The Yiddish Mate Tea Song / דאָס ייִדישע מאַטע־טייליד Sung by Clara Bitman, recorded by Itzik Gottesman 1980s.
Clara Bitman learned this song in the 1950s in the Zhitlovsky-shul in Buenos-Aires; a school that was part of the leftist Yidishe kultur-farband organization in Argentina. She sang it at a Yugntruf “shraybkrayz” [writing circle] in NYC in the 1980s. Thanks this week to Janina Wurbs and Emily Socolov.
The Yiddish Mate Tea Song
Mume Zlate trinkt a mate un farbayst a kikhl. Nokh a mate gist on Zlate farn feter Mikhl.
Aunt Zlate drinks mate and snacks on a cookie. Another mate Zlate pours for her uncle Mikhl.
Feter Mikhl neyt a shikhl mit der rekhter hant. Mit der linker, mate trinkt er, trinken zey banand.
Uncle Mikhl sews a shoe with his right hand. WIth his left he drinks mate. So all three drink together.
Kumt fun shul der kleyner Shmulik, hungerik farbayst. Gist im Zlate on a mate; trinken ale dray.
Little Shmulik comes home from school hungry, so he snacks. Zlate pours for him a mate, So all three drink.
Fun a tetsl nasht dos ketsl milekh mitn hintl. Do a lek, do a shmek sara lib gezindl.
The kitten snacks from a saucer some milk with the puppy. Here a lick, there a whiff – what a loving family.
Kinderland, du tsoyberland / Kinderland, You Magical Land A Yiddish summer camp hymn Music: Albert Bitter, Words: M.A. Suhl (Yuri Suhl, 1908 – 1986) Sung & Recorded by Gerry Tenney, May 2021
Gerry Tenney
(Spoken) Eyns, tsvey, dray, fir One, two, three, four
Kinderland, du tsoyberland. Kinderland, you magical land Unter himlen fraye. Under the open skies Mir kumen zikh do opruen, We come here to rest, Shtarkn un banayen. To be strengthened and renewed. Oy, kinder, kinder, kinderland. Oy, children, children, children –land Far kinder a gan-eydn For children it’s a paradise. Mir shpiln zikh, mir lernen zikh. We play, we learn Mir lebn do in freydn. We live here peacefully Oy, kinder, kinder, kinderland Oy, children, children, children-land Far kinder a gan-eydn For children, it’s a paradise. Mir shpil zikh, mir lernen zikh. We play, we learn. Mir lebn do in freydn. We live here peacefully
There is second verse to this song, which according to Tenney was rarely sung.
Mit zun un feld un fraye nakht. With sun and field and free nights Du bist undz azoy tayer You are so dear to us. Freylekh munter zingt dos lid Happy, boldy sing this song, An arbets lid a nayer a labor song, a new one.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
Camp Kinderland is a summer camp, today in Tolland, Massachusets. It was founded in 1923 in New York by leftist unions. Several generations of Jewish children from NY and surrounding regions were raised there with a love for Yiddish song and culture. Kinderland has evolved since then and here is the current link to the camp.
A link to the songbook of Kinderland, 1954, which includes the Yiddish and English transcription of this and many other songs can be found here. We hope to present more recordings from this songbook.
Gerry Tenney is a leading figure in the Yiddish cultural world in the Bay area. He writes about himself:
I was born in a Yinglish speaking family in the Bronx. Yiddishwas all around me as we lived in the same building as mybubi and zeydi. Although I was not raised in linke krayzn [leftist circles], Ifound my way there in the late fifties and early sixties. Igraduated from the Hekherer Kursn [high school level] and taught in theelementar shuln in Queens. From 1963 -1968 I was acounsellor and group leader at Camp Kinderland. I haveremained active in camp activities and went back there toteach music many times. My son Noah also attended camp.In California I was the co-founder of East Bay Kindershul,leader of California Klezmer, and the President ofKlezCalifornia. I am currently working on the Beregovskitranslation project.
We would add to this short bio, that Tenney together with Betty Albert-Shreck produced a popular Yiddish recording for children “Let’s Sing a Yiddish Song/Lomir zingen a yidish lid.”
This is one of three Camp Kinderland hymns according to Tenney, and though there is at least one recording with a second verse, Tenney remembers only singing one. Bitter and Suhl also together composed the humorous children’s song “Poyzn ayvi” [ Poison Ivy] which can be heard on the recording “Let’s Sing a Yiddish Song”
You can hear other Kinderland alumni sing the song at this link.
We invite readers of the blog to send in recordings of songs from their Yiddish camps. There are many that have never been recorded and are unknown to the larger Yiddish world.
Lomir ale in eynem marshirn / Let’s All March Together
Sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman (BSG), recorded by Itzik Gottesman, Bronx, 2010.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman on a picnic outside of Chernovitz with friends, mid 1930s. Probably from the group leftist Zionist group Hashomer Hatzair.
A Yiddish school song that Beyle Schaechter Gottesman learned in Chernovitz, Romania, later 1920s, early 1930s either in the Bundist Morgnroyt school or the more leftist Der yidisher shul-fareyn.
TRANSLITERATION
Lomir ale in eynem marshirn
Af di felder shpatsirn azoy — eyns, tsvey.
Lomir ale in eynem zikh rirn
Af di veygn zikh rirn azoy – eyns, tsvey
Purlekh, purlekh geshlosene reyen;
in der mit zol keyner nisht zan.
Lomir geyn in geshlosene reyen,
Lomir geyn, lomir geyn, lomir geyn.
TRANSLATION
Let’s all march together
In the fields, let’s go this way – one, two.
Let’s all move together;
on the roads let’s move – one, two.
As couples let us close ranks,
no one should remain in the middle.
Let’s close ranks,
Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.
Mayn harts, mayn harts / My heart, my heart Sung by Merke (Mary) Levine, recorded by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman
Bronx, July 6, 1991
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
The singer Merke (Mary) Levine was from Belarus and came to NY after the first world war. She lived in the Bronx and was active in the Yiddish left, and later in life was a board member of the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center in the Bronx. Her husband Tevye Levine was a teacher in the Arbeter ordn folkshuln.
Merke (Mary) Levine
This love song Mayn harts, mayn harts is found twice in the YIVO Ruth Rubin on-line collection. There it is sung both by Golde Fried and her husband Israel (Sruli) Freed with the same melody and only minor textual differences.
In terms of Yiddish folksong poetry, what stands out is the line “Mayne gedanken – ahin, aher”, which I translated as “My thoughts – any way you look at it”. The expression “ahin-aher” or “hin-her” can also mean “after long discussion”, or “to get to the point”
TRANSCRIPTION
Mayn harts, mayn harts veynt in mir.
Ikh darf zikh sheydn itst mit dir.
Mayne gedanken – ahin-aher.
Mit dir tsu sheydn iz mir shver.
Vu forstu mayn zis lebn?
Vu forstu fun mir avek?
Vu vel ikh dir darfn zukhn?
Zog zhe mir in velkhn veg?
Fun yedn shtetele, fun yedn derfele,
a brivele shraybn zolstu mir.
Betn, bet ikh dir mayn zis lebn,
nit fargesn zolstu mir.
TRANSLATION
My heart, my heart cries in me.
I must now part with you.
My thoughts – anyway you look at it: [lit: this way, that way]
to leave you is hard for me.
Where are you traveling my dear love?
Where are you traveling and leaving me?
Where will I have to search for you?
Tell me in which way?
From each town, from each village
you should write me a letter.
I ask of you, my dear love,
please not to forget me.
It was very sad and shocking news to hear that Chana Yachness passed away on September 29th, 2013. She grew up in the leftist (“linke”) Yiddish circles of New York, loved Yiddish culture and was a wonderful link to that world. She was beloved by all and this week‘s contribution to the Yiddish Song of the Week is in her memory.
Chana Yachness and her husband, Ted Haendel. Photograph by Emily Socolov.
Her mother Rukhele Barak Yachness was a fine Yiddish singer and actress and in this recording (which I recorded in the Bronx, 1999) they sing together a revolutionary folksong In dem vaytn land Sibir that can be found in the volume of Moshe Beregovski’s writings and transcriptions edited by Mark Slobin, Old Jewish Folk Music (1982, see below). It‘s obviously not a perfect recording with bantering and joking – Chana sings the name of Yiddish actor “Maurice Schwartz‟ instead of “khmares shvarts‟, but it is the only recording I can find of the song. Their spirited interpretation gives one the sense of how a Yiddish revolutionary song used to be performed, especially by Jewish choruses. Note that in the Beregovski volume there is a second verse; Chana and Rukhele sing the first and third.
Many of the Yiddish songs that are sung by di linke today, including In dem vaytn, were learned from the folk operetta A bunt mit a statshke (A Revolt and a Strike) assembled from songs printed in Beregovski‘s song collection of 1934 by the choral leader and conductor Jacob Schaefer and critic Nathaniel Buchwald. This operetta was not only performed by the choruses of the time, 1930s, but in the Yiddish leftist camp Kinderland (at Sylvan Lake, Dutchess County, NY) where Chana no doubt learned it in the late 1940s and 1950s. See the recent documentary on Kinderland – Commie Camp
In the distant land Siberia Where the sky is always covered by clouds, I was banished there, for one word – for freedom. I was beaten with the whip, so I would no longer say
“Let there be freedom – to hell with Nicholas‟
Soon will come the happy time, Soon we will know from near and far, that Russia is bright, that Russia is free. “Let there be freedom – to hell with Nicholas‟
I recorded Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder? (“What Did You Learn My Child in Cheder?”) at a zingeray/song gathering in the Bronx in 1983, at the home of Merke (Mary) and Tuvia Levine, on Gun Hill Road. I cannot recall the singer‘s full name– Harris was his last name.
This children‘s folksong that follows the letters of the alef-beys has a number of variants. In Pipe‘s collection from Sanok, Galicia, his version begins „Az du zest, yingele, an alef, vi azoy makht es?‟ In my mother and grandmother‘s version it begins „Vos lernstu yingele?‟ (see Pipe‘s variation on page 202-205, it has verses all the way to „yud,‟ and the footnote by Dov and Meir Noy on page 316 in Shmuel Zanvel Pipe Yiddish Folksongs From Galicia, ed. Dov and Meir Noy, Israel, 1971). There are some interesting differences in the words that are „taytshed‟ in each stanza. In Beregovsky-Feffer‘s collection, Kiev, 1938, the music is also printed. All the variants are similar, textually and melodically, but never exactly the same. Most other versions ask the question „Vos makht es in eynem?‟ (What does it sound like together?) but Harris sings it as an imperative „Makht es in eynem‟ or „Put it together‟….which also makes sense. In the opening verse, when Harris sings „nokh a taytsh‟, it‘s clear that he should have then sung „a shtekele‟ and not „ay ay‟ for a second time.
Harris, Merke and Tevye Levine were part of the linke (leftist) Yiddish cultural scene that did not usually mix with Arbeter-Ring members or Zionists. Our “scene‟ from the Sholem-Aleichem Folk Institute, played down politics, and emphasized the cultural aspects so we mingled fine. By the late 1970s, the Yiddish world was so depleted that the walls between left, center and right, were falling down on behalf of Yiddish culture, so the Levines became prominent members of the Sholem-Aleichem Folkshul on Bainbridge Avenue. Thirty years earlier they were active in their own linke shuln, but by the 1970s, those folkshuln no longer existed. Our zingerays included them more and more. That older generation of linke Yiddishists is gone; Itche Goldberg, who died recently at 102, was perhaps the last of them, and I cannot think of anyone who is alive anymore to even ask about the singer‘s– Mr. Harris‘s– first name.
Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder?
Alef
Vos iz taytsh „alef‟?
ay, ay
Nokh a taytsh?
ay, ay
Makht es in eynem
Ay, ay, a shtekele.
Hekher – a shtekele, shtarker – a shtekele
What are you learning my child in cheder?
Alef
What is „alef‟?
ay, ay
Another meaning?
ay, ay
Put it together
Ay, ay, a little stick
Louder – a little stick, Stronger – a little stick
Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder?
Beys
Vos iz taytsh „beys‟?
Berl
Nokh a taytsh?
Bunzhik
Makht es in eynem
Berele Bunzhik
Ay, ay, a shtekele.
Hekher – a shtekele, Shtarker – a shtekele
What are you learning my child in cheder?
Beys
What is „beys‟?
Berl
Another meaning?
Bunzhik
Put it together
Berele Bunzhik
Ay, ay, a little stick
Louder – a little stick, Stronger – a little stick
Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder?
Giml
Vos iz taytsh „Giml‟?
Gib zhe
Nokh a taytsh?
gikher
Makht es in eynem
Gib zhe gikher
Berele Bunzhik
Ay, ay, a shtekele.
Hekher – a shtekele, Shtarker – a shtekele
What are you learning my child in cheder?
Gimel
What is „gimel‟?
So give!
Another meaning?
Faster
Put it together
So give faster!
Berele Bunzhik
Ay, ay, a little stick
Louder – a little stick, Stronger – a little stick
Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder?
Daled
Vos iz taytsh „daled‟?
Darer
Nokh a taytsh?
Drunzhik
Makht es in eynem
Daradrunzhik
Gib zhe gikher
Berele Bunzhik
Ay, ay, a shtekele.
Hekher – a shtekele, Shtarker – a shtekele
What are you learning my child in cheder?
Daled
What is „Daled‟?
Thin
Another meaning?
Drunzhik
Put it together
A really thin person [daradrunzhik]
So give faster!
Berele Bunzhik
Ay, ay, a little stick
Louder – a little stick, Stronger – a little stick
Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder?
Hey
Vos iz taytsh „hey‟?
Heyb zhe
Nokh a taytsh?
Hekher
Makht es in eynem
Heyb zhe hekher
Darerdronzhik
Gib zhe gikher
Berele Bunzhik
Ay, ay, a shtekele.
Hekher – a shtekele, Shtarker – a shtekele
What are you learning my child in cheder?
Hey
What is „hey‟?
Lift!
Another meaning?
Higher!
Put it together
Lift it higher!
A very thin person,
So give faster!
Berele Bunzhik
Ay, ay, a little stick
Louder – a little stick, Stronger – a little stick
Merke (Mary) Levine
Yiddish Song of the Week 