“Mayn tayer mimele” Performed by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman

Mayn tayer mimele / My Dear Auntie
Sung by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman [LSW], recorded by Leybl Kahn, NYC 1954.

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

This is a timely song for Elul (beginning August 11-12) since it is mentioned in the first line. Elul leads up to the high holidays and is a serious time of reflection. Mimele (Auntie), it is implied, takes advantage of this charity giving time to rake in some charity for herself.

After the recording of the song, in the brief dialogue with the interviewer Kahn, LSW says she heard it about 50 years ago (around the turn of the 20th century) from older women – her mother or her aunts. She adds that it is not a children’s song and not a theater song. “In our town we hadn’t yet heard about the theater.”

Lifshe Schaechter-Widman’s shtetl Zvinyetshke in the Bukovina

The Galician songwriter Nokhem Sternheim (1879 – 1942) wrote a popular song Mayn tayere Malkele which was recorded by Miriam Kressyn, the Klezmer Conservatory Band, Salomon Klezmorim, Jane Peppler and Noel Akchote. The story behind the Sternheim song is told in Norman Salsitz’s memoirs Three Homelands: Memoirs of Jewish Life in Poland, Israel and America.

The melody also is similar to Dos kishinever shtikele made famous by Moyshe Oysher and recorded by others. The first part of the melody was also played by klezmorim. Dave Tarras includes it in his medley called Kishinev on the CD Dave Tarras: Master of the Jewish Clarinet produced by the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.

But in terms of folksong, a version of the Tayer mimele entitled Tayer Yankele with a similar melody and storyline (Yankl is a thief) appears in Menachem Kipnis’ collection 70 folkslider, Warsaw, 1920. A scan of that is attached; evidence that Sternheim based his song on the earlier folksong.

TRANSLITERATION:

Ver fleyg geyn rosh-khoydesh Elul mit di pishkes?
Mayn tayer mimele.
Ver fleyg bam katsev ganvenen di kishkes?
Mayn tayer mimele.

Eyn mul hot zi der tate gekhapt.
Mayn tayer Mimele.
Oy hot er geshlugn, oy hot er geklapt!
Mayn tayer Mimele.

TRANSLATION:

Who used to go around the first day of Elul with a charity box (pushke)?
My dear auntie.
Who used to steal the cow’s intestines from the butcher?
My dear auntie.

Once her father caught her.
My dear auntie.
Oy did he beat her, oy did he hit her.
My dear auntie.


Tayer Yankele in Menachem Kipnis’ collection 70 folkslider, Warsaw, 1920:

“In Kiev in gas” Performed by Frima Braginski

In Kiev in gas  / In Kiev on the Street: A Pogrom Ballad
Sung by Frima Braginski
Recorded by Michael Lukin in Israel, 2013.

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

The first Kiev (Kyiv) pogrom happened on April 26^th, 1881, and to mark this event we feature the song In Kiev, in gas – In Kiev on the Street sung by Frima Braginski.  She was born in Teplyk (Yiddish – Teplik), Ukraine (Vinnytsia Oblast) in 1924. Braginski was recorded by the ethnomusicologist Michael Lukin in 2013 in Kiryat Gat, Israel.

The first Kiev pogrom took place in May 1881. A second larger pogrom occurred there on Oct. 18th 1905. The first printing of the song appeared in an early issue of Mitteillungen von Judischen Volkskunde in 1895. There it is printed with music and called Die Bettlerin. More versions were printed in the collection Evreiskiia narodnyia piesni v Rossii (Yiddish Folksongs of Russia) of 1901, edited by S.M. Ginzburg and P.M. Marek (#58 and #59). Therefore the song clearly refers to the first pogrom of 1881. At the end of the post, we are attaching the two versions that appear in the Ginzburg and Marek collection and in the Mitteillungen.

Another recorded version of this song – Dortn in gas is dokh finster un nas (There in the Street It’s Dark and Damp) by an anonymous singer can be heard on the CD The Historic Collection of Jewish Music 1912 – 1947 volume 3, produced by the Vernadsky Library in St. Petersburg.

In the Sofia Magid collection of Yiddish songs, Unser rebbe, unser Stalin, edited by Elvira Gorzinger and Susi Hudak-Kazic, Harrassowitz Farlag, Wiesbaden 2008, there are four additional variants – pages 330-332 with music and recordings that can be heard on the accompanying CD/DVD. Three more variations collected by Magid are on pages 568 – 580, texts only. In Shloyme Bastomski’s collection Baym kval: yidishe folkslider, 1923, Vilne, another version is found on page 86.

This pogrom song became a ganovim-lid entitled Dos ganeyvishe lebn (The Thief’s Life) and can be found in Shmuel Lehman’s collection Ganovim-lider (Warsaw, 1928), pages 25 – 27 with music. The original pogrom-song collected by Lehman can be found on 213-214 in the same volume. All of those pages are attached at the end.

Thanks to Michael Lukin who submitted the recording of Braginski and to Robert Rothstein and Michael Alpert for their linguistic assistance.

TRANSLITERATION

In Kiev, in gas s’iz fintser un nas.
Dort zitst a meydl a sheyne.
Zi zitst un bet, bay yedn vos farbay geyt.
“Shenkt a neduve a kleyne.”

“Oy di sheyn meydl, oy di fayn meydl.
Vos hostu aza troyerike mine?
Dayn sheyne figur un dayn eydele natur –
dir past gor zayn a grafine.”

“Kiever katsapes mit zeyere lapes,
zey hobn dos alts gemakht khorev.
Dos hoyz tsebrokhn, dem futer geshtokhn,
Di muter iz far shrek geshtorbn.

Un far groys tsorn, iz der bruder in kas gevorn
un hot a merder dershosn.
Kayn yid tor nisht lebn, kayn rakhe [German – rache] tsu nemen.
Me hot im in keytn fargosn.

Vi groys iz mayn shand, tsu shtrekn di hant
un betn bay laytn gelt.
Got derbarem, shtrek oys dayne orem
un nem mikh shoyn tsu fun der velt.”

TRANSLATION

In Kiev on the street, it’s dark and damp.
there sits a pretty girl.
She sits and begs from all who pass –
“Please give some alms”.

“O, you pretty girl,  O, you fine girl.
Why do have such a sad expression?
Your nice figure, your noble nature –
You could pass for a countess.”

“Those Kiev katsapes [see note below] and their paws
have wiped out everything.
My house was destroyed. My father stabbed.
From fright my mother died.

In great anger my brother became enraged
And shot one of the murderers.
No Jew is allowed to live who takes revenge,
They led him away in chains. [Literally: They poured chains on him]

How great is my shame to stretch out my hand
And beg money from people.
O God have mercy stretch out your arm
And take me away from this world.”

*Found in almost all the variants is the rhyme “Kiever katsapes” (katsapes = a Ukrainian derogatory term for a Russian) and “lapes” (paws).

From Evreiskiia narodnyia piesni v Rossii [Yiddish Folksongs of Russia] of 1901, edited by S.M. Ginzburg and P.M. Marek (#58 & #59):

Shmuel Lehman’s collection Ganovim-lider (Warsaw, 1928), pages 25 – 27, 213-214:

“Mentshn getraye: a matse-podriad lid” Performed by Jacob Gorelik

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

This year’s Passover is now complete, so please save this song for next year’s festival!

Mentshn getraye: a matse-podriad lid is the second matse-baking song we have posted on Yiddish Song of the Week. The first was “Mir nemen veytslekh”, sung by Dora Libson.  Mentshn getraye was recorded from Jacob Gorelik by Michael Alpert and me in New York City in 1984, and Alpert later recorded his own performance of the song on the Lori Cahan-Simon Ensemble’s CD Songs My Bubbe Should Have Taught Me: Volume One: Passover.

Pre-war matse baking [from the Yad-Vasham Photo Archives]

In this posting we present original field recording of that song. The tradition of Matse-podriad continues in religious Jewish circles today and one can see samples of it on the internet. The spirit has remained jovial, often musical, over the years. Here is a current example with the Mishkoltz Rebbe:

Jacob Gorelik introduces the song with these words:  “…the second song I heard in my town. My mother and other mothers sang it. It was called the “Matse-podriad-lid”.  In town there was a custom, that once a year when Passover came, money was collected especially for poor people who could not buy matse, could not buy wine. Help! No way to celebrate Passover. It [custom] was called moes-khitin. That was one thing.

The second thing was – the matse was the primary thing. So the whole town got together and there was complete unity – the orthodox, the “modern” ones, the Zionists,  Bundists, socialists. They used to rent a house with an oven, and buy wood, buy flour and hire people to bake the matse. And this was called a community “matea bakery” by the entire Jewish community.

And as someone once asked – when you sing, or you do something good – do you do it for youself or for the other person? It was a combination. One had it mind that you were doing it for the poor. You were baking matse for them. But at the same time, at that time it was a joy in town becasue it was  a boring life.  It was also an opportunity for girls and boys to get together. And we used to sing and this is one of those songs that were sung. Who composed the song…This song is light verse. It’s not ‘pure’ poetry; but it’s humorously colored. According to what Mendel Elkin once told me the writer was Tunkel – or “The Tunkeler” [The dark one] his pseudonym.

The melody, I learned later when I was living in America, comes from a Ukrainian song “Nutshe Khloptse”. And now the song:

Mentshn getraye, farnumene un fraye,
Bay vemen es iz nor tsayt faran.
Git aher ayer pratse, un helft bakn matse,
dem noyt-baderftikn man.

Hentelekh ir kleyne, eydele un sheyne,
bikhelekh nor trogn ir kent.
Pruvt nor visn, eyn mol in Nisan
dem tam fun mazolyes af di hent.

Ir gvirishe meydlekh, helft kneytn teyglekh
mit ayere vaysinke hent.
Teygelekh geknotn vi Got hot gebotn,
Kosher un erlekh un fayn.

Spoken: A freylekhn Peysekh! Flegt men zogn  alemen.

TRANSLATION

Dear people, those who are busy, and those who are free.
Whoever has some time to spare.
Donate your labor to help bake matse
for the man in need.

Little hands, delicate and beautiful,
who only could carry books.
Get to know at least once during the month of Nisan,
the taste of calluses on your hands.

You well-off girls, help knead the dough
with your white hands.
Flour all kneaded, as God has commanded,
Kosher, and honest and fine

Spoken: “Happy Passover!” Is what we wished everyone.

Though Gorelick was from Byelorussia, the song text is also found in the writings of Galician writer Soma Morgenstern, who quotes it in his book “The Third Pillar” (1955), page 59, translated from the German [see below]. I have yet to find this poem in Der Tunkeler’s writings.