“Ikh zits mir bay der arbet” / I Sit at My Work
Sung by Leah (Lillian) Kolko. Recorded at Camp Boiberik by Beyle Gottesman.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman.
Leah (Lillian) Kolko was from Slonim, Belarus. Her maiden name was Zadikow. She was the wife of Fishl (Philip) Kolko who was for many years the Jewish culture teacher at Camp Boiberik, near Rhinebeck, NY. According to biographies of their son, the historian Gabriel Kolko, Leah was a teacher.
Leah Kolko at Camp Boiberik, 1975
(photo by Ed Kaufmann)
In this recording, summer 1974, Kolko says that all the songs she sang she had learned in America. She learned “Ikh zits mir bay der arbet un ikh arbet” from a friend in Detroit named Zemel. In the Ruth Rubin Archives at YIVO, the singer Harry Ary sings an almost identical version.
Thanks to Ed Kaufman for the photo.
TRANSLITERATION
Ikh zits mir bay der arbet un ikh arbet
un fun mayne tsores veyst dokh keyner nit.
Nor eyn padruge flegt mir shtendik zogn
Vos zhe geystu oys azoy vi a likht?
Kh’ob zikh ayngelibt in a yingele tsum shtarbn.
Di tshakhotke mame hot er mir gemakht.
Kh’ob zikh ayngelibt in a yingele tsum shtarbn.
Un tsum sof hot er zikh, mame, oysgelakht.
TRANSLATION
I sit at my work and I work. No one knows of my troubles. But one girlfriend used to say to me: “Why are you expiring like a candle?”
I have fallen in love with a boy, I would die for. He has driven me wild. [Literally – he has given me consumption] I have fallen in love with a boy, I would die for. And it turns out he was makingfun of me.
This weeks’ Yiddish Song of the Week, “Zingen a lid iz a mekhaye” (“To Sing a Song is a Joy”) by Chaim Berman (d. 1973) was recorded by Rabbi Victor Reinstein, now of Boston, in late 1960s, early 1970s. Rabbi Reinstein writes:
Chaim Berman, ‘Hymie,’ was short and of slight and wiry build. Born and raised to early adulthood in Proskurov in the Ukraine, he lived most of his life in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York. His eyes twinkled with life, and there was almost always an impish smile on his lips. Hymie was a Jewish type that is no more. He was a self-described atheist and a card-carrying communist, a worker and an organizer in the ladies’ handbag industry, who in one moment would quote from Lenin or Marx and in the next, from Sholom Aleichem or Yud Lamed Peretz.
Steeped in Jewish tradition, he exuded Yiddishkeit from every pore of his being. Bridging the worlds and times of his life, he would put on a yarmulke and lead the Pesach seder with a profound and poignant depth of feeling. Hymie loved to sing and would perform for family and friends ‘in der heym,’ and to larger audiences at Yiddish summer camps. He was a man in whose veins coursed both joy and sadness, a reflection of the realities of his life, of Jewish history, of human reality. He worked and sang from the depths of his being to help bring a better world for all.
Certainly the first song we have chosen from the recordings of Hymie Berman for the Yiddish Song of the Week reflects that last sentiment – singing for a better world.
The melody is well-known: it is used for the Yiddish song to honor guests “Lomir ___bagrisn” and for the Purim nign “Utsu eytsa” (עצו עצה, “Take counsel together”, Isaiah 8:10), which is attributed to the Chabad/Slonim tradition (thanks to Hankus Netsky and Steven Greenman for this information).
From my mother, who belonged briefly to the leftist Zionist youth group Hashomer Hatsair, I know a one-verse song with the same melody from Chernovitz, circa 1930s:
Lebn zol Bistritski mit zayn hora. Lebn zol Bistritski mit zayn hora. Nisht keyn rekhter, nisht keyn linker, nor a Mizrakhist a flinker. Zol lebn Bistritski mit zayn hora.
Long live Bistritski and his hora. Long live Bistritski and his hora Not a right-winger, not a left-winger, but a clever Mizrakhist Long live Bistritski and his hora
Other field recordings in the Israeli National Sound Archives (NSA) in Jerusalem confirm that this was a ditty from the East European Hashomer Hatzair movement (NSA call #Y/05890, #Y/05898 – I was not able to listen to the NSA recordings to hear the lyrics in these versions).
In the Kremenits Yizkor book (1965) [Kremenits is in the Volin/Volhynia region] page 152, there is a description of the end of a Zionist youth meeting which actually connects the ditty to the dance hora, here written hoyre: (my translation from the Yiddish)
Finally someone yells out – ‘Enough of this chattering’ or ‘Leave the academy alone’. At that point someone would start singing “Lebn zol Bistritski and his hoyra” [!]. It seemed that this is what the gang was waiting for and everyone stood up, hands and shoulders interlocking and the circle got bigger and bigger. And so we danced a hoyra till the break of day. We danced so long that some people started to faint away.
Someone more familiar with Zionist history please clarify. Are they singing about the Hebrew writer, editor Nathan Bistritsky?
Please see the comments below for a number of additional points on the melody.
Zingen a lid iz a mekhaye
sung by Chaim Berman
Words by H. Goldberg
Zingen a lid iz a mekhaye Zingen a lid iz a mekhaye Oy zingt zhe brider, zingt zhe munter A folk vos zingt geyt keyn mol unter. Zingen a lid iz a mekhaye.
To sing a song is a joy. To sing a song is a joy. So sing brother, sing with cheer A people that sings never dies. To sing a song is a joy.
A nign – an olter [alter] tsu a nayer. Zingen – vet ir filn frayer. Oy zingt zhe brider, zingt zhe munter A folk vos zingt geyt keyn mol unter. Zingen a lid iz a mekhaye.
A melody – an old one or a new one. Sing and you’ll feel more free. So sing brother, sing with cheer, A people that sings never dies. To sing a song is a joy.
Hostu fardrus tsi hostu dayges? Oder bistu kholile broyges? Oy zingt zhe brider, zingt zhe munter A folk vos zingt geyt keyn mol unter. Zingen a lid iz a mekhaye.
Do you have regrets? Or have worries? Or God forbid angry at someone? So sing brother, sing with cheer A people that sings never dies. To sing a song is a joy.
Leah Kolko at Camp Boiberik, 1975
Yiddish Song of the Week 