“S’hot mit indz geleybt a khaver” Performed by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman

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

ס’האָט מיט אונדז געלעבט אַ חבֿר
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ
ס’איז געווען אַ יאַט אַ בראַווער
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ

ער פֿלעגט קוקן אויף די שטערן
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ
אַ קאָלווירט זאָל בײַ אונדז ווערן
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ

פֿון די וועלדער אָנגעקומען 
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ
.האָט ער אונדז צונויפֿגענומען
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ

לאָמיר טרינקען אַ לחיים
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ
.פֿאַר דעם לעבן, פֿאַר דעם נײַעם
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ

פֿאַר דער אָקטאָבער־רעוואָלוציע
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ
.און פֿאַר סטאַלינס קאָנסטיטוציע
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ

פֿאַר די קינדער, [פֿאַר] די זקנים
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ
.און פֿאַר אַלעמען אין איינעם
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ

זאָל דער ערשטער כּוס זיך כוואַליען
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ
פֿאַר אונדזער ליבן חבֿר ____
[ביילע שפּײַט אויס און זאָגט ‘מח־שמו’]
…סטאַלין
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ

פֿאַר דער אָקטאָבער־רעוואָלוציע
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ
.און פֿאַר סטאַלינס קאָנסטיטוציע
אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ־אײַ

COMMENTARY BY ITZIK GOTTESMAN

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. 

“A kheyder” from Simkhe Shvartz’s Kamelyon Theater Performed by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman

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. 

[4 pupils reply]
“Rebe, ikh veys nisht”
¨Ikh veys gurnisht rebe.”  
“Rebe, ikh oykh nisht.”  
“Ikh veys oykh nisht rebe”

“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

Singer/composer Efim Chorney has set music to Yiddish poet Meir Charat’s song “Tsigele-migele” and it can be found on the Klezmer Alliance CD Mir Basaraber.

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”.

Special thanks this week to Eliezer Niborski.

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• 

• 

“Bay indz azoy fil kodres grine”, a Doina Performed by Anna Esther Steinbaum

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  

The Yiddish reworking of the song was done, according to Steinbaum, by the Romanian Yiddish writer Herts Rivkin, the author of the song “Nakhtishe lider” previously posted on the Yiddish Song of the Week. 

Here is a link to the longer original poem by Goga recited in Romanian with an English translation. 

Bay indz azoy fil kodres grine 

A Romanian poem by Octavian Goga, adapted in Yiddish by Hertz Rivkin. 

Bay indz azoy fil kodres grine [kodres=codri ]וועלדער 
velder fil mit korn. 
Bay undz azoy fil blumen, lider,
in shtiblekh fil mit tsorn. 

We have so mayn green woods,
forests full of rye.
We have so many flowers, songs,
in homes that are full of rage.

Kimen feygelekh fin vaytn
indzer doina hern. 
Bay indz azoy fil shmeterlingen
in taykhn trern, trern.

Birds come to us from afar
to hear our doina.
We have so many butterflies
in rivers of tears, tears.

Umet flist in shtiln muresh [Murăşul = Romanian river]
troyer rint in ovnt.
Es dertseylt fin indzer benkshaft
yeyder boym in vald.

Sadness flows quietly into the Murasul river;
Sadness runs in the evening.
Our longing is told by
every tree in the forest.

Zitsn mames gantse nekht,
shpinen layvnt, veybn. 
Tates, mames in oykh zin 
baveynen dus zeyer leybn.

Mothers stay up all night
spinning linen, weaving. 
Fathers, mother and sons too
lament their lives. 

Benkt zikh indz azoy nukh freyd.
Der vald iz undzer eydes.
Oysgevaremt hot di benkshaft
zeydes, elter-zeydes.

We yearn so for joy;
the woods are our witness.
This yearing was hatched 
by our grandfathers and their fathers. 

Un biz haynt iz ot der khulem
mekiyem nisht gevorn:
felder oysgebet mit veyts
shtiblekh fil mit tsorn. 

And till today this dream has
not been realized:
fields covered with wheat,
homes full of rage.

בײַ אונדז אַזוי פֿיל קאָדרעס גרינע
אַ רומעניש ליד פֿון אָקטאַוויאַן גאָגאַ
באַאַרבעט אויף ייִדיש פֿון הערץ ריווקין
געזונגען פֿון אַנאַ אסתּר שטיינבאַום

,בײַ אונדז אַזוי פֿיל קאָדרעס גרינע
.וועלדער פֿיל מיט קאָרן
,בײַי אונדז אַזוי פֿיל בלומען, לידער
.אין שטיבלעך פֿיל מיט צאָרן

זיצן מאַמעס גאנצע נעכט
.שפּינען לײַוונט, וועבן
טאַטעס, מאַמעס און אויך זין
.באַוויינען דאָס זייער לעבן

קומען פֿייגעלעך פֿון ווײַטן
.אונדזער דוינע הערן
בײַ אונדז אַזוי פֿיל שמעטערלינגען
.אין טײַכן טרערן, טרערן

אומעט פֿליסט אין שטילן מורעש
טרויער רינט אין אָוונט
עס דערציילט פֿון אונדזער בענקשאַפֿט
יעדער בוים אין וואַלד

.בענקט זיך אונדז אַזוי נאָך פֿרייד
.דער וואַלד איז אונדזער עדות
אויסגעוואַרעמט האָט די בענקשאפֿט
.זיידעס, עלטער־זיידעס

און ביז הײַנט איז אָט דער חלום 
.מקוים נישט געוואָרן
,פֿעלדער, אויסגעבעט מיט ווייץ
.שטיבלעך פֿול מיט צאָרן

“Shluf mayn kind, mayn treyst” Performed by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman

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):

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“Lozt Mikh Arayn!” Performed by Clara Crasner

Lozt Mikh Arayn! / Let Me In!
A street cry: a plea for a job, sung by Clara Crasner, recorded by Robert Freedman, Philadelphia, 1972.

 TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION

Lozt mikh arayn! Ikh vel aykh nitslekh zayn.
Feyikaytn tsin altsding
Tsim lernen a moyekh un tse dem arbetn a koyekh.
Un tse dem handlen:  a gants fayner ying!

Let me in! I can be of use to you.
I am capable of all things:
To teach a mind, To use my strength for work.
As for business/commerce, I’m a fine young man. 

לאָזט מיך אַרײַן, איך וועל אײַך ניצלעך זײַן
פֿעיִקייטן צון אַלצדינג
צום לערנען אַ מוח און צו דעם אַרבעטן אַ כּוח
און צו דעם האַנדלען: אַ גאַנץ פֿײַנער יונג. 

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

This is the fourth song we have posted by Clara Crasner. See the earlier posts for biographical details of her life.

In the discussion with Bob Freedman after she sings, Crasner suggests that such a song would be performed by someone to be allowed into a courtyard. For other street cries in Yiddish see under “genre” in YIVO’s Ruth Rubin Archive.

Photo by Roman Vishniac

Those interested in this genre can also read M. Gromb’s article “Gasn un hoyf-reklame” (street and courtyard cries) in volume three of YIVO’s “Filologishe shriftn” 1929 (pp. 283 – 296) to see many examples of Warsaw street cries (just texts).

The melody of “Lozt mikh arayn” is close to Avrom Goldfaden’s song “Faryomert, farklogt” from his play “Doktor Almasada” (1880s) about Jewish persecution and wandering. How appropriate for this peripatetic young man searching for work.  Here is a performance of “Faryomert, farklogt” by Richard Tucker. 

The only Yiddish street cry that I have heard was on the streets of Israel, when an Arab junk dealer was passing through the streets with his horse and wagon yelling in Yiddish “Alti zakhi” (“Alte zakhn” = old things). 

My mother remembered that in Chernovitz the junk dealer yelled “Handeles!” (accent on the first syllable) – a contraction of “Handl alles!”= “I deal with everything.” I have also seen a list of local street cries in at least one Yiddish yizkor bukh (many landsmanshaftn– Jewish immigrant societies– wrote and published yizkor books to remember and memorialize their hometowns).

¨Me geyt shoyn tsi der khipe” Performed by Lifshe Schaechter Widman

Me geyt shoyn tsi der khipe / They’re Already Walking to the Khupe!
Sung by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded by Leybl Kahn 1954 NYC.

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

Though Lifshe Schaechter Widman (LSW) introduces the song by saying it used to be sung on the way to the khupe (wedding canopy), it is a song mocking the wedding, not a part of the ceremony by any means.

Image of a Wedding Procession by Isaak Ashknaziy, 1893

The melody to this song was probably inspired by the klezmer tune known as the “Odesser Bulgar” found in Kammen collection “Dance Folio No.1 #18. (Thanks to Michael Alpert for pointing this out). Here is a link to the Alexandria Kleztet from the D.C. area and their version of the Odesser Bulgar:

In addition to LSW’s, two other texts to this song can be found in the Shmuel Zanvel Pipe song collection Folklore Research Centre Studies, Volume 2, Jerusalem, 1971, (edited by Meir and Dov Noy). They have been scanned and attached. The first version is in the body of the text and includes the melody. The second is in the end notes and includes different words and a second section of the melody as Meir Noy, also a Galitsyaner from Kolomyia (Yid = Kolomey) remembered it. LSW’s melody also has a second section or the begining of one.

The image of the fiddle “speaking” at the wedding (in essence warning the young couple) reminds one of the Itzik Manger poem “Der badkhn”, music by Henekh Kon.

Nor vos zogt der fidl, zog fidele zog!
¨Di sheynkayt iz sheyn, nor sheynkeyt fargeyt.¨
Azoy zogt der fidl un vos zogt di fleyt?

What does the fiddle say, tell us fiddle!”
“Beauty is nice, but beauty fades.”
So says the fiddle and what says the flute?

The only word in LSW’s version that is still not clear is “sekl” or “seke”; a word not found in the Yiddish dictionaries but “seke” does also appear in the second version in the notes of the Pipe collection. Michael Alpert suggests it could be a klezmer term for the sekund; the rhythmic and harmonic fiddle in klezmer music.

The word “opgeklogt”, pronounced by LSW as “u’geklugt” is open to interpretation, but I believe she means “good riddance, the parents have suffered enough”. In Pipe’s versions the line is “A yingl hot a meydl ongeklogt” which has a completely different meaning, but also open to interpretation.

Special thanks for helping with the blog post this week: Eliezer Niborski who transcribed LSW’s version, Michael Alpert, Josh Waletzky, Mark Slobin, Pete Rushefsky.

TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION

LSW speaks: “A lid vus me fleyg zingen az me geyt tsi der khipe in Galitsye, in Bukovina.”
A song that used to be sung on the way to the khupe [marriage canopy] in Galicia and Bukovina.

[Un] Me geyt shoyn tsi der khipe, me geyt!
Me trasket un me fliasket, s’iz a freyd!
Herts nor vus der fidl zugt:
“A bukher mit a moyd u’geklugt” [opgeklugt]

[And] They’s already walking to the khupe!
People are banging and celebrating, what a joy!
Listen to what the fiddle says:
“Good riddance to the bride and groom”

Un dort der bas mit der sekl (seke?):
Niech będzie na długo i na wieki’ [Polish]

And there the bass and the sekund (fiddle)
[Polish]: May it be for long and forever.

Un aykh makhuteyniste – git-morgn!
Ir hot shoyn frishe zorgn:
Me bayt di rayneshlekh af kronen.
Me zikht a voynung vi tse voynen.

And you my mother-in-law – good morning!
You have fresh worries:
You have to exchange the Rhenish for Kronen [currency]
and find a place to live.

REPEAT FIRST VERSE

Instrumental klezmer version of the melody  found in J. & J. Kammenś collection Dance Folio No.1, #18:

Version found in Shmuel Zanvel Pipeś song collection Folklore Research Centre Studies, Volme 2, Jerusalem, 1971, (edited by Meir and Dov Noy):

“Dos borvese meydl” Performed by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman

Dos borvese meydl / The Barefoot Girl
Text by Morris Rosenfeld (1862-1923), music by Morris Rosenfeld?
Sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman [BSG], recorded by Itzik Gottesman, 1980s, Bronx

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

This is another melody to Morris Rosenfeld’s poem “Tsu a borvese meydele” written in the late 1890s or early 1900s. In a previous post we heard Esther Gold sing the same song with some different verses to the melody of David Edelshtadt’s song “In kamf (Mir zaynen gehast un getribn)”. I have heard at least one other melody to the song but could not record it at the time.

Morris Rosenfeld

When there is only one known melody to a Rosenfeld song I am inclined to credit him as composer since he did copyright the music to at least one of his famous songs ‘Mayn rue plats”, and we know that when he lectured he also sang. In a video interview on the Yiddish Book Center’s website with the Yiddish poet Hinde Zaretsky, she recalled seeing the poet Rosenfeld in Claremont Park in the Bronx, then almost blind, singing his songs.

Since there are at least three melodies to the song, I have left a question mark after listing the composer.

The singer BSG sings two last verses. The first she learned at home, the other she learned in Jewish school in Chernovitz. BSG changes very few words from the original Rosenfeld text. In these cases I put the original words in brackets.  One important change: Rosenfeld writes “Der Got, velkher kukt dikh nit on?” (The God who ignores you) but BSG sings “The street that ignores you”.

BSG sings this song on her CD Bay mayn mames shtibele with Lorin Sklamberg’s accordion accompaniment. Images of the original Rosenfeld poem in Yiddish are attached at the end of the post.

TRANSLITERATION

Es hot i geshneyt, i geregnt
In geyendik shnel durkhn gas.
A meydele hob ikh bageygnt
halb naket in burvus in nas.

Zi hot mit ire burvese fislekh
gepatsht deym fargosenem brik
in epes azoy vi fardrislekh
geshant hot ir kinderisher blik.

O, zug mir, kleyn meydele, vihin geysti
durkh reygn, durkh vint un durkh kelt?
O, zug mir, man kind, khotsh farshteysti
vi iberik di bist of der velt?

Di velt vus zi lozt dikh du zikhn
a leybn fun elnt in noyt.[leyd]
Vus vil dane fis nisht bashikhn
Nisht hiln dan gif in a kleyd.

O zug, zenen dir fremd di gefiln
dir falt gur nisht an der gedank.
Az ven di zolst dekh itst du farkiln
Dan falsti avek in verst krank?

O, ver vet dir demolt kurirn?
ver vet far dir epes tin?
Di velt vus zi lozt dekh du frirn
Di gas vus zi kikt dekh nisht un?
[Der Got, velkher kikt dikh nisht on?]

Vi vat ikh farshtey iz mistame
fin lang shoyn un nisht nor fin hant
di nakete gas dan mame
di shteyner fin ir dane frand

Derfar miz ikh veynen in klugn.
Derfar heyb ikh of a geshrey
ven mekh zoln tsuris dershlugn
vus vert fin man kind? oy vey!

Alternate last verse:

Derfar miz ikh veynen in klugn
O dos ken nokh zan mit man kind.
ven mikh zoln tsuris dershlugn
un im zol farvarfn der vint.

TRANSLATION

It was both raining and snowing,
and while walking in the street
I met a girl
half naked and barefoot and wet.

With her barefeet
she slapped the soaked cobblestones
and it in almost irritated way
her childish glance beamed.

O, tell me, little girl, where are you going
through the rain, wind and cold?
O, tell me, my child, do you at least understand
How superfluous you are in this world?

The world that lets you search here
a lonely life in poverty.
That does not want to shoe your feet,
nor cover you body with clothing.

O, tell me, are you not aware of these feelings;
It hasn’t even crossed your mind,
that if you were here to catch cold
then you would be stricken down sick?

O, who would then cure you?
who would do something for you?
The world that lets you freeze?
The street that does not give you a second look?

As I understand it, it probably
has been for long, and not just today,
that the bare street is your mother
the cobblestones are your friend.

And so I must weep and lament,
and so I must raise a cry:
If troubles were to strike me
what would happen to my child? Oy, vey!

Alternate last verse:

And so I must weep and lament,
O, this could yet happen to my child,
if troubles were to strike me
and the wind would carry him off.

“Mentshn shteyt oyf gants fri” Performed by Avi Fuhrman

Mentshn shteyt oyf gants fri / People, Wake Up Early
A version of  “Der gevisser may” by Yitskhok-Yoel Linetski
Sung by Avi Fuhrman, recorded by Itzik Gottesman at Circle Lodge camp, 1984

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

Yiddish songs written about May in the 1890s and 1900s, were, of course, related to May 1st and the worker’s movement. But Yitskhok-Yoel Linetski published this in 1869 in his collection Der beyzer marshelik, before May 1 acquired its social significance. So it’s a song about “the merry month of May”. Here is a version recorded I recorded from Avi Fuhrman at the Circle Lodge camp in Upstate New York in 1984.

Avi Fuhrman at Circle Lodge (photo by Itzik Gottesman)

This is now the third Linetski song on the blog: “Di mode” (sung by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman) and “Der shpigl mitn zeyger” (also sung by Furhman) were previously posted. The original song entitled “Der geviser may” [The well-known May] has thirteen verses plus the refrain. Furhman’s version includes verses one, five and nine and the refrain.

In the Ruth Rubin Archive singer Sam Gold from Lipkan, Bessarabia, sings a similar version: “Shteyt nor oyf mentshn gants fri“.  His third verse is verse eleven in Linetski’s text. The link to that version can be heard here. 

TRANSLITERATION

Mentshn shteyt oyf gants fri.
Dervakht fun ayer geleyger.
Hert di sheyne harmoni
fun dem natirlekhn zeyger.
Vi di beymelekh royshn un feygelekh zingen.
Melodis zingen feygelekh alerley.
Heysheriklekh tantsn un shpringen
Un tsim takt iz du der solovey.

[REFRAIN]:
Mentshn makht aykh fray.
git iber ayere gedanken gur.
Tsu deym may, deym zisn may
di kroyn fun der heyliker natur

Batrakh nor, ikh beyt aykh, dem altn boym
Er iz naket un a blat.
Der may nemt im shoyn di mus
Un tit im un a grinem khalat.
Batrakht nor atsinder dem altn shturmak
er hot dokh shoyn gur an ander punem.
Er bakimt shoyn oykh a bisl farb in der bak
Un shtipt zikh shoyn tvishn ale makhetunim.

[REFRAIN]

Leygt avek damen, mamzeln
fargenign fun zilber un gold.
Treyt nor ariber di shveln
in shpatsirt af der shtut bizn tifn vald.
Batrakht nor di royz, zi trugt kayn briliantn nit.
Shener iz zi, akh’ lebn, [vi] a sakh fun aykh.
Zi trugt nisht keyn perln un dimantn
un komplimentn hot zi mer fun aykh.

[REFRAIN]

TRANSLATION

People, arise real early.
Awaken from your beds.
Listen to the beautiful harmony
from the clock of nature,
how the trees rustle and birds sing.
The birds sing all kinds of melodies.
Crickets dance and jump
and in rhythm is the nightingale. 

[REFRAIN]:
People make yourselves free.
Give over all of your thoughts
to May, the sweet May,
the crown of the holy nature. 

Consider, I ask you, the old tree.
He is naked, not a leaf.
May takes his measurements
And dresses him in a new robe.
Consider now that old dotard.
He has a completely different appearance.
He is getting a little color in his cheek.
And pushes his way through among the in-laws.

[REFRAIN]

Put away, ladies and misses,
your pleasure of silver and gold.
Step over the doorsteps
and take a walk through the city to the deep woods.
Consider the rose: it wears no diamonds.
It is more beautiful, I swear, than many of you.
It wears no pearls, no diamonds.
Yet she gets more complements than you.

[REFRAIN]

Below: Linetski’s original text “Geviser may” in Beyzer Marshelik (1869):

“Ven di zun iz mir fargangen” Performed by Avi Fuhrman

Ven di zun iz mir fargangen / When the sun has set
A Chanukah Song sung by Avi Fuhrman
Recorded at Circle Lodge, NY, 1984 by Itzik Gottesman

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

Avi Fuhrman (aka Avrom, Avraham, Abraham) learned this Chanukah song from his father in the 1930s in Chernovitz (then Romania, today – Ukraine). We have yet not been able to identify the writer or composer.

Avi Fuhrman

“Maoz tsur” is usually translated as “Rock of Ages” but literally – “Stronghold of Rock”. The rock is usually interpreted as God.  

In Fuhrman’s native Bukovina Yiddish dialect “maoz tsur” is pronounced “muez tsir”. But in this performance Fuhrman sings “Muez tsur” which does not rhyme with the intended rhyming words: “shir” “mir” “frier”.

Special thanks this week to Eliezer Niborski who helped with the transcription. 

TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION

Ven di zin iz mir fargangen,
kalt in fintster iz di nakht.
Un di shterndlekh fun deym himl
hobn zeyere eygelekh farmakht.

When the sun has set for me,
cold and dark is the night
And the stars of sky
have closed their eyes.

Ikh ken keyn veyg shoyn nit gefinen.
Ikh blondzhe, blondzhe un a shir.
Hob ikh mir a lekhtele ungetsindn,
dos lekhtele heyst dokh muez tsur.

I cannot find any path;
I wander, lost without stop.
So I lit a candle
and the candle is called maoz tsur. 

Un ikh lern mir bay dem lekhtele
bleter groyse, mit oysyes fil.
Un dervarem mir derbay dem kerper,
vayl es vert mir shreklekh kil.

And I study at my candle
large pages full of letters.
And it warms my body,
because I feel so terribly cool.

Bald farges ikh mayne tsores
vos ikh trug arim oyf mir.
Un ikh zing mir in mayn goles,
zey, vus shvaygstu muez tsur?

Soon I forget my troubles
that I carry around with me.
And I sing in my exile:
See, why silent maoz tsur?

Grekn zenen mir bafaln,
mit zeyere tume hent.
Farumreynikt undzer templ
undzer leybn hobn zey geshendt.

Greeks attacked me
with their polluting hands.
They made filthy our Temple;
our life they defiled.

Zey hobn toyte shtume gotn
ahin arayngeshtelt tsu mir.
Ikh hob far veytik oysgeshrign:
“Zey, vos shvaygstu muez tsur?”

They placed dead, silent gods
in there for me.
From pain I shouted out:
Look! Why are you silent maoz tsur. 

Der barimter Makabeyer
Khashmonoyim mit zayne zin.

[Fuhrman speaks – “Vayter gedenk ikh nisht di verter”]

The famous Maccabee
of the Hasmoneum, and his sons.

Zey hobn dem soyne bald fartribn,
dem templ reyn gemakht vi frier.
Ikh hob far freyd oysgeshrien,
Zey, vos shvaygstu muez tsur?

They drove the enemies away.
The Temple they restored.
For joy I shouted out:
See, why are you silent maoz tsur?

Fuhrman: [spoken] Vus se feylt darfsti aleyn zikhn.

Whatever is missing, you have to find yourself.

“Der shpigl mitn zeyger” Performed by Avi Fuhrman

Der shpigl mitn  zeyger / The Mirror and the Clock
Sung by Avi Fuhrman
Recorded by Itzik Gottesman, at Circle Lodge Camp, NY, Summer 1984.

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman.

The text to this song was written by the classic 19^th century Yiddish writer and satirist Yoel Linetski (1839 -1915) and can be found in his poetry collection Der beyzer marshelik (The Cruel Jester), 1869. The original has 12 verses, a dialogue between a mirror and a clock (scans are attached). Fuhrman remembers only one verse plus the “tra-la-la” refrain but thanks to him, as far as I know, we now have the melody.

Title page of Linetski’s Der beyzer marshelik (1869)

We have previously posted another of Linetski’s songs “Di mode”.  Yet another of his songs “Dos redele iz di gore velt” can be heard on Ruth Rubin’s fieldwork album Jewish Life: The Old Country (Smithsonian Folkways) and more recently on Jake Shulman-Ment’s recording A redele (Oriente Musik, 2015) sung by Benjy Fox-Rosen.

The text to the song (nine verses) also appears in the Yiddish song collection Der badkhn (“The Wedding Jester”, Warsaw, 1929) by Eliezer Bergman and we have attached those scanned pages. The version there is closer to Fuhrman’s and like his, and unlike the original, begins with the mirror speaking, not the clock.

The dialogue centers on the vain snobbishness of the mirror; an object that at that time was found in only the homes of wealthy families, as opposed to the clock who served all classes.

Avi (Avrom) Fuhrman was born in Chernovitz, then Romania, in 1922.  He says that all of his songs were learned from his father who often sang. Fuhrman was active in Yiddish theater in Chernovitz from a very young age.

Both parents had tailoring workshops where singing was often heard. Fuhrman was a fine singer at a young age and was a soloist with Cantor Pinye Spector (Pinye Khazn) of the Boyaner Hasidim in Chernovitz.  He attended an ORT school.  During the war he was in Baku in Azerbaijan and participated in the Yiddish theater there , particularly in the “Kharkover Ensemble”. He returned to Romania, then Poland then Salzburg, Austria.  He and his wife and in-laws were on an (illegal) aliya to Israel but the path forced them to hike over a mountain and his in-laws could not manage it so they eventually came to the US in 1951.

The last line of this verse is a pun since “shpiglen zikh” can mean both “to see oneself in the mirror” as well as “delight in”

TRANSLITERATION

Batrakht nor dayn vert di narisher zeyger
Mit deym khitrerer mine firsti deym shteyger.
Di shrayst un du klopst un beyts dikh bay laytn.
Me varft dikh, me shmitst dikh in ale zaytn.
Vi shteyt mir gur un tsi reydn mit dir?
Aza nogid vi ikh bin, az me shpiglt zikh in mir.
Tra-la-la-la…..

TRANSLATION

Consider your worth you foolish clock,
With a sleazy face you lead your way of life.
You yell and you beat and plead with people.
You get thrown, beaten in all sides.
It’s beneath my dignity to talk to you.
Such a wealthy one as I whom all delight in me.
Tra-la-la-la

From Yoel Linetski’s Der beyzer marshelik, 1869: