Discover the Music

Words by Moishe Broderson (1890-1956); music by David Beigelman (1887-1944). The song was published as an anonymous song with a slightly different text by Albert Bitter in 1940. The late Avram Kahn submitted a text by Hal Colter that was sung by the Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus, which begins: “A gut-morgn dir, Hersh-David, / A gut-morgn, Frume, / Kh’hob gehert du host dos veyts / Un hey aropgenumen. (Good morning, Hersh David, good morning, Frume, I heard you gathered the wheat and hay).

In his compilation The Yiddish Song Book, Jerry Silverman includes a humorous parody of the song entitled “To gey zikh lernen tantsn.” The first stanza is:-A gut-morgn, dir, Rel; Berl; /-A gut-morgn, Sammy, /-lkh hob gehert az geyst mil mazl / Blaybn in Miami. / Trogst oyf zikh koym zibn tsendlik / Yorelekh in gantsn; / Heybstu on a tsveyte yugnt, I To gey zikh lernen tantsn” (-Good morning Berl,-Good morning, Sammy,-I heard that you’re going to stay in Miami. You’re barely 70, you’re starting your second youth. So go learn to dance).

This is a part of the ballad of Hirsh Lekert, based on an actual incident: the attempted assassination on May 5, 1902, of a Vilna governor by a member of the Jewish Labor Bund, the shoemaker Hirsh Lekert, in retaliation for the brutal flogging of a group of workers because they had participated in a May 1st demonstration. Hirsh Lekert was hanged on May 29, 1902.

Text and music published by S. Lehman in 1921. Hirsh Lekert was also the subject of dramas by H. Leivick, A. Kushnirov and other Yiddish writers.

Folk song, published by Mikhl Gelbart in 1938.

Words by Yiddish writer Yitskhok Leybush Peretz (1852-1915); music by Eliyohu Hirshin (1876-1960). Published in Warsaw in the Ilustrirte vokh, No. 16, April 25, 1924. The last lines differ from Peretz’s original which were: “Es vet shaynen, shmekn, zingen,/ Un oyf undzer keyver oykh” (there will be light, fragrance, singing — on our graves as well).

In his poem, “Di lererin Mire” (Mire, the teacher), Abraham Sutzkever describes how the song was sung in the Vilna Ghetto: “Shoyn klingt es: ‘Nit vayt is der friling.’/ Nor untn, di hek un bagnetn tsetreyslen di gruntn,/ Me shlept far di hor fun di kelers un lekher,/ ‘Nit vayt is der friling’ farklingt ober hekher. ” (You can hear the words [of the children singing): “‘Spring is not far off.” But below hatchets and bayonets make the earth tremble. People are dragged by their hair from cellars and holes. ‘Spring is not far off resounds even louder.”)

Words and music by Fishl Kanapoff, printed in 1924.The song was adapted in the musical The Golden Land where it was sung by actor Bruce Adler.

A worker’s song by poet Avrom Reyzen (1875-1953), originally entitled “Tsum vinter” (To winter). Words .and music published by Mikhl Gelbart (for mixed chorus) in sheet music by Jos. P. Katz, N.Y., 1916 and Y. Glatshteyn in Warsaw in 1918.

In his memoirs “Epizodn fun mayn lebn” (Episodes from My Life), Reisen recounts how in the winter of 1900 scenes of dire poverty moved him to write this poem. A. Litvak, a leader of the Jewish Labor Bund, recalls that in 1904-5 the workers themselves changed the last lines to express the hope that their hardships would end: “Winter will not last long, summer is not far off.”

Chana Krystal-Fryshdorf, a fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, describes a cultural gathering in the Ghetto: “Virovski, a well-known Bundist activist and teacher in the Yiddish schools in Lodz, concluded his lecture on Yiddish poets with Reisen’s poem ‘Hulyet, hulyet beyze vintn.’ Everyone was moved.” Chana Fryshdorf later informed compilers that Virovski’s recitation contained the optimistic last lines: “Winter will not last long, summer is not far off.”

Song created in the Vilno ghetto. Words are by Leyb Rozental (1916 – 1945) who wrote a number of plays for revue theatres. He was drowned by the Germans in the Baltic Sea near Konigsburg in January 1945. Composer unknown.

Words and music by Rubin Doctor (1882-19-?). Zuni Maud used the melody for a song “Kumt an opereyter” (When an operator comes), published in Sam Liptzin’s collection in 1954. The song was revived in the Off-Broadway musical The Golden Land (1982-87).

Words by ltsik Fefer, born in 1900 and murdered on August 12,1952 during the Stalin era together with other prominent Yiddish writers and cultural leaders. Music by Emil Gorovets, Soviet Yiddish singer, who immigrated to this country in 1974. He performed this song at the annual Workmen’s Circle August 12th commemorations of the liquidation of Yiddish Writers in Soviet Russia which took place at City Hall.

Folksong that speaks of the two main obstacles to a girl’s getting married: nadan (dowry) and yikhes (family pedigree). Published by M. Kipnis in 1918. In another collection of M. Kipnis’, Populerste lider fun Zeligfeld un Kipnis, n.d., a third stanza was added by poet Peysakh Kaplan which begins: “Du host mir tsugezogt nemen, / Tsi hostu in mir genart?” (You promised to wed me. Were you disappointed in me?) Folk singer Isa Kremer included an additional stanza in her Album with a thinly disguised curse: “Un efsher hostu shoyn an andere, / A shenere un besere fun mir / Zol ir got gebn fir yor libe / Un aza sof vi bay mir” (And perhaps you have another girl, prettier and better than me. Let God give her four years of a love affair with such an outcome as mine). This feeling of anger is also echoed in a stanza that the compilers collected from Sorelle Skolnick, St. James, N.Y. (originally from Mozyr, Minsk province): “Un efsher gefelt dir Khane-Sore beser, / Vayl ir nadn iz greser; / To gey zhe mir fun danen am shnelstn avek, / Un zol es nemen an ek” (And perhaps you like Khane Sore more because her dowry is larger. So go away from me quickly and let it be over and done with!)

Words by Moishe Broderson (1890-1956), music by David Beigelman (1987-1944). Written for the Ararat Theatre of pre-war Warsaw. The song, which incorporates the argot of the underworld, was a popular repertory piece of the singer-actors Leon Liebgold and Lilly Liliana. Liebgold submitted the song to Mina Bern who transcribed it for compilers. During the Holocaust the melody was used for two songs in the Lodz Ghetto, collected by Gila Flam: “Kemfn” (Fight) and “Amerike hot erklert” (America Declared). The second states that “America has declared . . . that England must let the Jews have their own country.”

Folksong in the form of a letter. Sung by compiler Yosl Mlotek, who heard it at a summer camp in Warsaw from Isaac Giterman, director of the Joint Distribution Committee in Poland, in the 1930s. A different melody was published by Schack and Cohen, 1924. The Tsaytshrift…II-III (1927-1928) has the following text: “Ikh hob dikh lib Vi yontevdikn kigl / Un ale meydlekh / Zaynen ba mir migl / Fun mir, fun mir / Fun mir dayn khosn Idl” (I love you like holiday kugel, all other girls disgust me. From me, your bridegroom Yidl).

A song that was popular among second-generation American Jews in the 1930’s.

Poem by Avrom Reyzen (1875-1953); melodies by Maurice Rauch (1910-1944) and Sidor Belarsky (1900-1975) are both presented.

Text by B. Charney Vladeck (1886-1938); music by Mikhl Gelbart (1889-1962).

Folksong in the repertory of singer Ben Bonus, submitted by his wife, actress Mina Bern. In the song collection Al haahava by Mendel Singer and Moshe Bik, with translations by Shimshon Meltser (1951), which folklorist Ruth Rubin gave the compilers, two verses of the song appear. Ruth Rubin and the compilers were greatly enamored of the melody. A variant of the text was published by Y. L. Cahan in 1927-1928 (no. 24 in his Collected Works).

Folksong, text published in Tsaytshrift II-III (1927-1928); a longer text with music was published in the Filologishe shriftn fun YIVO, V (1938). The song was part of a tailors’ scene entitled “A shnayderish gezang,” written and performed by Ben Bonus. There it was sung by his wife, actress-singer Mina Bern, who submitted it to the compilers.

Humorous dialect song collected from Moshe Kligsberg by compilers, in 1947, According to informant the song was by Moishe Broderson (1890-1956). The text appears in Ruth Rubin’s Voices of a People as an anonymous children’s song. Also Leyzer Ran analyzes it as a children’s song in Di goldene keyt, 110-111, 1983: In the second and third stanzas, the words are formed from dialectal elisions: “Tsoteki” means “Ets hot di ki?” (Do you have the cows?), “Moteki” means “Me hot di ki” (I have the cows) and others.

The name of the town “Pitshepoy” has several meanings. It is used as a synonym for an anonymous town, for a remote or nonsensical place like Hotseplots. During the Holocaust the children of the internment camp in the Parisian suburb of Draney came up with the name “Pitchipoi” as an unknown, mysterious place to which they would be taken and which turned out to be Auschwitz.

Words by Moyshe Korman (1884-1928); music by Mikhl Gelbart (1889-1966). Published in sheet music by Jos. P. Katz, N.Y., 1924. The song was popular in Yiddish schools in the United States and Poland in the 1930’s.

Words by Zishe Landau (1889-1937); composer unknown. Published in M. Gelbart, Lomir zingen, 1938-1939.

Text and music by Shmuel Aykhel (1886- 1943), published in 1905. This song was often erroneously credited to Morris Rosenfeld.