Ekh in mayn lyubitshke/I and My Darling Sung by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman [LSW], Recorded by Leybl Kahn, NYC 1954
Painting by Yosl Bergner (1920-2017) “The Wedding”
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
This song has the same melody as the folksong “Hot zikh mir di zip tsezipt” recorded by Ruth Rubin and can be heard as a field recording sung by her in the Ruth Rubin Archive at YIVO.
The melody and text of “Hot zikh mir di zip tsezipt” is printed on p. 94, in the collection Yiddish Folksongs from the Ruth Rubin Archive. Scans of those pages are attached.
The melody also begins the “Rumshinsky Bulgar” recorded by a number of klezmer groups including Marilyn Lerner on her recording “Romanian Fantasy”
LSW’s daughter Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman who heard the song from LSW many times, typed out the words in the 1970s and moved the first fragmented verse of LSW to the last verse. I suggest any singer of this song follow this change which makes sense logically: the couple are married at the end
Thanks to Ruth Rubin Archive at YIVO, Christina Crowder, Josh Horowitz, Joel Rubin, Martin Schwartz and many others who pointed out similar variants.
Ekh in mayn lyubitshke/My Darling and I [Ikh vel zayn dayn ]…tabele. [This should be the last verse not the first] Gliklekh veln mir beyde zan. Az ekh vel zayn dayn vabele un di vest zayn mayn tayerer man
[I will be your dear] dove. How happy we will be, When I am you dear wife And you will be my dear husband.
Ikh un mayn lyubitshke; mayn mame in der mit. Ikh vil mayn lyubitstshke. Mayn mame vil zi nit.
I and my sweetheart; my mother in the middle. I want my sweetheart My mother does not.
Her ikh nisht oys mayn mames reyd Un nem mir mayn lyubitshke Vi’zoy zi shteyt un geyt.
I do not heed what my mother says. And I take my sweetheart Just as she is.
Vayl gelt iz dokh kaylekhik Un gelt geyt avek. Nem ikh mir mayn lyubitshke Un kh’fur mit ir avek.
Because money is round And money rolls away. So I take my sweetheart And go away with her.
Ekh fur mit ir avek biz keyn odes. Shtel mit ir a khipe s’gedoyert a mis-les
I go away with her All the way to Odessa. I stand under the khupe [wedding canopy] with her in less than a day.
S’hot mit indz geleybt a khaver / A Comrade Lived Among Us. A Soviet Yiddish song praising Stalin. Sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman [BSG], recorded by Itzik Gottesman, Bronx. 1990s.
Image: A Jewish Kolhoz in Crimea
Commentary on the song is below after the lyrics and translation.
BSG spoken:
Dos hob ikh gehert tsum ershtn mul in Chernovitz in tsayt fun di rusn. I heard this for the first time in the time of the Russians. [The Soviet occupation of Chernovitz was June 1940 – July 1941]
S’hot mit indz geleybt a khaver. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay S’iz geveyn a yat a, braver. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
A comrade lived among us. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay He was a brave lad. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Er fleygt kikn af di shtern. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay A kolvirt vet bay undz vern. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
He used to look up to the stars Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay. We should build a kolvirt [farming collective]. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Fun di velder ungekimen. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay Hot er indz tsunoyf genimen. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
From the fields we came. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay He gathered us together Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Lomir trinken a lekhayim Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay far dem leybn, far dem nayem. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
[BSG indicates this verse can be sung at the end]
Let us make a toast Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay for the new life. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Far der oktober-revolutsye Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay in far Stalins konsitutsye Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
For the October Revolution Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay And for Stalin’s constitution Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Far di kinder, [far] di zkeynem. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay In far alemen in eynem. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
For the children, for the old ones Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay And for all of us together. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Zol der ershter kos zikh khvalyen. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay far indzer libn khaver _______
(BSG spits and says “yemakh shmoy” then continues) …Stalin. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Let the first drink swirl Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay for our dear comrade ______ [BSG spits and curses him “May his name be erased” then continues] …Stalin. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Far der Oktober-revolutsye Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay in far Stalins konsitutsye. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
For the October Revolution Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay And for Stalin’s constitutution Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
.ביילע רעדט: דאָס האָב איך געהערט צום ערשטן מאָל אין טשערנעוויץ אין צײַט פֿון די רוסן
BSG was reading from a notebook of Yiddish songs that she wrote down in Vienna in the Displaced Persons camp (1947- 1950). You can hear my voice helping her read some of the lines.
It seems that this song started out as a Hasidic nign (כּיצד מרקדי Ketzad merakdin);
Here is an instrumental version of the Hasidic tune from the album “Chassidic Authentic Wedding Dances (Galton D-5935):
Then the melody was used for a Soviet Yiddish song praising Stalin in the 1930s and 1940s, probably made popular by the 1938 recording of the Soviet Yiddish singer Zinoviy Shulman (1904 – 1977) .
The text version praising Stalin as was printed in the collection Yidishe folks-lider, edited by Y. Dobrushn and A. Yuditsky, Moscow 1940, p. 425
Here is an image of that version:
In the 1950s, after the death of Stalin (1953), the song made its way into the leftist 1956 American Yiddish songbook Lomir ale zingen / Let’s Sing (Jewish Music Alliance, NY) but dropped any mention of Stalin, of his constitution and of the October revolution. It was called “S’hot mit undz gelebt a khaver”.
A rousing version of the song entited L’chayim Stalin and based on the Shulman recording was recently recorded by Dan Kahn and Psoy Korolenko, including the references to Stalin on their album The Third Unternationale (2020):
Special thanks this week to Benjamin Ginzburg, Arun Vishwanath, Psoy Korolenko and Dan Kahn.
Dus kind fun keynem nisht / No One’s Child A Holocaust adaptation of a Romanian song. Sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman [BSG]. Recorded by Itzik Gottesman, Bronx 1991.
Anny (Hubner) Andermann poses with a group of orphans whom she helped to have repatriated from Transnistria. Archive of the United States Holocaust Memorial Musuem
BSG speaks: “Dus iz geven a Rumeynish lid in du zey ikh, az mir hobn gehat a yidishe versye.” Vi heyst es af Rumeynish? This was a Romanian song and here [in the notebook] I see that there was a Yiddish version.
IG: How is it called in Romanian? BSG sings in Romanian:
Copil sărac, al cui ești tu, Al cui ești tu pe-acest pământ? Tu ești copilul nimănui, Al nimănui pe-acest pământ.
Poor child, whose are you, Whose are you on this earth? You are no one’s child, No one’s on this earth.
BSG speaks: S’iz a lid veygn an urem kind Vus hot… S’a yusem vus hot keynem nisht of der erd.
Spoken: It’s a song about a poor child, who has… It’s an orphan who has no one in this world.
BSG sings:
Di urem kind mit shvartse hur. Mit shvartse oygn zug mir gur. Far vus dertseylsti yeydn yid, Az di bist dus kind fun keynem nisht?
You poor child with blck hair With black eyes, tell me: Why do you tell every Jew/every one That you are no one’s child?
“A sakh trern hob ikh fargosn, Mayn mamenyu hot men geshosn. Zi iz geshtorbn af deym ort. ‘Mayn tokhter’ var ir letse vort.
“Many tears have I spilled, My mother was shot. She died on the spot. ‘My daughter’ were her last words”
BSG – Spoken = S’iz a ponim fin Transnistra. It appears to be about Transnistria.
Mayn tatenyu hob ikh farloyrn. Far kelt in hinger iz er ayngefrorn Tsu shtarbn var zayn biter loz [German = los] In an Ukrainer kolkhoz.
I lost my dear father. From cold and hunger he froze. To die was his bitter fate In a Ukrainian kolkhoz. [ Soviet collective farm]
Ikh hob bagrubn mane libe. Elnt aleyn bin ikh farblibn. Men lozt mikh filn af yedn shrit: az ikh bin dus kind fun keynem nit.
I buried my dear ones. Alone, lonely I remained. At every step people let me feel that I am no one’s child.
BSG – “S’iz a versye vus me hot gemakht in Transnistria ober mit a sakh daytshmerizmen.” “It’s a version that was created in Transnistria but with many Germanisms. “
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
We’re posting this song in conjunction with the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2022. As noted in an earlier post, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman wrote down in a notebook lyrics to songs she heard in the Displaced Persons camp in Vienna, 1947 – 1951. I asked her to sing some of those songs in 1991.
Bret Werb, musicologist at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C. writes (via correspondence on email) about the Romanian song:
“The Romanian title is ‘Sînt copil al nimănui’ otherwise ‘Copil al nimănui’ otherwise ‘Cîntec de orfan’; the full lyric appears here,
As you’ll see it’s similar to the Yiddish version. The song was collected as “folklore” in 1972 from informant Gheorghe Cazacu of Costeşti village, Cotovschi district (the field recording is part of the Gleb Ciaicovschi-Mereşanu Collection, National Archive of the Republic of Moldova).
Thanks to Sandra Layman for transcribing and translating the Romanian verse. Thanks to Bret Werb for the information. Thanks to Carol Freeman, Paul Gifford, Joel Rubin, Suzanne Schwimmer and their friends who helped look for information on the Romanian song.
A scene from Simkhe Shvartz’ Kamelyon theater in Chernovitz, Romania early 1930s. As remembered and sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman [BSG], recorded by Itzik Gottesman, Bronx 1990s.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman.
From right: Simkhe Shvarts, Itzik Manger, Helios Hecht, Rose Auslander, Chernovitz, 1934. Photo from Efrat Gal-Ed Niemandssprache
BSG spoken:
Dus iz a sene vus Simkhe Shvarts hot ofgefirt in Chernovitz mit der amatorn-trupe Kamelyon. “A kheyder” hot dus geheysn.
This is a scene that Simkhe Shvarts put on in Chernovitz with the amateur troupe “Chameleon”. It was called “A kheyder”. [traditional elementary school]
Tsigele, migele, kotenak Royte pomerantsn. Az der rebe’z nishtu in kheyder, Geyen khevre tanstn.
Nem zhe Tshaykl dem rebns kantshik Un varf im aran in hribe. Ikh’n helfn dos kind talepen [telepen] Der rebetsin Teme-Libe.
Avek di mamzer, di pachuk Moykhl dir dus vign Bald vet der rebe kimen. Vesti dans shoyn krign
Kinder der rebe’z in shil. Kimt zhe tsi aher in lernt dus naye shpil Shpiln zikh iz git, oy git. ernen zikh, oy nit oy nit. Shpiln zikh iz tayer Der kantshik ligt in fayer.
A gitn-uvnt Libe! A gitn yingnmantshik. Freyg im nor deym takhsit. Vi es ligt der kantshik.
“Az s’i nishtu keyn kantshik iz du a rimen mit a shprontshik. Arinter, lernen!¨
Little goat, little kitten Red oranges When the teacher is not in school The gang starts to dance.
So Tshaykl take the teacher’s s whip and throw it into the heating stove. I will help the teacher’s wife, Teme-Libe knock around the child
Get away you scoundrel, you rat I don’t need your rocking. Soon the teacher will come and you will get yours.
Children, the teacher is in the synagogue so come over here and learn the new game. Playing is good, oy good. Learning is not, oy not. Playing is precious The whip is in the fire.
“Good evening Libe” “Good evening, my young man. Just ask this brat where he put the whip”.
“Teacher, I know nothing” ¨I know nothing, teacher.¨ “Teacher, I too know nothing” “I too know not, teacher”
¨Well if there’s no whip There is the leather strap with a buckle. Sit down and learn!¨
BSG added later, spoken: Everyone then sat down around the long table and started to rock back and forth and learn. Meanwhile the teacher fell asleep, so they took his leather strap and threw it into the fire. Then they sang again the first verse again:
Tsigele, migele, kotinak….
The Kamelyon [Chameleon] theater in Chernovitz was founded in 1929 and directed by Simkhe Schvartz (aka Simcha Schwartz – September 1, 1900 – August 14, 1974), a leader of Yiddish culture between the world wars in the Romanian city Chernovitz (today in the Ukraine – Cernivtsi). He was a sculptor, dramaturge, director, and songwriter. He is perhaps most known for his Parisian Yiddish puppet theater Hakl-bakl (1949 – 52) in which Marc Chagall and Itsik Manger participated. Simkhe Shvartz had two younger brothers, Julian Shvartz and Itzik Shvarts (aka I. Kara), also writers and important figures in the Yiddish cultural world in Romania.
The skits of Kamelyon , created by Shvarts, often were comprised of adapted Yiddish folksongs strung together to form a plot. “A kheyder” uses folky elements: the opening rhyme is adapted from the children’s rhyme “Tsigele, migele kotinke” (two examples in Ginzburg/Marek, 1901 and two more in I. L Cahan, 1952). Ruth Rubin sings two versions that can be listened to in YIVO’s Ruth Rubin Archive. https://ruthrubin.yivo.org/categories/browse/Dublin+Core/Title/Tsigele%2C+migele%2C+kotinke?site=site-r
More recently, Israeli singer Ruth Levin sings a song that begins with Tsigele-migele, words by J. Joffe, music by N. Zaslavsky on her CD of children’s songs Tsigele-migele
Another folk element in “A kheyder” – the melody of the Yiddish folksong, “Dire-gelt” is used (can be found in the Mlotek songbook Mir trogn a gezang.) starting with the line “Shpiln zikh iz git.”
Please note that the teacher in the traditional elementary school, the kheyder, is addressed as “rebe” and is not to be confused with a Hasidic leader also called “rebe”.
Bay indz azoy fil kodres grine (“Doina”) A Romanian poem adapted into a Yiddish song. Sung by Anna Esther Steinbaum, recorded by Itzik Gottesman, Jerusalem 1997.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
The singer, Anna Esther Steinbaum (also known as Anna Rauchwerger Steinbaum), was from Chernovitz, Romania, and was active in the Yiddish cultural life there before the war. After the war, in Israel, she remained close to the Chernovitz intellectuals and translated Itzik Manger’s ballads into German.
Romania’s Mureș River
What makes this week’s song extraordinary is that though the text was written by an anti-Semitic, ultra-nationalist Romanian poet, whose politics were well known, a Yiddish poet found his poetry moving enough to adapt into a Yiddish song.
I met with her several times in 1997-98 in her apartment in Jerusalem. At this particular meeting my mother Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman was also present and occasionally can be heard as Steinbaum sings. Steinbaum found this song in a written notebook she had kept where she wrote down the songs she remembered.
In her notebook the song is entitled “Doina” but it is an adaptation of a Romanian poem “Noi” [“We”] by Octavian Goga (1881 – 1938), a virulent fascist Romanian nationalist and anti-Semite, who was briefly the Romanian Prime Minister in 1938, when he stripped the Jews of their Romanian citizenship
Senderl (Ayzikl) mayn man / Sender (or Ayzikl) My Husband Two versions Sung by Rose Serbin and Bella Cutler Ruth Serbin recorded by Ruth Rubin in Patterson, New Jersey, 1956, from Ruth Rubin Archive at the YIVO Sound Archives. Bella Cutler recorded by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, 1988, in Daughters of Jacob Nursing Home, Bronx
Research into the one verse remembered by Bella Cutler (from Bolokhov, Galicia, today Bolekhiv, Ukraine) led me to a printed version of the song with music entitled “Senderle [sic] mein Man” in the collection Jewish Folk Songs from the Baltics: Selections from the Melngailis Collection edited by Kevin C. Karnes, 2014. (Scans attached – Karnes 1,2). According to Karnes, Melngailis possibly heard the song in Keidan (today Lithuania, Kedainei) in 1899.
The innkeeper and his wife in Suchestaw, Eastern Galicia. (YIVO)
In the Ginsburg and Marek (GM) collection of 1901, Yidishe folkslider fun rusland, there are two versions, # 305, #306, one with 8 verses from Kaunas; one with 4 verses from Minsk.
In Der pinkes, ed. Shmuel Niger, Vilna, 1913, there is a version in the collection “Folklsider” of L. B-N [Leyvi Berman].
Rose Serbin (1890 – 1974) was born in Bohopolye, Podolia, Ukraine. In the Ruth Rubin Archive this song is entitled “Vi vel ikh nemen”.
All evidence indicates that it originates in Lithuania or other countries “up north”. Of the six versions of the song (all from the 19th century), three were written down in Lithuania, one in Belarus, one in Galicia, one in Ukraine. The important rhyme at the end of each verse “kroyn” and “aleyn” only rhymes in the “Litvish dialect” where “kroyn” is pronounced as “kreyn”.
The textual differences are also intriguing. Is the husband leaving? Is he dying? The question “Where should the wife get bread for the children?” is answered in four ways. In GM #306 and Serbin – “from the lord of the estate”, in GM #307 “at the stall”, in Karnes “at the store”, in Berman ” from the baker”.
Serbin’s version is the most satisfying, not only because she is such a wonderful singer, but also because it ends with a wedding which is where many folk narratives conclude.
Thanks for help with this week’s blog to: Paul Glasser, David Braun, Arun Viswanath, Philip Schwartz, Michael Alpert, Sergio Lerer and YIVO Sound Archives.
RUTH SERBIN: Transliteration and Translation
Oy, vi vel ikh nemen mayne kinderlekh oyf broyt, Senderl mayn man? Vi vel ikh nemen mayne kinderlekh oyf broyt, Senderl mayn man?
Baym purits mayn tayer vaybele, Baym purits mayn tayer taybele, Baym purits, mayn tayere kroyn. Di blabst do shoyn aleyn.
Where will I get bread for my children, Senderl my husband? Where will I get bread for my children Senderl my husband?
From the lord of the estate, my dear wife. From the lord of the estate, my dear dove. From the lord of the estate, my dear love [crown] You will remain here all alone.
Bam purits iz du hintelekh, Senderl mayn man? Bam purits iz du hintelkeh, Senderl mayn man?
Mit a shtekele, mayn tayer vaybele, Mit a shtekele, mayn tayer taybele, Mit a shtekele, mayn tayere kroyn. Di blabst do shoyn aleyn.
On the lord’s estate there are dogs, Senderl my husband. On the Lord’s estate there are dogs Senderl my husband.
With a stick, my dear wife. with a stick, my dear dove. with a stick, my dear love [crown] You will remain here all alone.
Mit veymen vel ikh firn mayne kinderlekh tsi der khipe, Senderl mayn man? Mit veymen vel ikh firn mayne kinderlekh tsi der khipe Senderl mayn man?
Aleyn, mayn tayer vaybele Aleyn, mayn tayer taybele Aleyn mayn tayere kroyn. Di blabst do shoyn aleyn.
With whom shall I lead my children to the marriage canopy, Senderl my husband? With whom will I lead my children to the marriage canopy Senderl my husband?
Alone, my dear wife. Alone, my dear dove. Alone, my dear love [crown] You will remain here all alone.
Bella Cutler’s version: translation and transliteration.
Vos veln mir geybn di kinder esn, Ayzikl mayn man? Vos veln mir geybn di kinder esn, Ayzikl mayn man?
Broytenyu mayn vaybele Broytenyu mayn taybele Broytenyu mayn kroyn Du veyst dos shoyn aleyn.
This popular song was copyrighted in the US in 1922 by Morris Goldstein, who is listed as composer and lyricist. But this is doubtful since Pepi Litman and Helen Gespass recorded a version in 1912/1913 in Budapest or Lemberg. Apparently even earlier, in 1907, Hungarian singers recorded it (see Bob Cohen’s comments below).
Here is LSW, recorded by Leybl Kahn in New York, 1954:
More recently LSW’s daughter Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman recorded Lifshe’s version on her CD Bay mayn mames shtibele with Nigel Jacobs on violin, recorded live at the Cactus Cafe in Austin, November 9th, 1993. Her lyrics are basically the same as LSW, though I do prefer her word “badekn” to LSW’s word “dekn”.
Here is the Peppi Litman version:
And here is the Gespass version:
Since the instrumental version of the song on the recording Maramaros: The Lost Jewish Music of Transylvania of the Hungarian group – Muzsikas, made such an impression, I asked Budapest resident Bob Cohen, researcher of Roma and Hungarian and Jewish musical connections, leader of the pioneering klezmer ensemble Di naye kapelye, for his take on the song.
Bob Cohen writes:
“Hot a yid a vajbele” is definitely the most popular and widespread Yiddish song in the Hungarian language area. Almost everyone I spoke with in the early 1990s knew it, and it was a standard at our old-age home gigs. It remains in the repertoire of Roma bands in Transylvania as “the Jewish song” and some even sing along to it in macaronic yid-speak as “Itta, Itta Babele”. I’ve also heard it played by Roma orchestras in Slovakia. What is interesting is the fact that knowledge of the tune seems to have completely been forgotten among the post WWII generation of Jews, given the popularity it had among older folks I met in around 1990.
The version I played on our (Di naye kapelye’s) first recording back in 1997 came from the Gypsy primas (lead violinist) Andras Horvath of Jankamajitis, near Csenger on the Romanian border. He learned his Jewish tunes from a Jewish musician family named “Markus” before the war. He became a Seventh Day Adventist in later life, and he called me over once to tell me his life story and his relationship to Jews.
Thanks this week to Robert Cohen and Martin Schwartz. Please note: though still performed today, the song’s dated humor is misogynistic.
Fin mitvokh in der fri biz fraytik far nakht hot Surele mayn vayb deym kigl gemakht.
From Wednesday in the morning until Friday twilight, Surele my wife made a kugel.
Hot a yid a vaybele hot er fin ir tsures. Hot a yid a vaybele toyg zi af kapures.
A man [Jew] has a wife; she gives him trouble, A man has a wife and she is not good for anything.
Vi s’iz gekimen shabes tsim esn, hot Surele mayn vayb fin deym kigl gur fargesn.
When the Sabbath arrives and it’s time to eat. Surele, my wife forgot all about the kugel.
Hot a yid a vaybele hot er fin ir tsures. hot a yid a vaybele toyg zi af kapures.
A man has a wife; she gives him trouble. A man has a wife and she is not good for anything.
Hot er gekhapt deym grobn shtekn Un hot ir ungehoybn git tsi dekn.
So he got his thick cane and started to beat [cover] her.
Hot a yid a vaybele hot er fin ir tsures. hot a yid a vaybele toyg zi af kapures.
A man [Jew] has a wife; she gives him trouble, A man has a wife and she is not good for anything.
Hot zi gekhapt di alte shkrabes, tsim tatn iz zi avek deym shabes.
So she grabbed her old worn-out shoes and went to her father for the Sabbath.
Hot a yid a vaybele toyg zi af kapures hot a yid a yidene hot er fin ir tsures.
A man [Jew] has a wife; she is good for nothing. A man has a wife and she gives him trouble.
Hobn di shkeynim ungehoybn shpekulirn me zol dus porfolk vider tsuzamen firn.
So the neighbors started to speculate/plan how to bring the couple together again.
Hot a yid a vabele hot er fin ir tsures. hot a yid a vaybele hot er fin ir tsures.
A man [Jew] has a wife; and she gives him trouble. A man has a wife and she gives him trouble
Bay dem rebn / At the Rabbi’s House Unidentified singer, recorded by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman [BSG] at the Daughters of Jacob Nursing Home, Bronx 1980s.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
This song begins with the Hebrew song “Hayta tsira bikineret” (There was a Young Woman at the Kinneret), which is then followed by a Yiddish verse. which then returns to the Hebrew beginning and so on and so forth. Israel’s Kinneret (also known as the Kinnereth, the Sea of Galilee and Lake Tiberius) is the world’s lowest-altitude freshwater lake.
The melody is from a Ukrainian folk song “Тече річка” “The River Flows”, which you can listen to here:
The most common version of the Yiddish verse involves a cat. However the one we present this week tells of a goat that eats up the skhakh, the sukkah covering (a sukkah or suke is the temporary structure that Jews build for the Sukkot holiday); so we felt this was an appropriate post during the current holiday of Sukkot.
Photo courtesy the Treehugger Blog
A thorough look at the origins and development of the Hebrew song including the Yiddish variants (but not this one) can be found at David Assaf’s Hebrew “Oneg Shabat” blog.
A recording of the song with the more common Yiddish verse about a kitten can be heard in the collection of recordings made by ethnomusicologists Sofia Magid and Moshe Beregovski, Unser Rebbe, unser Stalin. In that recording, singer Rakhmil Grin (1910 – 1943) sings it for Beregovski in 1941, probably in Kiev (listen below).
Inge Mandos, a Yiddish singer from Hamburg, released a CD entitled Waks (וואַקס, 2005) in which she re-imagines old Yiddish field recordings and includes Grin’s recording of “Bay mayn rebn iz geven a ketsle”
The Yiddish words and music to Grin’s version (the more popular version) can also be found in Undzer gezang(Bina Steinberg, ed. 1984), and are attached.
This is the first of a number of Yiddish songs that BSG recorded at the Daughters of Jacob Nursing Home in the Bronx. She was asked to edit a monthly Yiddish journal comprised of memoirs and folklore that she recorded from the elderly Jews living there. Unfortunately on the original cassette recording of this song the name of the singer was not mentioned. His Hebrew words do not match up entirely with the usual lyrics, and he makes a grammatical mistake.
Thanks this week to Eliezer Niborski.
TRANSLITERATION (Daughters of Jacob version)
Hayta alma bakineret asher bigalil. Kol hayom hayta shira [!] lanu mishirey galil. Kol hayom hayta shira [!] Shir akheyr hi lo yada.. hey!
Bay dem rebn hot di tsig far hinger ofgegesn dem skhakh. Hot di rebetsin mit der kotshere ir gemakht di zakh. Tse keyver yisrul hot men zi gebrakht in an ofshrift hot men ir gemakht, hey…
Hayta alma….
TRANSLATION (Daughters of Jacob version)
There was a young lady at the Kinneret that was in the Galilee. She used to sing for us of the songs of the Galilee. A whole day she would sing – no other song did she know. Hey!..
At the Rabbi’s house the goat got hungry and ate up the skakh. So the Rabbi’s wife with a poker put an end to her. [literally: did the thing to her] They gave her a Jewish burial with an inscription, hey!
Shluf mayn kind, mayn treyst/Sleep my child, my comfort An otherwise unknown alternate melody for Sholem Aleichemś lullaby from Chernovitz, Romania sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
There are several melodies for this song known commonly as “Sholem Aleichem’s lullaby”, words by the writer Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Rabinovitch, 1859 – 1916).
Sholem Aleichem
There are two popular tunes to this poem but Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman (BSG) sings an otherwise unknown third melody that she remembers from her home town of Cernauti/Chernovitz, Romania.
BSG sings only two verses of a longer song. Sholem Aleichem first printed the poem in 1892 but only a few years later it was already published as a “folksong” in the Ginsburg and Marek collection of 1901.
The most commonly sung melody was composed by Dovid Kovanovsky. You can hear Ruth Rubin sing the Kavonovsky melody at this link. (from YIVO’s Ruth Rubin Archive). Also posted at the link is Feigl Yudin’s performance of the second most popular melody. Below is a version of the Yudin melody performed by vocalist Rebecca Kaplan Muranaka, accompanied by tsimblist Pete Rushefsky from their 2003 CD, Oyf di vegelekh – On the Paths (Yiddishland Music):
Both melodies plus transcribed words and translation have been printed in Ruth Rubin’s Jewish Folksongs in Yiddish and English (Oak Publications, 1965) (scans attached).
In Emil Seculetz’s Romanian Yiddish collection Yidishe folkslider, (Bucharest 1959) the compiler collected 5 versions of Shlof mayn kind, with music. Two of them (#21 and #22) are related to BSGs version. (scans are attached))
In BSG’s repertory she knows a completely different song to this second popular melody sung by Yudin: a lullaby about armed resistance which can be heard on her CD “Bay mayn mames shtibele” (2004).
There is much more to say about the history and transformations of Sholem Aleichem’s lullaby. See the article “America in East European Yiddish Folk Song” in The Field of Yiddish, 1954 by Eleanor Gordon Mlotek and the chapter on Sholem Aleichem in Perl fun der yidisher poezye, ed. Yoysef and Khane Mlotek, 1974.
Fans of Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman – be sure to watch this amazing online concert commemorating BSG’s 100th Birthday!
Shluf man kind as sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman
Shluf man kind, man treyst, may sheyner Shluf man zinonyu.
Shluf man kind, man kadish eyner Hayda-liu-lku
Shluf man kind, man kadish eyner Hayda-liu-lku-liu
In amerike der tate, dayner zinonyu.
Bist a kind nokh shluf lis-ate shluf zhe, shluf liu-liu
Bist a kind nokh shluf lis-ate shluf zhe, shluf liu-liu
From Emil Seculetz’s Yidishe folkslider, (Bucharest 1959), #21 and #22:
From Ruth Rubin’s Jewish Folksongs in Yiddish and English (Oak Publications, 1965):
Of di grine felder/Dos fertsnte yor / On the green fields/The Year 1914
This week we are presenting two performances of this song:
1) Sara Nomberg-Przytyk (recorded by Wolf Krakowski, Way’s Mills, Quebec, Canada, 1986):
2) Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman (BSG), Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (LSW) and Jonas Gottesman (recorded by Leybl Kahn, Bronx, 1954):
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman:
Though we have chosen to feature two versions of the song that begin “Of di grine felder, velder”, the song is also commonly known as “Dos 14te yor” with variants that begin with “Dos 14te yor is ongekumen, oy vey” (“The 14th Year Has Arrived”). Among the singers who have recorded versions of this song: Sidor Belarsky, Majer Bogdanski, Leibu Levin and more recently Michael Alpert, “Psoy and the Israelifts” and Lorin Sklamberg/ Susan McKeown.
Michael Alpert’s a capella version of the song can be heard here. Plus, below is a contemporary interpretation of the song by Psoy and the Israelifts titled “1914” found on YouTube:
In YIVO’s Ruth Rubin’s Archive there are field recordings by Martn Birnbaum, Chinke Asher and Hannah Rosenberg. In the volume Old Jewish Folk Music: The Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovsky (Mark Slobin, U. Pennsylvania Press, 1982; Syracuse University Press, 2000) there are 7 versions with melodies!
The song became very popular over a wide area of Eastern Europe during and after the first world war. So popular that it was recalled with amusement in a chapter in B. Kuczerer’s [קוטשער] Yiddish memoirs of Warsaw Geven a mol varshe, (Paris, 1955). He begins the chapter on the 1914 German occupation of Warsaw in this way:
“The 14th year has arrived – oy vey!
And soon it [the song] enveloped everyone and everything as if by magic… Day and night. Wherever you go, wherever you stand. In every street, in every courtyard, in every corner.
Who sang it loudly to arouse pity. Who sang it quietly, for oneself, to get it off your chest. And everywhere the same song. Everywhere the same melody, the same moan, the same tears.
‘The 14th year has arrived – oy vey!'” (p. 59)
But some versions of the song are about later years. In the Sofia Magid collection Unser Rebbe, unser Stalin, Basya Fayler sings about the “Dos akhtsnte yor” (“The18th year” p. 277 – 79). The linguist Prof. Moshe Taube remembers his father singing this song about “Dos 19te yor” referring to the Polish violence against Jews at that time (oral communication).
THE UKRAINIAN CONNECTION
This song can ultimately can be traced back to a Ukrainian song of the 1830s. In a review of a lecture by the Polish folklorist Jan Byston written by Max Weinreich, published in Yidishe filologye heft. 2/3, March-June, 1924, Weinreich refers to the first publication of this Yiddish song in the periodical Der Jude (n.1-2, April-May 1917 p. 123-124) in which the collector Anshl (Anselm) Kleynman remembers how in the trenches of 1914-1915 some Ukrainian soldiers sang their version, and Jewish soldiers heard it, translated it and it spread from there. In this lecture that Weinreich attended, Bystron pointed out that the song in Ukrainian was sung as far back as 1833.
Prof. Robert Rothstein found two versions of the Ukrainian song from 1834. He writes: “One stanza was found among Aleksander Pushkin’s papers, written on the back of a letter from Nikolai Gogol. Pushkin died in 1837.” He adds “It’s also known as Чорна рілля ізорана (Chorna rillia izorana – The Black Farm Field Has Been Dug Up). The reference is to the chornozem, the rich black soil of Ukraine.” [communication via email]
Inspired by the song, the Polish folk/death metal band Kryvoda uses a stark image of a crow on a dead soldier for their 2014 album entitled “Kruki”. Below you can hear their performance of Чорна рілля [“Chorna rillia”]:
The website “Yidlid.org” has written out a long version of the words in Yiddish, transliterated Yiddish, French and English and included the melody from Belarsky’s book
Longer versions can also be found in Shloyme Bastomski’s Yiddish folksong collection Baym kval pages 132-133 and Immanuel Olsvanger’s Rosinkess mit mandlen, 1920, pp. 259-261.
A note on the LSW/BSG version of “Oyf di grine felder, velder”: This is the only recording I have found which features my father, Jonas Gottesman (1914 – 1995), a physician born in Siret, Romania, singing along with Lifshe, his mother-in-law, and wife Beyle. He was a wonderful baritone singer and was the only one in the family who could harmonize, as can be heard on this recording.
Special thanks with help for this post to Wolf Krakowsky, Eliezer Niborski and Prof. Robert Rothstein.
TRANSLITERATION OF NOMBERG-PRZYTYK’s VERSION (Translation is on the video)
Of di grine felder un velder, oy vay, oy vay.
Of di grine felder un velder
ligt mit koyln badekt a zelner oy vay, oy vay
ligt mit koyln badekt a zelner oy vay, oy vay
Shvartse foygl kimen tsi flien oy vay, oy vay.
kumt tsu flien a shvartser foygl
un dlubet im oys di bayde oygn, oy vay, oy vay
dlubet im oys di bayde oygn, oy vay, oy vay.
Ver vet nukh im kadish zugn oy vay, oy vay
Ver vet nukh im kadish zugn?
Ver vet nukh im vaynen un klugn oy vay, oy vay
Ver vet nukh im vaynen un klugn oy vay, oy vay
Of di grine felder un velder, oy vay, oy vay.
Of di grine felder un velder
ligt mit koyln badekt a zelner oy vay, oy vay
ligt mit koyln badekt a zelner oy vay, oy vay
TRANSLITERATION and TRANSLATION OF LSW/BSG/JG VERSION
Of di grine, felder velder, vey, vey
Of di grine, felder velder,
ligt mit koyln badekt a zelner, vey, vey,
ligt mit koyln badekt a zelner, vey, vey.
On the green fields, woods, vey, vey!
On the green fields, woods
Lays covered with bullets a soldier, vey, vey
Lays covered with bullets a soldier, vey, vey
Kim tse flien shvartser foygl, vey, vey
kim tse flien shvartser foygl,
dzhibet oys bay im di oygn, oy vey.
dzhibet oys bay im di oygn, vey, vey.
Come fly here black bird, vey, vey
Come fly black bird
and peck his eyes out, vey, vey.
and peck his eyes out, vey, vey.
Sheyner foygl, shvartse vorone vey, vey
Sheyner foygl, shvartse vorona,
fli avek tsi mayn mame, vey vey,
fli avek tsi mayn mame, vey vey.
Black bird, black crow, vey, vey
Black bird, black crow
fly away to my mother, vey, vey.
fly away to my mother, vey, vey.
Zolst ir fin mayn toyt nisht zugn, vey, vey,
zolst ir fin mayn toyt nisht zugn,
anit vet zi nit oyfhern klugn vey, vey.
anit vet zi nit oyfhern klugn vey, vey.
Do not tell her of my death, vey vey
Do not tell her of my death
for she will cry and lament, vey, vey
for she will cry and lament, vey, vey.
Ver vet nukh mir veynen in klugn vey, vey
ver vet nukh mir veynen in klugn,
ver vet nukh mir kadish zugn? vey, vey.
ver vet nukh mir kadish zugn? vey, vey
Who will cry and lament for me? vey, vey
Who will cry and lament for me?
Who will say Kaddish for me? vey, vey.
Who will say Kaddish for me? vey, vey.
Nor dus ferdl, dus getraye, vey, vey
nur dus ferdl dus getraye
vet nukhgeyn nukh mayn levaye, vey, vey.
vet nukhgeyn nukh mayn levaye, vey, vey.
Only my faithful horse, vey, vey.
Only my faithful horse
Will follow at my funeral, vey, vey.
Will follow at my funeral, vey, vey.
Yiddish Song of the Week 