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It took a while to find the historic figures of this song. Yarmulovski the elder is Alexander (Sender) Jarmulowsky. Ordained as a rabbi, he married the daughter of a wealthy merchant and established a shipping firm in Germany, then emigrated in the early 1870s to New York City, where he founded the S. Jarmulowsky bank on the Lower East Side.

He was known as the "East Side J.P. Morgan" and his bank was the area's first skyscraper. He died, however, within weeks of the building's completion. His sons inherited it, made bad investments, and a few years later went bust.

Most of its depositors were poor and counted on being able to withdraw their savings to send to European relatives when World War I was beginning. In August 1914 5,000 depositors gathered in front of the skyscraper and demanded their savings. They then paraded to City Hall, where some were clubbed and arrested (see New York Times article from August 30, 1914 at the bottom of this post). The bank was closed in 1917 and many of the depositors were left with nothing.

Here's our recording of the song Max Zavodnik wrote about their misery:


The song's full title is Dos lid fun Yarmolovski, Max Kobre un Mandel di 3 bankirer un zeyere korbones. (The Song about Jarmulowsky, Max Kobre and Mandel, the Three Bankers, and Their Victims.) These culprits were Sender's two sons, Meyer and Louis Jarmulowsky, Max Kobre, and Adolf Mandel. The final words of the song ring true today:


This text is written to the melody of a song called Troymende shlefer, also the underlying melody for the workers' song Vos vet zayn der sof?. I still had the bass accompaniment from that recording that song, so here it is again, and thanks again to Jim Baird the bassist!

Transliteration and translation after the jump.



When I take a look at the great catastrophe striking at East Broadway
It hurts every heart
There is an outcry in heaven
One sees a tall building standing there
A tomb made of poor people's money
Tears pour, there is a sad lamenting
A tragedy, the bank failed

God in heaven! How can you look at this sorrow?
At the sick widows and orphans who've been destroyed this way?

Many people stand there until late at night and look at the ruins
The Jarmulowsky bank is closed with a sum of two or three million
Poor workers slaved, gathering one penny after another
Now their whole strength lies buried there, they are left with empty hands.

The desperate come in masses there and talk about their calamity
They'd economized on eating and drinking and can't get it back
A cripple who cannot earn money himself, his life is darkened
If one steals his penny, blood will flow from him
Murderer, where is your heart?

From a poor bride who has nobody, who is lonely as a stone
She held back from spending a penny, she was supposed to get married soon
She goes with her bankbook to withdraw the pennies she earned by the sewing machine
She comes and finds the completely empty walls, nobody can get in.

Jarmulowsky, Max Kobre and Madel, the three. They were trusted
Robbers and yet they go around free, they robbed a whole world
When someone dares steal even just a bit of bread
He's severely punished
When someone flays the skin from thousands of people
He's called a wiseman

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

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Labels: disaster, history, New York, travails, workers