Kinder kumt der friling ruft / Children come, Spring calls Sung by Harry Mervis, recorded by Gertrude Nitzberg, Baltimore, 1979. From the Jewish Museum of Maryland collection.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman and Peter Rushefsky
Jewish Museum of Maryland
Kinder kumt as sung by Harry Mervis.
Kinder kumt, der friling ruft Blo der himl, klor di luft. Shmekn zis di frishe blumen un di taykhlekh freylekh brumen. Leyft [loyft] in frayen feld.
Children come, Spring calls. Blue the sky, clear the air. Smell the fresh flowers and the rivers gaily roar.
Hert, di feygelekh zingen, flien heykh [hoykh] un klingen, Helft zey, kinderlekh, shpringen. Leyft in frayen feld.
Listen to the birds sing, flying high and resound. Help them, children, to jump. Run in the open field.
Kinder yetst iz ayer tsayt, S’iz sheyn bald nor gor nit vayt. Er makht gel di grine bleter Er makht di zise bleter, azoy on a sof.
Children now is your time. It is soon not far. He makes the green leaves yellow. He makes the sweet leaves. Thus without end.
Kinder aylt zikh unter, Zayt zikh freylekh, munter. Vayl der langer vinter varft af alemen a shlof.
Children hurry yourselves. Be happy and brave because the long winter throws on everyone a slumber.
COMMENTARY BY ITZIK GOTTESMAN
The lyrics to the song are by Mordkhe Rivesman (1868 – 1924), the same author of such songs as “Haynt is Purim Brider” and “Khanike Oy Khanike”. the melody is almost always referred to as “a folk melody”. The first printing of the song that I have found is in Z. Kisselgof’s collectin Lider-zamlbukh far der yidisher shul un familye, 1912. There it is called “Kinder kumt der friling ruft”. It was also called “Likhik iz Gots velt”. Yiddish music archivist Robert Freedman remembers singing this song in his Chaim Nakhman Bialik Folk Shul and from memoirs it is clear that the song was also popular in Zionist circles in Eastern Europe.
Recently singer, composer and choir director Polina Shepherd has revived the song. She newly arranged and recorded the song with her London Yiddish Choir and Chutzpah choir. Here is a link to that performance.
Shepherd also printed the music and original words at this link.
The song was translated into Hebrew by the Israeli Yiddish scholar Dov Sadan and can be found at this link in the website Zemereshet. זמרשת
The original lyrics by Rivesman in Yiddish has been scanned form Z. Kisselgof’s Lider-zamelbukh, St. Petersburg 1912 and are attached below.
The song uses a variant of a Hasidic-flavored melody recorded by Belf’s Romanian Ensemble for the Syrena record label as “Nakhes fun Kinder”. The melody was also recorded as part of a suite by the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia-based Lepiyansky Family of tsimbl (dulcimer) players and released on the Soviet MusTrust label.
Let’s take a closer look at the Belf version, which presents this beautiful melody in its fully-rendered form. The instrumental version of the piece is best known for its syncopated melodic gesture beginning with a rest on the first beat (a rhythmic device seen in many Hasidic nigunim):
However, the song version from Rivesman simplifies the melody, substituting four quarter notes for the first measure.
Composed in the freygish/Ahava Raba scale, the first section sets up the mode by emphasizing the first and then third degrees, repeating the phrases to create a sense of gravity. The second section switches to a call-and-response form to expand the melodic range to the fourth and fifth degrees, and hints at what will come in the final section with a quick reach up to the octave. Finally the third section lifts the melody to its climax (known in Arabic music as the “awj”) with three beats on the octave, initiating a lovely four-part walk down the freygish scale that continues into the mode’s subtonic range before resolving back up to the tonic.
There is an interesting difference between the Mervis version and the better-known version that Shepherd’s choir performs. The second section of Mervis’s version of “Kinder kumt” (starting with “Hert, di feygelekh zingen”) is reminiscent of the second section of the Belf “Nakhes fun Kinder”. In contrast, the second section of Shepherd jumps immediately up the octave like the third section of Belf. Perhaps Mervis (or whomever he learned his version from) was aware of the full melody ala Belf, and chose to sing it this way. Or possibly the variant is a result of confusion between the two melodies.
As I was contributing to this post, the wonderful Yiddish singer Eleonore Weill happened to be over giving my son Gabriel his weekly piano lesson. She graciously agreed to record herself performing the song on my iPhone (recorded April 6, 2021 in Brooklyn):
Lyrics by Rivesman published in Z. Kisselgof’s Lider-zamelbukh, St. Petersburg 1912:
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):
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):
Reb Tsudek Sung by Itzik Gottesman, recorded Nov 2018, Austin TX
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
I was asked to post the song “Reb Tsudek” as sung by the Yiddish poet Martin Birnbaum. He sang it to Michael Alpert and me in 1984-85 in NYC. But, alas, I cannot find the original recording so I have recorded it myself.
Birnbaum was born in 1905 in Horodenke when it was Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Now it is in the Ukraine – Horodenka. According to a NY Times obituary he came to the US in 1923 and died in 1986. In the YIVO Institute’s Ruth Rubin Legacy Archive, Birnbaum sings four songs but not this one. Those recordings were done in 1964.
I believe there is more Yiddish folklore to be discovered about this shlimazel (bad luck) character Reb Tsudek. When I asked the Yiddish poet Yermye Hescheles about him he affirmed that there was such a comic figure in Galicia, where both he and Birnbaum were from.
The song mocks the Hasidic lifestyle – absurd devotion to the rebbe, irresponsibility, staying poor. The word “hiltay” – defined by the dictionaries as “libertine” “skirt-chaser” “scoundrel” – is really a cue that this is a 19th century maskilic, anti-Hasidic, song. The word is often used in such songs. The humor also hinges on the double meaning of tsimbl both as a musical instrument (a hammered dulcimer) and as a verb – “to thrash or scold someone”.
A tsimblist, about to be thrashed by his wife.
(courtesy Josh Horowitz)
In the song two towns are mentioned: Nay Zavalek remains a mystery but Grudek, west of Lviv, is Grodek in Polish and Horodok in Ukrainian.
Here is a clip of Michael Alpert singing the song, with Pete Rushefsky on tsimbl, Jake Shulman-Ment on violin and Ethel Raim singing at the Smithsonian Folkife Festival in Washington D.C., 2013:
TRANSLITERATION
Fort a yid keyn Nay-zavalek,
direkt bizn in Grudek.
Fort a yid tsu zayn rebn – Reb Tsudek.
Tsudek iz a yid, a lamden.
Er hot a boykh a tsentn,
Un s’iz bakant, az er ken shpiln
of ale instrumentn.
Shpilt er zikh derbay (2x)
Fort a yid keyn Nay-zavalek
direkt bizn in Grudek.
Oy vey z’mir tatenyu!
Fort a yid keyn Nay-Zavalek
direkt bizn in Grudek.
Oy vey z’mir tatenyu!
Un Reb Tsudek, er zol lebn,
hot gehat a gutn shabes.
Tsudek hot gekhapt shirayem,
mit beyde labes.
Aheymgebrakht hot er zayn vaybl
a zhmenye meyern-tsimes.
Un dertsu, oy vey iz mir,
a tsimbl un strines.
“Hiltay vus iz dus!” (2x)
Oy hot zi getsimblt Tsudek
fun Zavalek bizn in Grudek.
Oy vey z’mir tatenyu!
Oy hot zi getsimblt Tsudek
fun Zavalek bizn in Grudek.
Oy vey z’mir tatenyu!
TRANSLATION
A man travels to Nay-Zavalek,
directly until Grudek.
The man is traveling to his rabbi,
Mister Tsudek.
Tsudek is a learned man,
and has a belly that weighs ten tons.
And everyone knows that he can play
on all the instruments.
So he plays as he travels –
A man travels to Nay-Zavalek
directly until Grudek,
Oh my, dear God!
A man travels to Nay-Zavalek
directly until Grudek,
Oh my, dear God!
And Reb Tsudek, may he be well,
had a good Sabbath.
Tsudek caught the Rebbe’s holy leftovers
with both paws [large, rough hands].
For his wife he brought home
a handful of carrot – tsimmes,
and in addition – oh no! –
a tsimbl with no strings.
Scoundrel! what is this? (2x)
Boy did she thrash Tsudek
from Zavalek until Grudek
Oh my, dear God.
Boy did she thrash Tsudek
from Zavalek unti Grudek
Oh my, dear God
Ze vi gru (See How Gray)
Performance by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman
Recorded 2013, Bronx, by Itzik Gottesman
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
Before we enter the new year, let us do our part to remember that 2014 marked 100 years since World War One and post a song about that time.
In memory of her first yortsayt (memorial anniversary), the 2nd day of Khanike, I am posting the last song that I recorded from my mother, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, a few months before she died. At 93 years of age she could still sing well.
Vienna 1948-49. From left: Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, Mitsi Weininger.
I cannot find the full text for the song, but my mother knows it from Chernovitz, which was Romania when she grew up. We both agreed that it was about WWI but have no other information on the song. Could “in akhtsetn geboygn” refer to something else other than 1918? The rhyme “nayes” (news) and “Ashmoday’es” (Asmodeus’s) is wonderfully original.
As usual, any help finding more lyrics to this unusual song would be appreciated.
(The transliterated Yiddish reflects her dialect; the lyrics written in the Yiddish alphabet are transcribed in standard Yiddish.)
Ze vi gru der himl iz. Gru vi dayne oygn. S’iz der Balkan shoyn fun tsar in akhtsetn geboygn.
See how gray the skies are; Gray as your eyes. The Balkan has already, from grief, bent over in the 18th. [1918?]
Oy vey rebenyu
Performance by Josh Waletzky
Video-recorded at Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s office, New York City, by Peter Rushefsky, Ethel Raim and Benjy Fox-Rosen, January 28th, 2012.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
New York Yiddish singer Josh Waletzky learned this maskilic/anti-Hasidic song from from his grandfather Morris (Moyshe) Waletzky. Oy vey rebenyu has been recorded in a similar version by Jan Bart, with another version by Cantor Isaac Goodfriend.
The Soviet folklorist Z. Skuditski pointed out the similarity to the Mikhl Gordon song Mayn Tshuve (see note in Folklor-lider, volume 2) and it has been considered a Mikhl Gordon song ever since (I could not obtain the original Gordon version). However this anti-Hasidic song was later adapted and interpreted in some circles as a song to praise the rebbe, not mock him.
Interpretations praising the rebbe:
The Yiddish poet Yermye Hescheles (1910 – 2010), from Glina, Galicia, Poland, told me that on the holiday of Lag B’omer, when the melamed (teacher in the kheyder) walked with them into the woods, he taught the children this song in praise of the rebbe. (I would imagine that the verse with the cook Trayne was cut).
Di Naye Kapelye in Budapest recorded the song – only the refrain – in a slow, spiritual interpretation, on their album – “A mazeldiker yid” released on the Oriente Musik label.
According to band leader Bob Cohen, the source is a tape recording made in Maramures in 1970 by Romanian-Jewish ethnomusicologust Ghizella Suliteanu of a Roma band from Borsa led by Gheorghe Stingaci Covaci.
Refrain:
Oy vey rebenyu, ikh shuteye un tsiter un in hartsn brent a fayer. un in hartsn brent a fayer. Yakh vil zayn a khosidl a guter, a khosidl a getrayer. Yakh vil zayn a khosidl a guter, a khosidl a getrayer.
O rebbe I stand and shiver In my heart burns fire. I want to be a good khosid, a faithful khosid.
Bay dem davenen vel ikh zikh shoklen, makhn alerley hevayes. Far dem rebn mit zayne khasidim geyt mir oys dos Hayes.
When I pray I will rock,and make all kinds of gestures. For the rebbe and his khasidim, my strength gives out.
Vinter in di greste keltn. Far dem rebn mit zayne Chasidim gey ikh aynleygn veltn.
Winter in the greatest cold. For the rebbe and his khasidim I will tear down entire worlds.
Refrain
In Folklor-lider, vol. 2 the verses are:
A kalte mikve vel ikh zikh makhn vinter in di greste keltn. Far dem rebenyu, far zayne khsidimlekh vel ikh kereven veltn.
A cold mikve I will prepare winter in the greatest cold. For the rebbe, for his hasidim I will turn over worlds.
A vareme shal vel ikh zikh koyfn zumer in di greste hitsn. A zaydenem gartl vel ikh mir koyfn, a hitl mit zibetsn shpitsn.
A warm shawl will I buy summer in the greatest heat. A silk belt will I buy, a hat with 17 corners.
Dem rebn vel ikh leygn in fodershtn alker tsuzamen mit der kekhne Trayne. Un ale kshidemlekh veln hobn tsum rebn gor a groyse tayne.
I will put the rebbe in the front den with the cook Trayne. And all the Hasidim will complain to the rebbe.
I have found only one other version of Tayere Toni – in the Pipe collection “Yiddish Folksongs from Galicia” edited by Meir and Dov Noy, Jerusalem, 1971 page 118-119. There the names of the lovers are Bronye and Bernard. From the Pipe version it is clear that the song is a ballad – Bernard does indeed die in the third verse, and in the fourth verse Bronye shoots herself and they are buried together in one grave. A motif much more common in non-Yiddish ballads, rare in Yiddish ones.
From Lifshe Schaechter-Widman’s shorter version, recorded in 1954 in the Bronx by song collector Leybl Kahn, a ballad-story is implied but is left hanging, and I have to wonder did Lifshe not sing the other verses because she did not know them or because they did not appeal to her? Didn’t ring true or Jewish? The fact that she doesn’t repeat any of the lines also implies that we are dealing with a ballad, a story in song; Lifshe was more inclined to repeat lines in lyric love songs than in ballads.
Though the use of German names in Tayere Toni would lead one to believe that the song is relatively new, the beautiful melody sounds very old to me. Her singing, as always, is haunting and so complex given the relative simple melody. By the way, the great folklorist I. L. Cahan (not to be confused with Leybl Kahn) “disqualified” a song that Shmuel Zanvil Pipe had collected because the character’s name in the song was Moritz. “Moritz”, wrote Cahan, could not be part of any folksong.
But today we have to respectfully disagree with Cahan (and I think Pipe wasn’t too happy about his judgement in this case either). Jews in the Galician and Bukovinan territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had German names, and were no less “folky” because of it.
Pete Rushefsky adds:
Musically, Tayere Toni reinforces the conversation between Bernard and his beloved Toni with a subtle harmonic interplay in the key of Bb minor.
The first two lines of each stanzas are rendered in Bb minor and harmonized by Bb minor, F major and Bb minor: a simple I Minor – V Major – I Minor progression that effects a light waltz-like melody as Bernard attempts to woo Toni. Harmonically each of Bernard’s two lines stand on their own – there is a simplicity and purity to his love.
Toni’s answers in the stanza’s third and first half of the fourth lines contradict Bernard, and are voiced to resolve (incompletely) on the C of a dominant F major chord. Toni’s response requires the full duration of her two lines to resolve harmonically, and for a moment, a listener tuned to Jewish modal tendencies wonders if she might distance herself further from his sentiments with a full modulation to F-freygish (also known in cantorial literature as “Ahava Raba”, or “altered Phrygian” – F, Gb, A, Bb, C, Db, Eb).
But despite a rapidly ascending then descending movement in the last line that is frequently seen in freygish melodies, Toni does not reach down to the tell-tale subtonic Eb which would confirm F-freygish. Rather, at the end of the stanza, Toni’s cadence resolves back to the tonic Bb. Though there is complexity in her responses and desires, in the end, these two are fated to live and die together.
“Tayere Toni, kim aher tsi mir
Nem dir a beynkl, zets zikh anider lebn mir.”
“Tayerer Bernard, ikh ken nisht zitsn leybn dir.
Di mame vet araynkimen, un vet shrayen af mir”
“Dear Toni come over here to me,
Take a chair, and sit next to me.”
“Dear Bernard, I can’t sit next to you.
My mother will enter and will yell at you.”
“Tayere Toni, ikh ken dikh nisht fardarbn.
Zeyst dekh az ikh halt shoyn baym shtarbn.”
Tayerer Bernard, vest nokh vern gezint.
Tayerer Bernard, di bist mayn tayer kind.”
“Dear Toni, I can’t ruin you.
Can’t you see, that i am dying.”
“Dear Bernard, you will become well,
Dear Bernard, you are my dear child”.
Spoken Dialogue after the song:
LEYBL KAHN: Dos lid hot ir gehert fun vanen? Where did you hear this song?
LSW: Dos hob ikh gehert in Zvinyetchke. I heard this in Zvinyetchke.
LK: In der Bukovina. In Bukovina?
LSW: Yo, di Bukovina. Yes, Bukovina.
LK: To vi kumen azoyne nemen vi Toni un Bernard? So where do the name Toni and Bernard come from?
LSW: Bay undz hot men dokh daytshmerish gezingen. We sang, after all, Germanized Yiddish.
LK: Menshn fleygn hob azoyne nemen. People used to have such names?
LSW: Ye, avade. Yes, of course
One of the leading contemporary composers of Yiddish song, Josh Waletzky (b. 1948) grew up in a family that was deeply embedded in the secular Yiddish world of Camp Boiberik and the Sholem Aleichem folkshuln.
Photograph of Josh Waletzky by Jenny Levison
As Itzik Gottesman writes “Camp Boiberik was a secular Yiddish culture camp which existed from 1923 to 1979 near Rhinebeck, New York (the camp site is now owned by the Omega Institute). Camp Boiberik was part of the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute, a non-political Yiddish cultural organization with its center in New York and Sholem Aleichem Folk shuln (schools) in a number of states in the U.S. The Director and guiding spirit for most of Camp Boiberik’s existence was Leibush Lehrer (1887-1964), a leading Yiddish pedagogue, writer, philosopher and lyricist.” The camp took its name from a mythical vacation resort described by Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem.
Waletzky’s mother, Tsirl, was born in 1921 to parents who had immigrated to New York from Galicia. While her parents maintained a traditionally observant household, Tsirl became involved in the secular Yiddish movement, finding her niche as a visual artist.
Tsirl Waletzky at Camp Boiberik
Tsirl illustrated a large number of publications by secular Yiddish organizations such as the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute and the Arbeter Ring (Workmen’s Circle). Readers may be most familiar with Tsirl’s illustrations for the popular songbooks compiled by Khane and Yosl Mlotek for the Arbeter Ring, Mir Trogn a Gezang, Pearls of Yiddish Song and Songs of Generations. For many years, Tsirl taught art workshops at Boiberik’s adult resort. Her artwork can be seen today in a number of museums.
Waletzky’s father, Sholom (1919-1975), was from a family active in the early years of the American Yiddish culture movement. Sholom’s parents Moyshe (Morris) and Fradl (Frieda) were both from Mezritsh, near Lublin (in what is today Poland), but they met and married after immigrating to New York. Moyshe and Fradl were founding contributors to the relocated YIVO Institute in New York, the Sholem Aleichem Folk Institute and Camp Boiberik.
Sholom Waletzky spent two years at the University of Wisconsin, but did not graduate. He enlisted in the Army during World War II, and after serving returned to New York to work in the plumbing trade for his father. Sholom joined the plumber’s union and once even picketed his father’s shop during a strike! Later Sholom became a general contractor involved with renovation projects, and managed public works projects for the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey.
Sholom Waletzky
Josh describes his father as a “sponge” for songs. During the 1930s, Sholom even sang in a German chorus in New York. He was known in the Sholem Aleichem community as an excellent singer with a wide repertoire, and was often called on to perform at programs as well as informally at parties, or at long singing sessions held at the Boiberik adult resort’s tea house. He recorded an album of holiday songs for the Sholem Aleichem shuln.
Tsirl and Sholom met in the yugnt-fareyn (youth organization) of the Sholem Aleichem movement, and settled down to have three children (Josh is the middle child), first in New Jersey and then the Bronx. Josh remembers Sholom frequently singing for the family in the home and on long car trips. Josh writes “my father’s transfixing Yiddish songs spoke to me directly of his inner life, even as they connected me to a communal past in Eastern Europe and the New York City of his youth.”
Passover seders were a showcase for the family’s song repertoire. Josh remembers many member of his grandparent’s generation having a particular song that they were known for, and could be expected to sing at the seder table.
Josh grew up with his family spending summers at Camp Boiberik, and there he continued to expand his own song repertoire and knowledge of the culture. At age nineteen, Josh was appointed Boiberik’s Music Director, a post formerly held by a succession of Yiddish music luminaries such as composers Lazar Weiner and Vladimir Heifetz, and musicologist Khane Mlotek.
Camp Boiberik, 1940s. Tsirl Waletky is on the left side of the front row; composer Vladimir Heifetz is third from right in the back row; Alfie Fogel, a sculptor and occasional lyricist, is second from right in the back row.
During eight years as Music Director, Waletzky was responsible for compiling and composing songs for camp programs, including the annual felker yontev (peace festival) and mit-sezon (mid-season) pageants, and Friday night and Saturday morning services.
He frequently collaborated with Fishl Kolko, Boiberik’s Culture Director, on developing new musical/theatrical material for the camp, and revitalized an older Boiberik tradition of writing original musicals for the camp. Though a secular Yiddishist, Kolko had a wide knowlege of East European Yiddish culture, including Hasidism. Kolko was highly influential in Josh’s musical development, encouraging him to create new musical settings of Yiddish poetry.
Josh continued to work at Boiberik during the summer while an undergraduate at Harvard and a graduate student in film at NYU. In 1970, he collaborated with Zalmen Mlotek to compose the musical Chelm, undzer shtetl (Chelm, Our Town), and later contributed a number of compositions to the 1977 album Vaserl (Water), both commissioned by Yugntruf-Youth for Yiddish.
In 1979 Josh helped to found Kapelye, one of the seminal bands of the early klezmer revival. Kapelye included a number of other pioneering musicians working to revitalize Yiddish music – Michael Alpert (vocals/violin), Eric Berman (tuba), Lauren Brody (vocals/accordion/piano), Ken Maltz (clarinet) and Henry Sapoznik (vocals/violin). Josh is featured on vocals and piano on Kapelye’s debut album, Future and Past (1981).
During the 1980s Josh directed, edited and composed the scores for two acclaimed documentaries about Jewish life in eastern Europe, Image Before My Eyes (1981) and Partisans of Vilna (1986). The Partisans soundtrack co-produced by Waletzky was nominated for a Grammy.
Waletzky also directed the Oscar-nominated 1992 film Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann about the legendary Hollywood film composer, and edited the 1995 Emmy-award winning PBS documentary, In the Fiddler’s House, about violinist Itzhak Perlman’s explorations in klezmer music.
Waletzky’s 2001 album of new compositions, Crossing the Shadows (Ariber di shotns), reflected material he had developed over two decades, and stands alongside Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman’s albums as one of the most important contemporary contributions to the canon of Yiddish song.
Through a successful career as a filmmaker (including directing and producing documentaries about Schaechter-Gottesman and Yiddish writer Itche Goldberg for The League of Yiddish), Waletzky continues to compose, and is currently collaborating with younger musicians such as clarinetist/composer Michael Winograd.
This week’s Yiddish Song of the Week (and the blog’s first video posting) is a performance by Josh of Yaninke, a song he learned from his father, Sholom. As Josh tells it, Yaninke is the first song he remembers learning from his father, perhaps because of the repetitive form.
Josh does not recall his grandparents ever singing the song, and speculates that Sholom learned it through the Sholem Aleichem movement. “Yaninke” is a Slavic name, and the narrative’s bucolic setting might lead one to suspect that it is a Yiddish version of a Slavic peasant folksong.
A variant of Yaninke, Oyf di vegelekh (On the Paths), was recorded by folklore scholar Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett in Toronto in 1969 from her cousin Mariam Nirenberg, and released on the 1986 album Folksongs in the East European Jewish Tradition (Global Village Music). YIVO published a folio to accompany the Nirenberg recording providing extensive biographical and musicological annotations prepared by Kirshenblatt-Gimblett with Mark Slobin and Khane Mlotek.
The folio authors identify three published collections containing variants of the song: “This song about Yaninka appeared previously in Lomir ale zingen 51, with a melodic variant, and in a mimeographed collection Lider vos vern gezungen in der arbeter-ring shul, Nov. 1937, no. 79 with a note that the song is from Russian. The same melody with other words ‘Oyf di felder vu s’veyen vintn’ (appears) in Beregovski-Fefer 456, Saculet no. 125.” Nirenberg learned the song in the 1920s in Tsharnovtshits (Czarnawczyce, Poland), just across the Bug River from Brisk Litovsk (Brest, Belarus). An excerpt of Nirenberg’s recording follows:
I recorded Nirenberg’s version of the song with Boston-based Yiddish singer Rebecca Kaplan Muranaka on our CD Oyf di vegelekh/On the Paths: Yiddish Songs with Tsimbl (Yiddishland Records, 2004). We included a newly-composed instrumental entitled the “Yanyinke Sirba” as a “chaser.” You can hear our performance here:
And finally we have Josh Waletzky’s performance of Yaninke. Recorded November 8, 2010 at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance and the Center for Jewish History’s program Josh Waletzky – Boiberik and Beyond: Yiddish Songs for the 21st Century. The program was presented as part of CTMD and CJH’s An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture Series.
Di zun in feld iz lang fargangen, (3x)
kumt Yaninke klaybn zangen. (2x)
The sun in the field has long set, Yaninke comes gathering sheaves.
Image of a Wedding Procession by Isaak Ashknaziy, 1893
A tsimblist, about to be thrashed by his wife.
Yiddish Song of the Week 
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