Yiddish song websites?

Subject: Yiddish song websites?
From: RS
Date: 03 Jun 97 - 09:45 PM

I just finished typing up a songsheet which included several Yiddish songs such as Tumbalalaika; Yome, Yome; Shloimele, Malkele; among others. (I had already checked the DT database & couldn't find them there).

Since then I've found quite a few new lyrics web sites, by following links from this discussion forum ... but none with Yiddish songs. It occurs to me that if I start looking NOW, I could save myself some work for other songsheets in the future!

I'd like words in transliteration / translation / or even the original Yiddish if it is out there.

Can anybody out there help with URLs?

Thanks! :-)

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Jun 97 - 10:25 PM

Are you offering to post those lyrics here? We just might like that.....

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: RS
Date: 03 Jun 97 - 11:42 PM

Actually when I get some more time I was going to send the whole songsheet in to DT. It's got 26 songs on it, only about four of which were already on DT. (Plus "Yellow Bird - which I got on request, from another thread of this discussion group).

BTW, here's a thought: I've done two song circles with a specific theme - one was "A Journey Through a Day"; this one is "Women's Lives". Could there be some site on DT to post such indexes? ... it's more than just a set of songs on a common subject, the songsheets are balanced to included difficult/easy, short/long, well-known/less familiar - and a variety of cultural sources as well.

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From:
Date: 19 Jun 97 - 10:50 PM

Such a mechia to see someone looking for Yiddish music I did a quick scan on SAVVY SEARCH using the words klezmer lyrics. In the first 10 hits and by following a few links I got these 3.

http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/index.html " " .astrakan.hgs.se/~kryp/klezmer.htm " " .jewishmusic.com/kzall.htm

The last is a cyber store with many(many many many etc.) CD's tapes and books/music listed. As a last resort if you can't find, you could always buy!

Hope this helps. Allan

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Allan Samuels
Date: 19 Jun 97 - 10:53 PM

P.S. I know nothing about nor do I have any connection with the cyber store above, I have bought things thru the net and been happy. Allan

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Messages from multiple threads combined. Messages below are from a new thread.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: Yiddish song lyrics
From: Pejotka
Date: 04 Aug 00 - 02:57 PM

Does anyone know links for yiddish (jiddisch) song lyrics ?

Subject: RE: Help: Yiddish song lyrics
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Aug 00 - 04:06 PM

Hi, Pejotka - the best I've found is Zemerl (click) at Princeton University. It calls itself "the interactive database of jewish song. Yiddish. Hebrew. Ladino."
Give it a click - I think you'll like it. If you lose track of this thread, Zemerl is listed on our "links" page.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Yiddish song lyrics
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 04 Aug 00 - 05:52 PM

Joe, thanks for that link, which I haven't followed before. Oy! More stuff to look at! I never realized the site was based at my alma mater, which in the early 70s was the first major US university other than Yeshiva to have a kosher kitchen as an official University dining facility.

Shaloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Help: Yiddish song lyrics
From: MMario
Date: 04 Aug 00 - 06:30 PM

Mark - try "yiddish" in the supersearch as well

Subject: RE: Help: Yiddish song lyrics
From: Pejotka
Date: 06 Aug 00 - 07:47 AM

Hi Joe, thank you so much - this is a wonderful adress and there are a lot of songs - and a big offer for yiddish CD´s. Thank you for heaving read my question - schönen Dank für die Hilfe.

Pejotka from Germany

Subject: RE: Help: Yiddish song lyrics
From:
Date: 07 Aug 00 - 05:14 AM

There is a German site Jidische Vergessene Lieder. I haven't looked at it for a while. I hope it is still there.

Murray

Subject: Re: HOLOCAUST/SHOA: songs in memory
From: GUEST,Abraham Diner
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 10:02 AM

I am starting a list of the songs which could be used as
memorial songs of those who perished and suffered in the
holocaust; Here is my list so far:
1) Vu iz dus gesele, as sung by Jay and the Americans under the
English title " Where is the Village?" Bilingual version sung by
Howie Kane, in the LP TRY SOME OF THIS
2) El Diario de Ana Frank.- song in Spanish by italian singer
Mino Reitano. Also sung in the original italian language version.
3) Es Brennt.- Holocaust song in which there are numerous versions.
4) Zog nit kein mol az du gest dem letsten weg.- Many versions of
this song, but one of the more interesting one is by singer
Paul Robeson ( live in Moscow) in the l950's.

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 08:02 AM

the interactive database of jewish song. Yiddish. Hebrew. Judeo-Spanish.
With English translations.

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 08:04 AM

Virtual Klezmer
Yiddish lyrics with German translation, some with music sheets and midi audio files

Subject: RE: Yiddish songs?
From:
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 10:13 PM

Does anybody have the lyrics from a wonderful song I sang (in Phonetic translation) to my baby daughter? It was about a "kitten of mine" and I would like to put the words on a card for her fortieth birthday, which is coming soon. The closest I can come to the title is Ketzeleh du Mayns. Sorry about that, but can you help? I'm a new widow and she has been very loving and comforting to me.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply.

Leslie Newman

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 01:23 PM

Oh my dear - you must be of my age, amd I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. I tried some hours ago to post my findings, but there were some difficulties with the server.
The line ketsele du mayns is the end of a chorus belonging to Di mame iz gegangen; I have it in Ruth Rubin; A Treasury of Jewish Folksong. - New York, N.Y. ; Schocken Books Inc. , 1950. - Pg. 54
Here The Mother brings a yingele (boy) home from the market to her daughter.
Two other versions in the internet change the gender; the mame brings a meydele home to her son: in
zemerl.com, with tune, and by the
Amsterdam Klezmer Band
Having read it again I just remember caressing my baby daughters and singing them song nearly a quarter of a century ago ... sweet memories.

With a compassionate hug
Wilfried

Subject: Arbetloze Marsh oyf esperanto
From: Haruo
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 07:51 PM

I recently added Adolf Burkhardt's Esperanto version of the "Arbetloze Marsh" to my online hymnal (it's part of his song booklet, Pli ol kvindek, which I'm putting online as a memorial to him). Adolf was a German Lutheran pastor who died early this year. He was in many ways my mentor in Esperanto hymnody (he edited the two most important Esperanto Christian hymnals). And he also translated a number of songs from Yiddish (others will be coming online soon, as I type them and find the MIDIs).

Haruo

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 09:53 AM

For years the melody Shloimele Malkele has been singing in my head, but for the life of me, I can't find the words for it. Can anyone help me? It would be greatly apreciated.
Thank you,
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 12:14 PM

Sound clip here. If you have an ear for Yiddish, perhaps you can transcribe the words and post them for us.

Subject: ADD: SHLOYMELE—MALKELE
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 11:51 PM

Hi, Herb - I found it here:
http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/yiddish_transliterations3.pdf. It's certainly an interesting song - more than mildly incestuous.
The Milken Archive CDs are excellent, by the way - but the recording sure is different from the Barry Sisters version.
-Joe- (e-mail sent)

SHLOYMELE—MALKELE
from Dos galitsianer rebele (The Galician Rabbi) (1937)
Composer: Joseph Rumshinsky Words: Isidore Lillian

malkele: a shvester bin ikh dir a traye, oy bruderl her zikh nor ayn… shloymele: a piktshe bist du a mekhaye, tzu darf ikh gor dayn brider zayn? malkele: a bruder kh'vel dir tomid akhtn un hitn dikh af shrit un trit. shloymele: oy kush mikh un zol zikh dikh dakhtn az ikh bin dayn bruder nit. beyde: oy shloymele (malkele), bruder (shvester) kum nenter tsu mir; oy shloymele (malkele),ikh bin meshuge far dir.

Malkele: I am a loyal sister to you, Oh brother, just listen to me… Shloymele: You're like a picture—a joy to look at. Must I really be your brother? Malkele: Brother, I will always protect you and look out for you at every step. Shloymele: Oh, kiss me and don't think of me as your brother. Both: Oh, Shloymele, Shloymele, brother, come closer to me! Oh, Malkele, O, Malkele, sister, come closer to me! Oh, Malkele (Shloymele), I'm crazy for you!

16. At first glance, Rumshinsky and Isidore Lillian's love duet, SHLOYMELE MALKELE, from the 1937 musical production Dos galitsiyaner rebele (The Little Galician Rabbi), to a book by Louis Freiman and Shlome Shtaynberg [Steinberg], presents a perplexing scene that is bound initially to raise one's eyebrows. The lyrics appear to reveal a brother and sister openly expressing romantic love for each other. Yet, without knowing anything whatever of the story line, one thing is certain: Shloyme and Malke are not really brother and sister. For all the crudeness of Second Avenue at its worst (which this play was not, despite its shortcomings), nothing so hideous as incest would ever have been considered. What these lyrics tell us is that these two have become "crazy [meshuge] for each other" only upon confirming that they are biologically unrelated, and that until then, their strong quasi–brother/sister relationship had been confined (or, for future pseudo-Freudians, repressed) to the level of friendship.

The script for this musical, which was produced at the Yiddish Folksteater, has not been located as of this writing. But a rare consensus among reviewers was that—notwithstanding the amateurish press advertisement as "the success above all successes" and "the greatest and most beautiful of all Yiddish operettas"—the plot and story line were among the weakest, most implausible, most incongruously juxtaposed ("a mishmash of situations and types from other Second Avenue pieces"), and least coherent of all Second Avenue shows.

What we can ascertain about this musical from secondary documents is that it concerns a Hassidic rebbe's son (the rebele, or "little rabbi," who we assume is heir to his father's court) who was somehow separated in childhood from his family and his home. His young adult identity is later assumed by a survivor of a shipwreck in which the actual rebele, Shloyme, is thought to have been drowned, and it is the imposter who returns home as Shloyme to the rebbe's court. He is accepted and "welcomed back" by the family, and he becomes close to the real Shloyme's sister, Malke. But they are close on a brother-sister plane, which, for him, grows into an attraction on another level, since he knows that Malke is not his sister. There is the suggestion that he has resisted his impulses for as long as he could. By the time this song occurs in the action, the truth has obviously been revealed. She seems to have begun to suspect it already, so the mutual feelings might at least subconsciously have begun to develop. She is briefly torn between not allowing these feelings to surface and surrendering to them, but now that it is clear that there is no biological relationship, she needs little persuasion.

In the end, the real Shloyme, who has in fact survived the shipwreck and been taken in by Second Avenue's favorite fantasy, Gypsies—which provides the stage opportunity for the romanticized Gypsy motifs, music, dance, and visual paraphernalia the audiences so adored—surfaces and returns home. The result is a doubly "happy ending."

All reviewers had praise for Rumshinsky's music, even though Der Tog referred to it as good music adorning an unappetizing story. "Here, in this piece, the music is everything." Once again, Rumshinsky had demonstrated even to the severest of critics of the play that he had not lost "his craft in composing colorful music for the stage"—of which Shloymele malkele was one of many numbers.

 

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 11:37 AM

For years, the best source for lyrics for Yiddish, Ladino, and Hebrew songs has been http://www.zemerl.com/. It used to be located at Princeton University, and then had its own URL, zemerl.com.

I went to the Website today and got a notice that the site was suspended. Anybody know what happened to it, and does anybody know of a good replacement?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Haruo
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 12:48 AM

I posted a comment/request (to Joe) here earlier today, and it has disappeared. ¿¿?? The loss of Zemerl is very regrettable.

Haruo

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 08:16 PM

Archive.org last archived the Zermerl Website in May, 2008. Could it have been gone all this time without us noticing?

You can access most Zemerl information at:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.zemerl.com

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http://www.zemerl.com/ seems to be working well today. -Joe Offer, 9 Dec 2010-

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Dec 10 - 01:35 PM

Would recommend the Yiddish Song of the Week www.yiddishsong.wordpress.com, edited by Itzik Gottesman of the Yiddish Forverts newspaper

Subject: RE: Yiddish song websites?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 01:27 AM

Gee, I really like these song of the day/song of the week Websites. It's a great way to learn new songs. Thanks to the Guest above for the recommendation for http://yiddishsong.wordpress.com/.

-Joe-

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Closed for the time being because this thread is attracting a lot of spam. If you'd like to post something contact a moderator to reopen it. --mudelf