Listen To The Entire Yiddish Repertoire — At Once!

Molly Picon in 1955. Image by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

By Jordan Kutzik June 21, 2018

This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts.

Most American Jews recognize at most two or three Yiddish songs: “Afn Pripetshik,” “Tumbalalaika” and perhaps “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn.”

American Jews who grew up speaking Yiddish, however, can recognize dozens of others such as “Rozhinkes mit Mandlen,” “Afn Veg Shteyt A Boym” and so forth. Fans of Klezmer music and Yiddish folksongs know dozens of songs and Hasidic Jews know many more from their own repertoire. Very few people, however, know more than a few dozen Yiddish songs by heart.

In this charming video, filmed at Klezkamp 2013, musicians Benjy Fox-Rosen and Michael Winograd aim to perform “the entire Yiddish repertoire at once.” While they didn’t quite reach their ambitious goal they did create an interesting new composition, a sort of meta-folksong.

How many of these famous and (not so famous) songs do you recognize?

Here are all of the songs in the video in order of appearance:

1) “Oyfn Pripetshik;” Lyrics: Mark Warshavsky
2) “Rozhinkes mit Mandlen;” Lyrics: Abraham Goldfaden
3) “Di Rebetsin” Traditional
4) “Mayn Libe Beserabye;” Lyrics: Itzik Manger
5) “Milners Trern;” Lyrics: Mark Warshavsky
6) “Afn Vegn Shteyt a Boym;” Lyrics: Itzik Manger
7) “Hob ikh Mir An Altn Daym;” Lyrics: Yosef Grinshpan
8) “Zuntik Bulbes, Montik Bulbes;” Traditional
9) “Frayen Zikh iz Gut;” Lyrics: Arkady Gendler
10) “Bortsht;” Lyrics: Traditional 11) “Hudl mitn shtrudl;” Lyrics: Aaron Lebedeff
12) “Zog Nit Keynmol/Partizaner Hymen;” Lyrics: Hirsh Glick
13) “Tumbalalaika;” Lyrics: Traditional
14) “Urloyb;” Lyrics: Mordechai Gebirtig
15) “Sheyn vi Di Levone;” Lyrics: Chaim Tauber
16) “Yidl Mitn Fidl;” Lyrics: Itzik Manger
17) “Tshiribim, Tshiribom;” Lyrics: Traditonal

Jordan Kutzik is the deputy editor of the Yiddish Forward. Contact him at kutzik@forward.com.

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