Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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This Yiddish song urging the audience to send financial aid to the victims of the Kishinev pogroms in Russia was published in 1906 by Arnold Perlmutter and Herman Wohl. On the cover the transliteration is Schenkt a neduwe. Inside it says Schenkt a ne du we. My opinion is that whoever typeset this sheet music did not know Yiddish - he was comfortable with German but mangled all the words from Hebrew.

This song must have been very popular. Morris Rund certainly liked it, he set two of his songs to its melody: Farges nit kadish zogn and Di korbones fun der shif Titanik.

It's not very often I can share the exact recording cited in the sheet music! But here, happily, you can hear the original recording by Regina Prager (Mr. Blank sang the song with Mrs. Prager at some point but he is not heard in this recording).


You can also hear the song here: Minnie Birnbaum singing Shenkt a Nedoweh

More after the jump...


On the video I put the transliteration from the sheet music. You'll see it is very German (daytshmerish). Below are the lyrics in YIVO standard transliteration, as sent to me by Itzik Gottesman, and my translation. You'll see that in this version (at the top of the page it says Tsionistishe un folks-lider, Zionist and folksongs)  the "Kishinev people" have become a more general "poor people" -- and Gottesman says that this songbook credits Anshl Shor as composer!

Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, Itzik Gottesman's mother, sang a variant of this song. Click here to listen: Oy libe yidn hob rakhmones (Oh, dear Jews, have pity).

Here are the words given in the sheet music:

Libe yidn oy hot rakhmones lozt dervakhn ayer herts
Oy retn mentshn fun sakones filt mit dem tsveytns shmerts
Mener, froyen un kleyne kinder shrayen tsu aykh mit a biter geshrey:
Yidn, mir betn: helft geshvinder! Di opfer fun der rusisher tiranay!

Mir gefinen zikh in a groyser noyt mit undzer umglik iz gornit tsu shpasn!
Froyen shtarbn far a shtikele broyt, kinder valgern zikh arum in di gasn!

Shenkt a nedove far oreme mentshn,
Shenkt a nedove, Got vet aykh bentshn,
Shenkt a nedove, say elter, say yunger,
Shenkt a nedove, mir shtarbn far hunger!
Shenkt a nedove! Shenkt!

Dear Jews, have pity, let your heart be awoken
Save people from danger, empathize with another's heartache.
Men, women and small children cry to you with a bitter weeping.
We ask for help, soon, for the victim of Russian tyranny.

We find ourselves in great destitution, in our misfortune there's nothing to joke about
Women die for a bit of bread, children are wandering homeless in the street.

Give a donation for poor people,
Give a donation, God will bless you
Give a donation whether you're old or young
Give a donation, we're dying of hunger,
Give a donation, give.

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

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Labels: disaster, history, morality, mores, travails