Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
Index of songs on this site
Youtube: all the Penny Songs I've recorded so far (with subtitles)
About this project ♦ ♦ About Jane Peppler
List of the still-lost songs: do you know any of them?
Search the blog:

UPDATE: Reposting because I got my hands on a non-restricted copy of David Medoff singing this song. It is so rare to find the actual recording cited on the songsheet! Medoff had a big hit on his hands with this one. I guess the Jews of the time liked to be scolded, exhorted, and horrified.

Here he is:


According to Zylbercweig, Dave Medoff was born in 1888 in Yelisavetgrad, Ukraine. In 1907 he began performing and until World War I toured with Russian-Ukrainian troupes. Then he and his wife Raisa Solovyova, with whom he performed, moved to the Chinese town of Harbin (a big Jewish center) and ended up in America in 1915 where he debuted in Chicago. He was then engaged in 1916 by Boris Thomashefsky and he starred in the show that featured this number - "Der tsebrokhene fidl" (The Broken Violin)" [or as it is catalogued, Die zerbrochene fiedele or Zubrochene Fiedele]

The song has been seen under names including:

 Oykh breng aykh a gros fun der haim
 A geruss fun der heim
A gruss von der heim
A gruss fun der haym
A gerus fin der haym
A Gruss fin der Heim





The Medoff recording is listed at europeana.eu but that organization does not permit offsite listening

You can hear the song at the FAU site as sung by Naum Coster (Nahen Rosenshak) (pictured here with a classic chin-shelf).

Naum Coster sings A gruss fun der heim   On the penny song broadside itself, the singer mentioned is the "completely famous" Morris Zaydman (Zeidman) but I couldn't find any recording by him of any song at all; his only online presence is in an old list of theater singers who hadn't paid their union dues.

Text and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.



Ikh breng aykh a grus fun der heym
Fun finstern land fun ot dem
Vos shlogt undz, vos plogt undz,
Vos tsapt blut fun unds nor aleyn
Vos traybt undz aroys fun der nest
In 'trenches' - in shreklekhn pest!
Ikh kum aleyn fun dort, fun shreklekhn ort
Men git undz keyn broyt, men shikt unds tsum toyt
Vu noyt un toyt iz der eyntsiker fal
Es valgern zikh [meysm] iberal
Vi tog azoy nakht, a shreklekhe shlakht

Yidishe kinder in land in dem!
Dermont zikh, brider, on der alter heym
Tates, mames, shvester, brider
Hungern, laydn - tseraysn glider
Kinderlekh kleyninke shreklekhe noyt
Zukhn di tates, vos zaynen shoyn toyt!
A shrek, a moyre, ven ikh denk on dem
Ot dos iz der grus fun der alter heym

Farbrent undzer alte heym
A khurbn in land in dem
Di heym tseshtert, mit blut di erd
Fun ales gevorn shtoyb un leym
Kh'bin gelofn mit shrek un moyre
Far di oygn got un in harts di toyre
Ikh hob dort farbrakht, tog un nakht,
In shreklekhn noyt gezen dem toyt!
Getrotn in mentshlekhn blut
Es valgern zikh meysim af shrit un trit
Tog azoy nakht a shreklekhn shlakht

I bring you a greeting from home
From the dark land, from that very place
That beats us, plagues us, sucks our blood
That drives us out of the nest
Into the trenches, into terrible pestilence
I myself come from that terrible place
They give us no bread, they send us to death
Deprivation and death, that's all there is
Corpses are wandering everywhere
Day and night, a terrible battlefield

Jewish children in the land!
Remember, brothers, the old home:
Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers,
Hungering, suffering, their limbs severed,
Tiny children. Terrible deprivation
Looking for the fathers who are already dead!
Terror, fear, when I think about it
This is the greeting from the old home

Our old home is burnt
A holocaust in the land
The home destroyed, the earth bloody,
Everything has become dust and clay
I ran with terror and fear
With God before my eyes and the Torah in my heart
I broke there, day and night,
In terrifying deprivation I saw death!
I walked in human blood
Corpses wandering everywhere
Day and night, a terrible battlefield

---

For sheet music and/or performances contact me: jane@mappamundi.com

---

Labels: anti-semitism, disaster, history, travails