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I don't know who this lyricist, Israel Ben Ami, was. Maybe somebody else can help me out. He wrote his dark lyrics about homeless Jews to the melody of Goldfaden's A beymele hobn undzer ovus avoseinu in der vilder viste geflantst. found as Das boimele at the LOC site with this quote from the original song:

"Our ancestors planted a tree of truth and knowledge. It then bloomed and bore sweet fruit, the Ten Commandments and Torah/Holy Writ. We nestled, like birds amoung broad leaves, within out Jewish traditions. Over the ages, though storms have beat against the great tree, it has remained steadfast, and ever with us as our sanctuary."

So Ben Ami was writing a kind of continuation of the original thought. He left out the chorus and used only the verse. I combined his verses a bit to shorten the song.

I have been coughing every day and every night since early December. It was bronchitis, now I don't know what it is, but it makes singing very hard and it makes me sound the way I expect I will sound all the time in another couple of decades. I thought the scratchy, wretched, weary, wobbly sound of my bronchitis voice sort of suits this song though it makes me miserable. Here it is, from yesterday:


And here is the transliteration and the translation:



The sky is enveloped in dark clouds from afar
The waves are bedecked with foam
For a long time driven by the storm
A ship is wandering on the ocean
There is no one at the rudder
There is no captain
There is no watchman to be seen on her
The crew sleeps shamelessly
So do the passengers, large and small

They aren't dreaming of any danger or terror
In their dreams nothing worries them
A shipwreck will suddenly wake them all
Bewildered by the terrifying metropolis
Then who will help them?
Who'll save their lives
In the great unexpected destitution?
Who is this dismal band,
The sleeping crew,
that carries the ship towards death!?

The ship is the desolate Jewish nation,
Misfortune drives them around
The storm is often an angry turmoil
Which they find everywhere in their path
Without a good commander
They have many rotten leaders
Motionless as they are, anything could happen
Against is such great danger from all sides
Do they then move themselves to stand by her?

Recently many said goodbye to land,
The Dnieper that runs to the sea,
Also there, by the Dnester and Vistula; the Genend
is probably also known to you.
There the sky is dark now,
And the tumult from the wild storm
can be heard even here
There, our people are sinking
In the bloody turmoil,
There is no help.

Oh, don't let the ship go under,
The ship that's carried us this far,
Let's quickly help our people,
Protect them from their enemies,
Carry the ship surely
Into the port as quickly as possible
Where she will no longer be terrified,
And take our people now to a home,
quickly, bring us to the long wished-for shore!

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

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Labels: anti-semitism, disaster, history, immigration, politics, religion, travails, war, zion, zionism