in t