Lifshe Schaechter Widman & Leybl Kahn by Ben Katchor
Two similar versions of the song without the melody were collected by Shmuel-Zaynvil Pipe and Oyzer Pipe in Sanok, Galicia and published in the YIVO-bleter volume 11, Jan – May, 1937 in Yidishe folkslider fun Galitsye, page 62. I have mentioned before in this blog that of all the pre-World War Two collections of Yiddish folksong, the Pipe brothers’ Galicia, Poland, collections come closest to LSW’s Bukovina repertory.
Note that LSW sings “malekh- hamus”, which is her dialect form for “malekh-hamoves” (angel of death).
Regarding the comic strip above: the artist Ben Katchor imagined how these 1954 recording sessions might have looked in his advertisement for the cassette Az di furst avek. The strip appeared in the collection Picture Story 2(NY. 1986, edited by Ben Katchor).
In mayn hartsn brent a fayer / A fire burns in my heart
TRANSLITERATION
In mayn hartsn brent a fayer
nor me zeyt nisht keyn royekh aroys.
Ekh hob gemeynt bist a malekh fin deym himl.
Tsum sof bisti mayn malekh-hamus
Mayne eltern tien mikh freygn,
vus ikh gey azoy arim betribt.
Vi ken ikh zey mayn shmarts dertseyln,
az ekh hob mekh in dir farlibt.
Az ikh hob mekh in dir farlibt.
hot keyn shum foygl af der velt hot nisht gevist.
Haynt iz a rash in ale gasn,
az indzer libe iz imzist.
Az di libe iz imzist;
Es geyt mir azh un a geveyn.
Far veymen blaybt den di veytik
Az nisht nor bay mir aleyn.
TRANSLATION
A fire burns in my heart
but no smoke can be seen.
I thought you were an angel from heaven,
turns out you’re the angel of death.
My parents ask me
why I go around so sad.
How can I tell them of my pain –
that I have fallen in love with you.
That I have fallen in love with you –
not a bird the world over knew about it.
Today there’s much talk in all the streets
that our love is for naught.
That our love is for naught
keeps me crying.
With whom will stay this pain
if not only with me.
Shmuel-Zaynvil and Oyzer Pipe, Yidishe folkslider fun Galitsye, YIVO-bleter volume 11, Jan – May, 1937:
A print version of Bay der fintsterer nakht can be found in I. L. Cahan “Shtudyes vegn yidisher folksshafung” YIVO, 1952, NY, in an article given the title for this volume “Peyrushim af 24 lider” that his student at the YIVO institute in Vilna, Shmuel-Zanvil Pipe, had prepared for publication. This article consisted of Cahan’s comments on Yiddish songs that Pipe had collected in his hometown of Sanok [in Yiddish “Sunik/Sonik”], Galicia. Pipe had collected a version of “Bay der fintserer nakht” in 1934 from a singer who said it was sung 30 years earlier. The song is in Cahan, 1952, page 185, and has three verses, rather than two verses and one refrain, as Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (1894-1974) (LSW) sings it.
According to interviews with LSW conducted by Prof. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, NYU, in 1972-73, the song was sung by the plagers/plogers (sufferers). The plagers were young Jewish men who were about to be inducted into the Austria-Hungarian army and wandered from town to town, usually in groups, so they would intentionally fail the draft because of their poor health. See my article “Plagers: a folkloristishe shtudye” [Plagers: a folkloristic study], Forverts, January 7th, 2010, page 4, which refers to the literature on plagers in Yiddish.
Lifshe Schaechter-Widman’s Hometown of Zvinyetchke, Bukovina, Ukraine Photo by Itzik Gottesman, 2010
In this recording of LSW made by Leybl Kahn in New York City in 1954, she clearly sings the song too high in this performance, as can be heard in the last verse.
Bay der fintsterer nakht is unusual textually – it doesn’t fall into the usual categories of men’s songs – not religious, not political, not a work song, not humorous, not nationalist. It’s partly a lament on how miserable life is, and partly a love song; topics we would usually hear in women’s songs.
Bay der fintsterer nakht lig ikh mir bayshtendik*, oy, un trakht. zayt ikh bin fin mayn heym avek. ikh ken shoyn nit kimen keyn kayn tsvek. Ver se vil nit, dertsapt mir mayn blit.
In the dark night, I lay constantly, oy, and think, since I have left my home. I cannot reach any goal. Who ever wants can bleed me.
Oy, oy, oy, oy Vi farbitert iz mir dus harts Oy, oy, oy, oy Ver ken den film mayn shmerts. Derekh ayn imgliklekher libe Imtsugeyn in di gasn aleyn, Tsu zayn fin mayn heym fartribn. Oy elnt bin ikh vi a shteyn.
Oy, oy, oy, oy How bitter is my heart. Oy, oy, oy, oy Who can feel my pain? Because of an unfortunate love, I wander the streets alone. To be driven from my home – Oy, lonely am I as a stone.
Mayn mame hot mikh gelozt shtudirn. Zi hot gevolt az fun mir zol zayn a lat Fun deym alemen hot zikh gur oysgelozt. Ikh ti mir blind arimshpatsirn. Elnt bin ekh, in na venad.
My mother allowed me to study, She wanted something to become of me [lit – she wanted me to become a respectable person] From all of this, nothing turned out. Blindly I wander around, lonely am I and homeless.
Oy, oy, oy, oy Vi farbitert iz mir mayn harts Oy, oy, oy, oy Ver ken den film mayn shmerts? un derekh a finsterer libe arimtsugeyn in di gasn aleyn, Tsu zayn fin mayn heym fartribn. Oy, elnt bin ikh vi a shteyn.
Oy, oy, oy, oy, How bitter is my heart Oy, oy, oy, oy, Who can feel my pain? Because of a dark love to wander in the streets alone. To be driven from my home – Oy lonely am I like a stone.
*bayshtendik – though I am unfamiliar with this word, my mother, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman (LSW’s daughter), and I assume it means the same as „shtendik‟.
In this week‘s entry the reader will get four Yiddish songs for the price of one. What connects them is the same melody. I am not the first to write on the popularity of this tune. The Israeli Yiddish song-researcher Meir Noy wrote an article זמר סובב עולם [The tune that circles the world] in the Israeli publication אומר, April 13, 1962. I could not find the article yet, so am not sure what he includes.
The first song and perhaps the oldest is a beggar song – Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd? (Where are my wagon and horse?); the second song Yosele mit Blimele (Yosele and Blimele) is a typical lyrical love song. These are sung by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (LSW, 1893 – 1974), recorded in 1954 in NYC and originate from her Bukovina repertoire that she learned in the small town of Zvinyetchke in the 1890s-early 1900s. I have found no variants of the beggar song, and one of Yosele mit blimele (Oy vey mame, in the Pipe-Noy collection, see below, page 270-71 with music). The first line as my mother remembers it sung was “Vu iz mayn vugn, vu zenen mayne ferd?” which fits better into the melody; it does indeed sound as if LSW forgot a syllable or two when she sings it here, and forces it into the melody.
In the interviews that Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett of New York University recorded with LSW in the early 1970s shortly before her death, LSW said that much of her repertoire, particularly the songs about life‘s difficulties, was learned from the older, married women in town, while the younger unmarried women taught her the hopeful love songs. Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd would fall into the category taught by the married women (vayber) while Yosele mit blimele would be a typical song performed during the Sabbath afternoon walks that the unmarried girls took into the woods. In terms of style, the beggar song is sung slower and more mournful, while the love song is more playful.
LSW sings other versions of Yosele mit blimele including a second verse:
Az du vest kumen, tsum dokter bay der tir, zolst im gebn a vink, azoy vi ikh tsu dir. Zolst im gebn a tuler in der hant. Vet er shoyn visn vus mit dir iz genant
When you come to the doctor’s door, you should give him a wink, like I give to you. you should give him a dollar in his hand; so he will know what embarrased you.
A verse which implies an abortion! But in such a light-hearted song it seems quite incongruous.
The third song – In a kleynem shtibele (In a Small Room) – is sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman (born 1920) and was recorded May 13th 2011 (last week) in the Bronx. She learned this song in one of her afternoon Yiddish classes in Chernovitz, (then Romania) either at the Morgnroit school (Socialist Bundist) or the Yidisher shulfareyn, a Yiddish cultural group, in the 1920s, early 1930s. Basically the same version was collected by the folklorists Shmuel-Zanvil Pipe and his brother Oyzer Pipe in their hometown of Sanok (in yiddish- Sunik), Galicia, then Poland. Dov and Meir Noy published the Pipe brothers collection in Israel (Folklore Research Studies , Vol. 2, Jerusalem 1971), and a copy of that version is attached with the music. See the footnote to the song by Dov and Meir Noy (p. 326) for other songs with this melody, and the reference to Meir Noy‘s article mentioned above.
In a kleynem shtibele is a worker‘s song, text written by the writer and ethnographer A. Litvin (pseudonym of Shmuel Hurvits 1863 – 1943) and the complete original text (Di neyterkes) can be found in M. Bassin‘s Antologye: Finf hundert yor yidishe poezye, volume one 258-259, NY 1917.
The fourth song with the same melody is In shtetl Nikolayev (In the Town of Nikolayev). The Freedman Jewish Sound Archive has information on three recordings: a version by David Medoff (1923); Kapelye (the album „Future and Past‟, sung by Michael Alpert); and the German group Aufwind (from the album „Awek di junge jorn‟). We have included a link to the Medoff performance. See Mark Slobin and Richard Spotwood‘s article on Medoff (David Medoff: A Case Study in Interethnic Popular Culture in American Music, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 261-276.
AUDIO RECORDINGS:
Song 1:Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd? (Where are my wagon and horse?). Performance by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn.
Song 2:Yosele mit Blimele(Yosele and Blimele). Performance by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn.
Song 3:In a kleynem shtibele (In a Small Room). Performance by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, recorded May 12, 2011 by Itzik Gottesman.
Song 4: In shtetl Nikolayev (In the Town of Nikolayev). Performance by David Medoff, recorded 1923.
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS
Song 1:Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd? (Where are my wagon and horse?). Performance by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn.
Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd?
Az ikh bin aroysgefurn, hot getsitert himl un erd.
Hant bin ikh urem; shtey ikh ba der tir.
Kimen tsu geyn di sholtikes un lakhn (up?) fin mir.
Where are my wagon and horse?
When I first drove out, heaven and earth shook.
Now that I am poor, I stand at the door.
So the scoundrels come by to mock me.
Vi iz mayn tsiring vus ikh hob gebrakht fin vin?
Vus mayn vab un kinder zenen gegongen ongetin?
Hant az ikh bin urem, shtey ikh far der tir.
Kimen tsu geyn di sholtikes un lakhn up (?) fin mir.
Where is the jewelry that I had brought from Vienna?
That was worn by my wife and children.
Now that I am poor, I stand by the door.
So the scoundrels come by to mock me. Song 2:Yosele mit Blimele(Yosele and Blimele). Performance by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn.
Yosele mit Blimele zey zitsn af a bank.
Oy vey Blimele, ikh bin azoy krank.
Kh‘hob aza krenk, ikh shem zikh oystsuzugn,
Der dokter hot mir geheysn khasene-hobn.
Yosele and Blimele are sitting on a bench.
Oh dear Blimele, I am so very ill.
I have an illness, I am embarrased to reveal –
The doctor ordered me to get married.
Khasene hobn – es geyt dir nor in deym.
Khasene hobn – ken men glaykh ven (?) me vil aleyn.
Khasene hobn – darf men hubn gelt.
Ken men opfirn a sheyne velt.
Getting married – is all you can think of.
Getting married is easy if you want to do by ourselves.
Getting married – you need money for that,
and then you can have a beautiful world.
Yingelekh un meydelekh hot shoyn nisht keyn moyre.
Khasene hubn – es shteyt dokh in der toyre.
As der shnader shnadt – shnadt er mit der mode
un az der rebe vil a vab, meygn mir avode.
Boys and girls, you no longer have to fear.
Getting married – It says so in the Torah.
When the tailor tailors, he cuts according to the fashion
and if the Rebbe wants a wife, then we may too of course.
Song 3:In a kleynem shtibele (In a Small Room). Performance by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, recorded May 12, 2011 by Itzik Gottesman.
In a kleynem shtibele, bay a langn tish. Zitsn dortn meydelekh un dreyen mit di fis. Zey dreyen di mashindelekh fun fri biz nakht Un azoy vern tutsnvayz hemdelekh gemakht.
In a small room, at a long table, There sit girls and turn with their feet. They turn the machines from early to night. And thus by the dozens, shirts are produced. Girls, so small, tell me why are you pale?
Meydelekh ir kleninke, zogt vos zent ir blas? Hemdelekh ir vaysinke, zogt vos zent ir nas? Meydelekh un hemdelekh, zey reydn nisht keyn vort. Nor di mashindelekh zey geyen imer fort.
Shirts so white, tell me why are you wet? Girls and shirts, they do not speak a word. But the machines, they keep going forever.
Song 4: In shtetl Nikolayev (In the Town of Nikolayev). Performance by David Medoff, recorded 1923.
Transliterated lyrics courtesy of the German klezmer band Aufwind may be found on the Zemerl website by clicking here.
What is a parekh? Medically speaking, it is a disease of the scalp – Favus. As a result of the disease, which is a fungus, you lose your hair, and lesions form. It is not a pretty site. Many Jews were afflicted with this disease and a large folklore developed around it. Parekh or Parkh, if you look it up in the Yiddish dictionaries came to connote „wicked man‟ (Harkavy‘s dictionary) or „a rat‟ „a stingy person‟ (Weinreich‘s dictionary). So parekh indicates both the disease and the person who has the disease. Parekh came to mean a filthy person as well, as in the old insult Ashkenazic Jews hurled at non-Ashkenazic immigrants in Israel in the 1950s – Frenk parekh.
Illustration: This “train ticket” was collected by the folklorist Shmuel-Zanvil Pipe in his hometown of Sonik, Galicia, (Sanok) for the YIVO Ethnographic Commission in the 1930s. It says on top “Parekh-commission” and then under it: “(from) Sonik – (to) Egypt: the journey is free. Attention: During the trip you cannot scratch yourself. The transport is leaving Shabes, 2:00 PM. We can assume this was distributed on Shabes-hagodl, when the parkhes were exiled to Egypt.
I made this recording of singer Moyshe Kupit at the Yidish-vokh retreat in Copake, NY in September 1989. Kupit was born in Yedinits, Bessarabia (today’s Republic of Moldova). The recording was a result of my research into a specific custom on Shabes-hagodel, the Sabbath before Passover, in which a mock parade took place in the towns of Eastern Galicia, Bukovina, Bessarabia and Romania, during which the Jews with a parekh in the town were singled out and mocked, and told to „Go back to Egypt!‟ Sorry I can‘t go more into this custom at this time; I have accumulated much material on it. The best account in Yiddish is found in Itzik Shvarts‘ (I. Caro) memoirs „A moldovish yingl.‟ It‘s not a very nice custom, one in which Jews denigrate other Jews in a vulgar manner, so I doubt the parekh-song will ever make the top 10 Yiddish song charts.
Yet it is a fascinating cultural document. The reference to tar in the song is connected to the belief that smearing tar can cure the parkeh. Symbolically, the song is just wonderful – a line of parekhs connecting the dirtiest place in the town, the hekdesh – poorhouse, to the cleanest – the bathhouse.
Adds Pete Rushefsky: Musically, the piece shares charcteristics of many Ukrainian kolomeykes, employing a running series of descending eighth notes, though Parekh-lid lacks the characteristic cadential couplet of two quarter notes that typifies a true kolomeyke.
Ale parkhes hobn zikh arumgenemen in a reydl,
hobn getontst funem hekdesh bizn beydl.
Hey-hu, parkhenyu,
gib zikh a krots in kepenyu.
All the parkhes formed a circle,
danced from the poorhouse to the bathhouse.
Hey-hu, parkhenyu,
Give yourself a scratch in your head.
Ver se vil gikher loyfn,
der zol geyn smole koyfn.
Hey-hu, parkhenyu,
gib zikh a krots in kepenyu.
Whoever wants to run faster,
he should go buy the tar.
Hey-hu…
S‘iz gevorn a groys gezeml,
der eltster parekh hot farloyrn zayn keml.
Hey-hu, parkhenyu,
gib zikh a krots in kepenyu.
A big gathering then formed,
the oldest parekh lost his comb.
Hey-hu…..
Lifshe Schaechter Widman & Leybl Kahn by Ben Katchor
Yiddish Song of the Week 