Warm wishes for a sweet Pesach, a zisn peysekh!
Here is a jazzy version of “DAYENU” with subtitled lyrics in Yiddish and English, performed by the Jewish Peoples Philharmonic Chorus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3R98uechsQ
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Also from JPPC, “AFN NIL“ (On the Nile)” with impressionistic choral setting. The lyrics, which describe baby Moses floating in the Nile, are by well-known Yiddish poet Avrom Reisin. (or Abraham Reyzen 1876 – 1953). The melody always struck me as vaguely Middle Eastern and hard to sing. This video may not have the same crowd appeal as Dayenu, but the song is a staple of a Yiddish-speaking Seder.
“This video can be viewed with subtitles in English, transliterated Yiddish, and, for the first time, Yiddish in the Yiddish alphabet! English and transliterated Yiddish should appear by default. For the Yiddish alphabet, click on the Settings button in the lower right corner of the YouTube video player. Subtitles can also be turned off by clicking on "CC."”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXL6ljEUXyE
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And a deeply moving song about the suffering of the slaves and their rescue by Moses, In the Land of Pyrimids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB0HjMynBAI
and more at utube from Fraidy Katz.
milkenarchive.org ...legend-of-toil-and-celebration/work/piramidn/
...Set to an anonymous melody, the words, penned by David Edelstadt (1866–1892)—one of the most famous labor and sometimes radical socialist poets—are among his more benign and deliberately childlike and innocently charming poems. The song betrays a secular socialist slant on the traditional Pesah narrative, eliminating all references to Divine intervention and emphasizing instead Moses as a people’s hero and a prototype of future labor leaders who would rescue economically and socially if not politically enslaved workers from managerial subjugation. If not for Moses’ own initiative, rather than his acceptance of a divinely appointed mission, the Jewish people would still be slaves in Egypt. Piramidn illustrates the way in which Jewish holydays were reimagined and stripped of their religious origins and dimensions, refracted anew through secular cultural prisms … as part of nonreligious Yiddishist curricula… By: Neil W. Levin
In dem land fun piramidn,
s’geven a kenig, beyz un shlekht;
zaynen dort geven di yidn,
zayne diner, zayne knekht.
kinder hot men dan farmoyert
ven a tsigl hot gefelt;
ver veys vi lang
es volt gedoyert,
ot di viste shklafn velt,
ven in land fun piramidn
volt nit zayn a groyser held,
velkher hot gekemft far yidn
mit zayn khokhme un zayn shverd?
In the land of pyramids,
There was a wicked and evil king;
There the Jews were
His servants, his slaves.
They filled the walls with children
Whenever they were short a brick;
Who knows how long
This bleak slave-world
Would have lasted,
If in the land of pyramids
There had not been a great hero,
Who fought for the Jews
With his wisdom and his sword?
Translation: Adam J. Levitin and Eliyahu Mishulovin
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If I may add two more, a song that began to be sung at leftist first seders 75 years ago, written by poet & partizan Hirsch Glick in honor & memory of the Jewish Resistance, —the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began the first night of Passover in 1943, which —like 2019— was APRIL 19. performed here by Paul Robeson from his Yiddish repertoire.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LifT4MzpY2Y
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And for listening while commenting (apologies that I couldn’t find lyrics or translation):
This is a musical realisation by Avishai Fisz of a Passover Song from "Sefer Simkhes Haneyfesh" ("The Book of the Rejoicing Soul"), an Ashkenazi songbook first published in Bavaria towards the end of the 17th century, containing songs of morality for the Jewish home. The songs describe in very witty rhymes the diversity of customs for the various Jewish holidays, the exalted consciousness attained by following the Jewish tradition, and the pure joy of belief in god. The language of the songs is Old Yiddish — an archaic form from Western Europe. The musical notation for the songs —the only musical notation existing today for works of Jewish music written in that period— reveal a mesmerizing musical pastiche, spanning from pure baroque polyphony to very spicy folktunes. Di Tsaytmashin (Yiddish for "the Time Machine") Ensemble is dedicated to reviving the texts and music of this unforgettable work... |
Ah Gutten Shabbos, khevreh.