“Bald vet zayn a regn” Performed by Yudeska (Yehudis) Eisenman

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

During a visit to our home in the Bronx in the 1993 by the Yiddish writer Tsvi/Zvi Eisenman and his wife Yudeska/Yehudis Eisenman (1916 – 1998), Ms. Eisenman sang three songs which are not well known.

Yudeska and Tsvi Eisenman with Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman (center)

Yudeska Eisenman was born in Pinsk 1916  and made aliyah to Israel in 1939. She died in 1998. For many years she and Zvi lived on the kibbutz Alonim (אלונים).

This week we present the first song from that recording session –  “Bald vet zayn a regn” (“Soon a Rain Will Come”). The recording was done by my mother, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman. The words are by A. Lutsky (pen name for Arn Tsuker 1894 – 1957) and can be found in his volume Nemt es; s’iz gut far aykh, New York 1927.

This version of the song is the same as the one in the song collection Azoy hobn mir gezungen  (אזוי האָבן מיר געזונגען), published in Tel-Aviv, 1974, compiled by Khonen Pozniak. Only a line or two differ slightly.

Pozniak attended a Yiddish secular school in Warsaw, a “Borochov shul”, and his collection represents the songs he remembers from that school and the secular Tsysho Yiddish schools of Poland between the world wars (see Tsysho in the YIVO Encyclopedia).  Scans of the melody and text in the Pozniak collection are attached.

There are two recordings of this song on LP with different melodies. One is sung by Bella Sauer with a melody composed by Lazar Weiner. Another is by Morechai Yardeini, composed in 1960.

Through Eisenman’s performance of Bald vet zayn a regn one can imagine how the school children enjoyed singing the playful climax of the song “Un er laaaaakht….”

Thanks to Lorin Sklamberg and the YIVO Sound Archives and Bella Bryks-Klein for their help with this posting.

Spoken by Eisenman:
Bald vet zayn a regn, Lutskis

Bald vet zayn a regn
azoy dertseylt di gas;
shteyen ale hayzer,
farkhoyshekhte un blas. (2X)

Kumt a zun fun himl,
shtelt zikh op in gas. (2X)

Un er lakht, un er lakht, un lakht.
S’vet nit zayn keyn regn.
Ikh hob nor gemakht a shpas!

Soon a Rain Will Come

Spoken by Eisenman:
“‘Bald vet zayn a regn by Lutsky”

Soon a rain will come.
So says the street.
All the houses seem
dark and pale. (2X)

A sun comes down from the sky
and stops in the street. (2X)

And he laughs, and he laughs,
and he laughs!
“There won’t be any rain
I was only joking!”