Yosl & Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection

21 Jun 24 - 12:01 PM (#4204241)
Subject: Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection
From: Joe Offer

Oh, this looks like a treasure:

The Yosl and Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection at the Workers Circle

https://yiddishsongs.org/

The Song Collection appears to contain the entire contents of five Mlotek songbooks:

• Songs of Generations: New Pearls of Yiddish Song
• Yontefdike Teg: Song Book for the Yiddish Holidays
• We Are Here: Songs of the Holocaust
• Pearls of Yiddish Song: Favorite Folk, Art and Theatre Songs
• Mir Trogn A Gezang: Favorite Yiddish Songs

Then there's an introduction to Yiddish Music, a generous collection of recordings and videos, and a composers index.

For 43 years Yosl and Chana Mlotek brought Yiddish music and poetry to millions of people worldwide.

It all began with a weekly newspaper column in the New York Yiddish Forward called ‘Pearls of Yiddish Poetry’ and a feature known as ‘Readers Remember Songs.’

Yosl and Chana Mlotek were in harmony as a research team. Chana, YIVO’s long-standing ethnomusicologist and folklorist, and Yosl, education director for the Workers Circle and managing editor for the Forvertz, supported each other’s work in Yiddish culture and inspired countless students of music, theater, and history. Together, in 1970, they began “Pearls of Yiddish Poetry” (Perl fun der Yidisher Poezye), a newspaper column on the historic origins of Yiddish poetry and song that would go on to become a trailblazing precursor to social media, and put back together pieces of history shattered by horrific acts of hate. The column emerged as a result of a letter from a reader, Paul Berman, to The Forward’s editor, Simon Weber. Berman inquired about lines of a song he recalled from his younger years in Lodz, Poland, lines which he was unable to locate. This inquiry suggested to Yosl and Chana the possibility of other unpublished and half-forgotten songs that might still be lingering or lying dormant in the consciousness of Holocaust survivors and Jewish immigrants, and finally motivated the launch of their weekly, later biweekly, column on Yiddish artistic expression.

This Website is a treasure.

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22 Jun 24 - 06:52 AM (#4204265)
Subject: RE: Yosl & Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection
From: GUEST,sortaottery

Looks fascinating -- thanks for sharing.

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22 Jun 24 - 09:59 PM (#4204286)
Subject: RE: Yosl & Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection
From: Thomas Stern

Thanks Joe, excellent resource.

Thomas.

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29 Jun 24 - 07:50 PM (#4204707)
Subject: RE: Yosl & Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection
From: Joe Offer

As far as I can tell, the Mlotek collection is not the best and most accurate collection of Yiddish songs available online, but here's another nice Yiddish songs Website:
https://www.hebrewsongs.com/YSO/

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