“Got fin Avrum” Performed by Matele (Margaret) Friedman

Got fin Avrum/God of Abraham (a woman’s prayer).
Version as remembered by Matele (Margaret) Friedman.
Recorded by Mark David in Los Angeles, January 1, 2020. Transcribed by Eliezer Niborski.

Matele Friedman

Got fin Avrum

Got fin Avrum, fin Yitskhok, fin Yankev,
bahit dayn lib folk Yisroyl.
Zibn teyg in ale teyg zoln undz voyl bakimen,
Furs (?) tsu gevin, tse leybn, tse oysher, tse mazl, tse brukhe,
tse parnuse.

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
Protect your dear people of Israel.
For seven days and all the days may we only know good:
For prosperity, life, wealth, good fortune, blessing and livelihood.

Reboyne-shel-oylem,
tsu susen, tsu simkhe, tse yeshies toyves, tse psires toyves,
Tsim alem gitn un tsu gevint[?].
Tsu gevin, tsu gevin, tsu lange lebetug [=lebnstug?]
hot der liber her Got fil farmugt.[?]

Dear God,
for joy, celebration, salvation, good tidings,
For all things good and prosperity
for prosperity, for prosperity for all of our lives.
So does our dear God possess.

Nemt der liber her Got dem bekher in zayn rekhter hant
Un makht a brukhe ibern gantsn land.
Makht a brukhe gur zhe hoykh
Az kol-yisruls kinder zoln zhe zogn umeyn oykh.

So our dear God takes the goblet in his right hand
And makes a blessing over the whole land.
Says a blessing very loudly
So that all of Israel’s children will say “Amen” too.

Umeyn, veumeyn, s’zol shoyn vern,
zol men shoyn oysgelayzt vern,
Bar [gor?] gikh in dem yor.

Amen, and amen, may we soon hear.
How we will be redeemed.
Soon in this very year.

Shma kolayni – ikh shray tsu dir,
lebediker Got, nu, helf zhe mir,
Ales bayz zol fin indz avekgeyn.

Listen to our voice – I shout to you
The living God, help me,
so that all bad things should go away.

Elye hanuvi, Elye hanuvi
zol bayn undz in indzer
hoyz aybik zayn,
Tse deym lekhtikn hoyz.
Me zol hofn
az tir un toyer zoln shtayn aybik ofn.

Elijah the prophet, Elijah the prophet
May he be in our house.
To the brilliant house,
May we hope
That door and gate should always stay open.

Ofn, ofn zoln shtayn,
Arayn, arayn zoln mir gayn.
Arayn, arayn zoln mir tritn [treytn]
mir zoln hubn dem lekhtikn Got [= hofn tsum likhtikn Got?]
A gite vokh,
A gezinte vokh,
A mazldike vokh.
A frayerdike vokh. [fraydike?]
A gebentshte vokh.
Mir zoln hubn a git mazl oysgebeytn.

Open, open may it stay,
Enter, enter may we go.
Enter, enter may we step.
May we have the brilliant God.
A good week
A healthy week
A happy week
A blessed week
May our prayers for a good fortune be accepted.

גאָט פֿון אַבֿרהם

נוסח פֿון מאַטעלע פֿרידמאַן
רעקאָרדירט פֿון מאיר דוד, לאָס־אַנדזשעלעס
טראַנסקריבירט פֿון אליעזר ניבאָרסקי

,גאָט פֿון אַבֿרהם, פֿון יצחק, פֿון יעקבֿ
.באַהיט דײַן ליב פֿאָלק ישׂראל
.זיבן טעג און אַלע טעג זאָלן אונדז ווויל באַקומען
.פֿורס [?] צו געווין, צו לעבן, צו עושר, צו מזל, צו ברכה, צו פּרנסה

,רבונו־של־עולם
,צו שׂשׂון, צו שׂימחה, צו ישועות־טובֿות, צו בשׂורות־טובֿות
.צום אַלעם גוטן און צו געווינט
צו געווין, צו געווין, צו לאַנגע לעבעטאָג  [= לעבנסטאָג?]
.האָט דער ליבער הער גאָט פֿיל פֿאַרמאָגט

נעמט דער ליבער הער גאָט דעם בעכער אין זײַן רעכטער האַנט
.און מאַכט אַ ברכה איבערן גאַנצן לאַנד
מאַכט אַ ברכה גאָר זשע הויך
.אַז כּל־ישׂראלס קינדער זאָלן זשע זאָגן אָמן אויך

,אָמן־ואָמן
,ס׳זאָל שוין ווערן, זאָל מען שוין אויסגעלייזט ווערן
,באַר [גאָר?] גיך אין דעם יאָר

,שמע קולנו — איך שרײַ צו דיר
,לעבעדיקער גאָט, נו העלף זשע מיר
,אַלעס בייז זאָל פֿון אונדז אַוועקגיין

,אליה הנבֿיא
,אליה הנבֿיא זאָל בײַן אונדז אין אונדזער הויז אייביק זײַן
.צו דעם ליכטיקן הויז
מע זאָל האָפֿן
,אַז טיר און טויער זאָלן שטיין אייביק אָפֿן

,אָפֿן, אָפֿן [זאָלן] זיי שטיין
,אַרײַן, אַרײַן זאָלן מיר גיין
,אַרײַן, אַרײַן זאָלן מיר טרעטן
מיר זאָלן האָבן דעם ליכטיקן גאָט.    [= האָפֿן צום ליכטיקן גאָט ?]
,אַ גוטע וואָך
,אַ געזונטע וואָך
,אַ מזלדיקע וואָך
,אַ פֿריידיקע וואָך
,אַ געבענטשטע וואָך
.מיר זאָלן האָבן אַ גוט מזל אויסגעבעטן

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

This is the second “Got fun/fin Avrom/Avrum”, a woman’s prayer said at the end of the Sabbath, that we have posted. It is also the second post on this blog of the singer Matele Friedman (born in 1927, in Kimyat, Czechoslovakia, now Velikiye Komyaty, Ukraine), who died in Los Angeles, February 2022. You can hear more of her songs in Yiddish at the website of Mark David’s radio program The Yiddish Voice/Dos Yidishe Kol.  

Mark David who recorded Matele Friedman in LA wrote the following after her passing:

She was, like my aunt Hedy and my mom, a survivor of Auschwitz from the Carpathians, deported in 1944 under the Hungarians.  But she lived a very different life compared to my mother after the war. She did not spend a few years in a DP camp in Germany or elsewhere in Western Europe after the war, but instead went back to the home area. She was a lot more frum, and practiced, surprisingly, orthodox Judaism under the Soviets when “our” area became part of Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Union).  (She had gone back after the war, gotten married, and started her family there.) She moved to the US in the 1970’s with her two young daughters, already teen-agers or a maybe a bit older.

In Noyekh Prilutski’s first collection of Yiddish folksongs Yidishe folkslider, 1912, which included religious and holiday songs, he printed 23 versions of this prayer. Here is the link to the first of the variations, song number 8.

Because the “Got fun Avrum” prayer was transmitted orally, the daughters often learned the prayer from their mothers as just sounds, not thinking what the words were or meant to be. As a result, a few words in this version cannot be understood and there are more question marks in the transcription in this post than we would ordinarily like. Eliezer Niborski did a wonderful job of transcribing Matele’s “Got fin Avrum” as best as possible. Corrections or improvements are welcome from those with sharper hearing. There are at least two more recordings of “Got fun Avrom” that we hope to post in the future. The “Got fun Avrom” prayer is the most widespread and among the oldest examples still extant of Yiddish woman’s folk poetry. A “standard” version can be found in the Art Scroll siddur and a scan is attached.

Thanks to Mark David, Eliezer Niborski, Simon Neuberg, Claudia Rosenzweig and David Braun.

Below: Art Scroll version of “Got fun Avrom”.

“Der heyliker moshiakh” Performed by Josh Waletzky

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

This week’s Yiddish Song of the Week features a performance of Der heyliker moshiakh (The Holy Messiah) by New York-based Yiddish singer Josh Waletzky, recorded at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance on January 28, 2011. The song is from Waletzky’s family repertoire (his family referred to it as “The Name Song”); Ruth Rubin collected the song from Waletzky during her fieldwork at Camp Boiberik.

Josh Waletzky

I have attached a variant of this song as found in Noyekh Prilutski‘s collection Yidishe folkslider volume one, Warsaw, 1914. Number 61 (pages 90 – 91). There is no melody given in Prilutski‘s volume, so thanks to Waltezky we have one now!

Der heyliker moshiakh is a great example of a maskilic Yiddish song (composed by Jews who were adherents of the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the Haskalah) in which the irony of the song was confusing or lost to the ‟folk‟, and in this case, to the Maskil as well, Noyekh Prilutski. See his comment on the bottom of the attached Yiddish page 91, footnote number 2,  where he writes:

‟Typical: as often happens that in the most Hasidic songs, secular [‟fraye”] lines are sung at the end. Perhaps because the song was sung at Simkhes-toyre, when everyone was a little drunk?‟

So Prilutski believed that the song was Hasidic, not Maskilic (anti-Hasidic), and perhaps he had even seen it performed by Hasidim? That would not be shocking, since it was common for similar parodic anti-Hasidic songs such as this, written from the point of view of Hasidim, to be ‟misinterpreted‟ as pro-Hasidic, pro-rebbe. The classic example is Velvl Zbarzher‘s Kum aher du filosof  which was recorded in a typically lyrical fashion by Theodore Bikel.

Is it mis-interpretation? ‟Reinterpretation‟ or just plain ‟interpretation‟ would be preferable. The singer, whose context and audience varies from that of the composer, gives the song a different meaning through his performance.

Waletzky clearly sings it as a parody in the way the Maskilic composer wrote it, and the song has several of the subjects of satire that the maskilim often mocked about the traditional shtetl life: the blind devotion of the hasidim to their rebbe, the fanatic anti-modern/progress attitude (e.g., mocking the popular secular dance kadril  ‘quadrille’ as shmadril, which also alludes to the word for converting, shmadn), and the highlight of the song, the satirizing of Yiddish names that comprises the refrain.

Notice that in Prilutski‘s version there is no reference to shmadril but non-traditional dance is mentioned (Zey veln tantsn mit fremde yunge-layt / They will dance with young strangers).

“Der heyliker moshiakh”

“The Holy Messiah”

un az der heyliker moshiekh vet kumen
vel ikh zayn der ershter af der shlakht.
af di daytshn vet men zikh nemen
un zey shlogn tog vi nakht.
gor on pulver un on blay,
koyln veln flien iber aln.
un az der rebe vet nokh tsugebn a posek derbay,
vi shtroy veln di daytshn faln.

And when the holy Messiah comes
I will be the first into battle.
We’ll set upon the Assimilators
And beat them day and night.
No need for powder or lead,
Bullets will be flying everywhere.
And the moment the Rebbe adds a verse from Scripture,
The Assimilators will drop like straw.

un es vet nokh tsuhelfn
zurekh un burekh, yankev, danil,
zindl, grindl, khayem, smil,
berl, shmerl, getzl, azril,
veln firn dos gantse krentsl.
keyle, beyle, yente, sose,
khane, brayne, yakhne, dvose,
sime, blime, pesi un rose
veln tantsn dos mitsve-tentsl.

And helping out will be
Zorekh and Baruch, Jacob, Daniel,
Zindl, Grindl, Chaim, Samuel,
Berl, Shmerl, Getsl, Azriel,
The ringleaders.
Keyle, Beyle, Yente, Sose,
Hannah, Brayne, Yakhne, Dvose,
Sime, Blume, Pesi and Rose
Will dance the Mitsve Dance…

tshiri-bim-bom…

der rebe vet zayn der komendant.
er vet komedirn ahin un aher.
un ikh vel zayn zayn atyudant,
di khsidim dos militer.
un az der rebe vet onfangen fun toyre tsu shmaysn,
tsu bavayzn zayne havayes,
azoy veln di khsidim onhoybn tsu shisn
af di drabes, af di hultayes.

The Rebbe will be the commander.
He’ll issues orders this way and that.
And I will be his adjutant;
The Chassidim–his troops.
And when the Rebbe begins thrashing them with Torah,
Making his faces at them,
The Chassidim immediately open fire
On the freethinking prostitutes and adulterers.

And helping out will be
Zorekh and Baruch, Jacob, Daniel,…

di daytshn, zey vern dokh poshet dil–
zey veysn nit vos zey zoln tin.
zey hobn a tants vos heyst ‘shmadril’:
eyner loyft aher, un der anderer ahin.
un di daytshke vos tsimblt af dem shlambil
vet fayerdike kneydlekh esn;
un az der rebe vet aroyfleygn zayn lape af ir,
vet zi in tsimbl fargesn.

un es vet nokh tsuhelfn…

The Assimilators will simply get confused–
They won’t know what to do.
They have a dance called the ‘Shmadrille’:
One runs this way and the other runs that way.
The Lady Assimilator tsimbling* her ‘shmambourine’
Will eat hot matzo-ball ammo.
And when the Rebbe lays his paws on her
She’ll forget all about her tsimbl*.

And helping out will be
Zorekh and Baruch, Jacob, Daniel..

*tsimbl = cimbalom/hammered dulcimer; tsimbling =  to play a tsimbl (or in this case, to beat with sticks as if playing a tsimbl)

Der heyliker moshiakh in Noyekh Prilutksi‘s collection Yidishe folkslider (click to enlarge)