“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.

“Farmutshet in fintserer tfise” Performed by Leo Summergrad

Farmutshet in fintserer tfise / Exhausted In a Dark Jail
Sung by Leo Summergrad, recorded by Summergrad in 1959

Commentary by Itizk Gottesman

Upon hearing a previous post Es hot geshneyet un geregnt sung by Esther Gold, Yiddish singer, song lover and collector Leo Summergrad wrote to say that the melody is similar not only to In kampf by David Edelshtadt but also to the song Farmutshet in fintserer tfise. I asked him to send his recording of the song to the Yiddish Song of the Week.

Russian Prison, circa 1890

Farmutshet in fintserer tfise is a Yiddish translation of a popular Russian poem Замучен тяжелой неволей by Gregori Machtet (1852 – 1901). Here is a choral version of the original Russian song:

In Albert Bitter’s song collection Zing-A-Lid (NY, 1940, 1941) he has printed the words and melody and noted that it is a translation from Russian. In a Yiddish song collection of the 1890s Lieder Magazin (NYC)  it is already noted that the source of the music for Edelshtadt’s In kamf is the Russian song.

The Yiddish translator is “A. Kovner” which I assume to be a pseudonym.  In the on-line Ruth Rubin Legacy: Archive of Yiddish Folksongs at YIVO,  Naomi Feder sings the first two verses of Farmutshet in fintserer tfise. I could not find any studio recording of the song.

Leo Summergrad writes about this recording:

I probably learned the song in Mitl Shul, which was also before the war.  I don’t recall the when and how, but we put on plays honoring Naphtali Botwin and Hirsh Leckert.  Perhaps it was part of the plays.

As to the recordings:  I’ve had a love affair with Yiddish music since I was a very young child.  My mother and father both sang beautifully and did so all the time.  My uncle was the lead tenor in the Oscar Julius quartet.  A big regret is that I never recorded my parents when I had the opportunity.

In 1959 I bought a quality reel to reel tape recorder, which I still have, for the sole purpose of memorializing some of the songs I love.  Over a period of months, I did so.  On the recording I say, “These are a few of my favorites”.  I then record two hours of songs.  As technology improved, I converted the reels to cassettes and later to CDs.  פארמוטשעט אין פינסטערע טוויסעס appears on volume 1, under “Songs of Struggle”.

About the same time, I started collecting Yiddish recordings and song books.  I currently have about 700 recordings from 27 different countries and more than 60 books.  Information about the recordings and songs, of which there are about 2300, are in data bases that I developed.

Over the years, I have made about a dozen more recordings, many of which were of programs that a friend and I put on at various locations over a number of years.

Thanks this week to Leo Summergrad for sending us his stirring recording. 

TRANSCRIPTION

Farmutshet in fintserer tfise,
in kamf far der arbeter-makht.
Bagegnt dem toyt hostu heldish,
bist erlekh gefaln in shlakht.

Neyn, sine hot bloyz undz nor gevorgn,
getribn in shlakht hot undz mut.
Baym keyver mir hobn geshvoyrn
batsoln dem faynt far dayn blut.

Far undz iz nor eyn veg nor dayner,
vi du zayn in tfise farshmakht.
A lebn nor shtraykn nor kemfn,
un faln vi du far der zakh.

TRANSLATION

Exhausted in a dark prison,
in struggle for the workers’ power,
you met your death like a hero
and died honestly.

No, hatred has only strangled us.
Our courage drove us into battle.
At the grave we swore
to make the enemy pay for your blood.

For us there is only one way – yours,
As you, to be suffering in prison.
A life of only strikes and struggles,
and to die as you for the cause.

“Es hot geshneyet un geregnt” Performed by Esther Gold

Es hot geshneyet un geregnt (Dos borvese meydele)
It was Snowing and Raining (The Barefoot Girl)
text by Morris Rosenfeld, sung by Esther Gold
Recorded by Dr. Diane Gold in 1983 in Massachusetts

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

This week’s recording  was sent to me by Joe (Yosl) Kurland, Yiddish singer, songwriter, teacher  based in Western Massachusetts. It was recorded by the singer’s granddaughter Diane Gold so that Kurland could sing it at the bar-mitsve of her three sons.

As one can tell from this moving performance, the song meant a lot to Esther Gold since she had learned it from her father in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Esther Gold (1900 – 1984) was born in Bryansk, Russia (southwest of Moscow) and came to New York in 1906.

Esther Gold (center) with parents & brothers 

Kurland realized that she sang the song to the same melody as David Edelshtadt’s song In kamf (Mir zaynen gehast un getribn) and combined the two at the bar-mitsves.

The text is by the great “sweatshop poet” Morris Rosenfeld and can be found in Volume II of his Shriftn (Writings). We are attaching the poem from that 1912 publication where it is called Tsu a borvose meydl – To a Barefoot Girl.

The original poem has twelve verses, Esther Gold sings nine. I have transcribed the words as Gold sings them which are incredibly accurate compared to the original. On occasion I have put in brackets the original word or phrase as found in Rosenfeld’s poem if different. The singer forgets one line in verse eight and I have put the original text in its place.

Significantly, the order of the last three verses differs from Rosenfeld’s. She ends the poem with the verse that suggests the barefoot girl could become a prostitute. A very powerful ending indeed. But the poet placed that verse third from the end, and concludes with Gold’s verse seven in which he worries about his own child.

Esther Gold with her husband Isador (“Izzie”) and son H. Carl (“Chaim”) Gold (Carl is Diane Gold’s father).

Diane Gold writes about her grandmother, Esther Gold and about the song:

Our Grandma Esther was born in Bryansk (Russia), the daughter of Dina and Elhanan (Harris) Scheinin, and young sister to Eddie (Aaron) and Joe. I believe there was another sibling who died in childhood. Her grandmother came from Starodub and her grandfather came from Kriemenchuck (Kremenchuk, Ukraine). The birthdate she was given when they arrived at Ellis Island in 1906 was January 1, 1900. She died on December 28, 1984.

Harris, who was a fine tailor in Russia, came by ship to NYC in 1906, a little earlier in the year than Dina (a midwife) and the children. My father Carl, who grew up in the same household as his grandfather, remembers Harris as a gentle man with high principals who insisted that Carl never put his hands behind his back, as it was important not to be hiding things from people. Harris insisted on looking for fine tailoring work and according to the family was injured demonstrating against sweated labor and even against union leaders who were in league with the bosses. Not surprisingly he had trouble finding work, and this made for tensions and sadness in the family. He banned Esther from working in garment factories.

Esther learned the Borvese meydl song as a girl by his side at home, and I imagine him singing to her as he sewed and pressed clothing. The words of this song were real to him, I am certain. He worried about the fate of his children, and children who were even worse off than his immediate family. I am not surprised, given his politics and background that the version of the song he shared with Esther was put to the tune of In Kamf. 

The siblings worked as children and teenagers.  Dina berated Joe for selling newspapers and chewing gum, but took the money. As a teenager Esther, who must have been a gay flapper with a love of show tunes, got a job splicing film at Universal Studios in New York, where she met our grandfather Isador Gold, who was a photographer in Europe in WWI and did some of the first silent film newsreels. Living under the magnifying glass of the demanding and bewildered older generation, that marriage sadly fell apart and my dad grew up without a father, with his mom in his grandparents’ household. For a while Esther kept the books (and I think the accounts) for our great-uncle Joe, who eventually flourished financially in the New York cement business. Then, from when I was little, I remember Esther was a “salesgirl” in the girl’s department at B. Altman’s, living alone after her parents died in her rent controlled apartment at 110 Post Avenue. She only moved to be with us in Newington, Connecticut in the last years of her life, with no savings or pension after years of work, after she became blind. She was a petit determined intelligent loving grandma harboring memories damping her capacity for joy, which bubbled up when she talked about her girlfriends, when she dressed us in the finest clothes from Altman’s, when she kvelled at our accomplishments or when she sang.

Thanks to Joe (Yosl) Kurland, and Dr. Diane Gold and family.

TRANSLITERATION

1) Es hot dort geshneyt un geregnt
un geyendik shnel durkhn gas.
A meydele hob ikh bagegnt
halb naket un borves un nas.

2) Zi hot mit di nakete fislekh
gepatsht dem fargosenem bruk.
Un epes azoy vi fardrislekh
geshaynt hot ir kindisher kuk.

3) Kleyn meydele zog mir vu geystu?
Durkh regn, durkh shney un durkh kelt?
Zog mir mayn kind tsi farshteystu
vi iberik du bist oyf der velt?

4) Di velt velkhe lozt dir do zukhn
a lebn durkh elnt un leyd.
Un vil dayne fis nit bashukhn
nit haltn dayn guf in ayn [a] kleyd.

5) Zog, zaynen dir fremd di gefiln?
Tsi falt gor nit ayn der gedank,
ven du zolst zikh itstert farkiln
dan falstu avek un bist krank.

6) Ver vet dir damols kurirn?
Ver vet far dir epes ton?
Di velt velkhe lozt dir farfrirn,
Der Got velkher kukt [dir] nit on?

7) Derfar muz ikh veynen un klogn.
Es ken eykh zayn mit mayn kind
ven mir (mikh) zoln tsores dershlogn,
un ir zol farvarfn der vint.

8) Derfar muz ikh veynen un klogn.
Derfar heyb ikh uf a geshrey.
Derfar (nor, yo, volt ikh dikh kishn)
Tsu helfn tsu shtiln mayn (dayn) vey.

9) Dayn borveskeyt, kind, dayne trern
dayn geyn un nit visn a vu.
veys ikh, vos es ken vern
fun meydlekh, azelkhe vi du.

TRANSLATION

1) It was snowing and raining,
and while walking down the street,
I encountered a girl
half naked, barefoot and wet.

2) With her bare feet
she slapped the pavings stones.
And, in what looked like regret,
her childlike appearance shone.

3) Little girl, tell me where you’re going
in this rain, through the snow and cold
Tell me my child, do you understand
how superfluous you are in this world?

4) The world that lets you search here
for a lonely suffering life.
And does not want to shoe your feet
and not clothe your body in a dress.

5) Tell me, do you have these feelings
or does it not occur to you,
that if you were to catch cold here,
you’d be struck down and be sick.

6) Who would then heal you?
Who would do something for you?
The world that lets you freeze?
The God who does not even look at you?

7) Therefore I must cry and lament:
it could also happen to my child;
when sorrows would depress me,
and the wind would blow her far away.

8) Therefore I must weep and lament;
Therefore I raise up a cry.
Therefore, yes,  [I would kiss you ]
to help you quiet my [your] pain.

9) You being barefoot, child, your tears,
your wandering not knowing where;
I know what could become
of girls such as you.

Below is Tsu a borvose meydl – To a Barefoot Girl, from Shriftn (Writings), Vol. II, pp. 143-145 by Morris Rosenfeld (1912, New York):

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4273" src="https://yiddishsong.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/mrosenfeld3-e1540485244566.jpeg&quot; alt="mrosenfeld3" width="564" height="186" /