The great popularity of poetry and music among the Sephardic Jews dates back to the tenth century, when, under the Moslem rulers, the Jews finally found religious and intellectual freedom, a freedom they had not experienced in Babylonia (from where they had come to Spain shortly before). The upper and middle-class Jews held important public positions, some of them were even ministers or army leaders, and thus were exposed to and formed part of the cultural life at the Spanish/Arabian courts, where poetry, reading and music were the most common forms of entertainment. Often wealthy patrons would hire Hebrew poets to sing their praise, to write occasional poems, e.g. on a newborn, on the death of a relative or on the pleasures of a good glass of wine, and to perform or sing their poems in the courts. Thus Hebrew poetry, songs, and music became and has remained an important part of both the religious and the social life of Sephardic Jews.

בראש כל שיר דברים בעברית על תוכנו וזמן אמירתו.