A secular instrumental wedding band (or band for similar festive occasions) or street musician among European Jewry, dating from at least the Baroque and perhaps earlier periods and later flourishing in east central and eastern Europe. The type, instrumentation, and style of music played by klezmorim (plural) varied according to locale and time period and was always heavily influenced by local tunes, styles, and modes of host cultures. The recent post-1960s term “klezmer music” refers more specifically to styles of 19th-century eastern European klezmorim, whose recent rediscovery has attracted a wide audience.

A hybrid secular Sephardi Jewish language, also known as Judeo-Espagnol, which is a fusion of Castilian (15th century) Spanish and Hebrew dating from the Spanish Expulsion in 1492, after which Ladino became a vernacular among Eastern and Mediterranean Sephardi Jews, and constituted a major part of their literary and folk song culture as well as a daily spoken language.