Ot Azoy!
Views of Women in Yiddish Songs Joan D. Levin From teaching English to speakers of other languages, I appreciate the value of songs in language learning. Songs can remove affective barriers, improve pronunciation, and increase enthusiasm for learning the target language. Repetitive passages with new words increase vocabulary and offer practice with new syntactical patterns. Songs provide both a window and a door to a new culture. The window is the opportunity to observe the values of a culture as expressed in its song, and the door is the opportunity to actually step into that culture by joining native speakers in singing the songs that “everyone knows” in that culture. Yiddish songs offer all of these to the student, and as a learner, I immersed myself in Yiddish songs. In time some specific themes caught my interest, especially those involving women. I found many songs written about women, which were, as far as I could tell, written by men. Many of these songs were about sad events – or at least events that I found to be tinged with sadness. Some of these – which I suspect were written by women – were set to tunes and harmonies reflecting that melancholy. But many other songs about women – some of which moved me to tears – were set to tunes that could only be described as merry. It also seemed to me that many of the songs written by men about women were implicitly or explicitly more judgmental in their view of women (even those that presented the woman in a positive light) than the songs in which men were the central figures. Some of these songs, in fact, could even be viewed as cautionary tales for women. Here are the songs that I will discuss. Sources will be found at the end of this paper. Some are true “folk” songs in the sense that we do not know their authors, others are more in the nature of the Russian “Bard” songs, written by authors we know, but which have functioned as widely sung folk songs. Some are theatre or vaudeville songs. While my nine selections do not purport to represent a broad sample, they are intended to illustrate my view. Margaritkelech Reyzele Schmendrick’s Kalle Sapozhkalekh Mekhuteneste Mayne Di Grine Kuzine Ikh Bin a Border Bei Mein Weib Jeckele Shik Mir a Chekele Shtil di Nakht Margaritkelach. Here the heroine, a young maiden, goes into the deep woods to pick daisies – margaritkelech. She is hums a song in a dreamlike state – tra-la-la-la-la. Along comes a dark handsome stranger who makes his move. She protests weakly: My mother will object! He responds: Where is your mother? I only see trees here – love me! At last he leaves her, alone at nightfall, still in her dreamlike state singing tra-la-la-la-la. This picture of a young woman is clear: she walks in a dream and cannot take responsibility for her own sexuality. The warning is equally clear: girls wander off alone at their peril only to have their hearts broken. The tune of this cautionary tale is appropriate – hauntingly dreamlike in its series of arpeggios shifting from major to minor keys. Reyzele. Here is an exemplary young woman, and the tune is appropriately upbeat as well. When a suitor whistles under her window, Reyzele tells him that it is not suitable for a Jewish fellow to whistle like that. She urges him to be more pious, attend synagogue, and for this she will make him a bag for his tefillin with a Mogen David on it. He promises to do so, and although the maiden never leaves her house to be with him, he saunters off (cracking his nuts!) joyfully after this exchange. This is a picture of proper behavior for a young lady: be flirtatious, demand propriety, and above all, don’t go off with him! Again, there is an implied judgment here, albeit a positive one. The tune is appropriate: a lively quickstep! (I should note that Reyzele is depicted as remaining in her “heyzele.” This word is the diminutive for house, but in every dictionary that I checked “heyzele” was defined as a brothel. This led me to wonder if it were not an ironic depiction of the classic “good hearted prostitute” letting the underage fellow down gently. But Yiddishist Barry Davis assured me that the author, Mordechai Gebirtig, had no such intent here). Schmendrick’s Kalle. In this lively, raucous song the eponymous Schmendrick is congratulated for taking a wife. But verse after verse ridicules the bride, her height and her appearance, and, implicitly, the foolishness of (the) Schmendrick in choosing her! The message: only a fool chooses a tall, ungainly woman as his bride! Sapozhkalekh. This song – translated as “Little Boots” – was collected by Michael Alpert from a Ukrainian émigré, Branya Sakina, a woman who first sang him this folk song. Here the singer tells what she would do to be with her beloved: She would sell her little boots, ride in a rough wagon, sell scarves in railroad stations and clean the floors of strangers, among other things, just to be with her beloved. I suspect this song was written by a woman, because I doubt that a man would sing about doing these things. Before I learned this history, I thought the song was written by a man because it was sung by a male singer on the one CD I had of it – but this version only had the lines about selling the boots and riding in a rough wagon. It did not include the verses about selling scarves in the railroad station or washing the floors of strangers. I thought perhaps it was a mournful tune written by a man about his own distress, but now I believe it was written by a woman about HER own longing, and equally mournfully. In any event, the song, which is most likely NOT written by a man about a woman’s longing, is set to an appropriately sad slow and mournful waltz. Mekhuteneste Mayne. In this wedding song, the mother of the bride sings to the mother of the groom. Each verse begins with a declaration that there should be enduring friendship between the mothers-in-law, but is followed with a hint of what life may be like for the girl sent away from her home to live under the control of her mother-in-law. No doubt this girl is quite young, probably in her teens, and will no longer enjoy the care and loving protection of her mother. She has probably never spent a night away from her mother’s house. We learn that her hair – her crowning glory – now hides beneath a wig. My surmise is that a) her hair has been shorn and b) the wig is nowhere near as attractive. She will live under the dominion of a new mother-in-law who will have the power to awaken her each morning, and who may not be pleased to be replaced in the affections of her son. Ill-treatment by this mother in law could cause this pretty girl to lose her good looks. All this young and inexperienced girl will have to protect her will be her own wit. My guess is that the male-dominated community is unlikely to side with the young bride in any event. This must be the most poignant moment of her young life, and certainly a sad and fearful one for her mother as well, who probably remembers her own experiences as a young bride. Yet all this mother can offer are her petitions to her daughter’s new mistress, and thinly veiled threats that her young daughter – sent away in a wig as a daughter-in-law – can take care of herself! From the point of view of the mother and daughter, one would think a lament in more order given the theme of this song, yet it is set to a merry dancing tune – probably better reflecting the view of the girl’s father who now has one less mouth to feed. (And if this is last, his youngest, he can celebrate most of all in yet another song – Di Mizinke Oysgegebn – equally upbeat – not discussed here!) Di Grine Kuzine. This song reflects the experience of a beautiful young woman who immigrates to America – the Goldene Medina – and who, after years of tedious work in a millinery shop, has lost her looks and probably her health as well. The speaker is her cousin who helped her find this job when she first arrived. While many immigrants, male and female, were similarly worn down by their harsh lives in America, Yiddish songs involving men or laborers in general are, for the most part, more martial, resolute or defiant in their tone, while Grine Kuzine, despite it’s sad theme, is framed in lively, up-tempo music. Ikh Bin a Border Bei Mein Weib This pointedly funny vaudeville/theatre song has as its premise a man who has divorced his wife, and now looks for other living quarters. His wife persuades him to come back and live with her as a boarder with no obligation beyond paying rent. He finds this a perfect arrangement and notes that they now get along better too! What a great male fantasy! Like a grown child at home, he enjoys a comfortable place to live, good meals, and no responsibility beyond the rent. He doesn’t even have to be jealous when the butcher delivers the meat! Only a man could have written this, and one, Rubin Doctor, did! Jeckele Shik Mir a Chekele Another vaudeville/theatre song, again, wickedly funny, presents a searing caricature of women. Written in an age when married women were discouraged from meaningful work outside the home, this song shows the wife – now at her summer colony rental while her husband toils in the hot city – urging him to send her money so she can play cards with the girls, all the while expressing her wish that he is well at home and reminding him how much she loves him! This song presents the male view of women (deprived of real power), resorting to guile and persuasion. Shtil di Nakht Written in 1944 about the first act of sabotage by Jewish partisans in the Vilna ghetto, the singer – presumably a man – desribes how he taught the woman how to shoot, and how, with a single shot, she brings down an enemy munitions caravan. Here, the woman is heroic beyond a doubt, and a crack shot besides. And the grave music is appropriate to this text. But the framing of this song has the presumptively male singer describing this woman in almost kittenish terms (a young girl with a coat or cape, beret, and face like velvet) whom he instructs in marksmanship, and even her remarkable act on behalf of “our new, free generation” is described ironically as her “little victory.” All of these are wonderful songs – well-written and seductively singable examples of the songwriter’s art. All have a kernel of truth in them – however overstated or distorted – which only adds to their poignancy. Many hit on themes in ways that tickle the funny bone. In a few cases, I do not know who wrote them, but I suspect that all were written by men. And in them I found recurrent subtexts including passing judgment upon women, minimizing their accomplishments, and finding in their misfortune an occasion for gaiety. This is admittedly a small sample from an enormous body of literature. And my general observations here are not in any way meant to suggest that there are no exceptions to the general themes set forth herein. Songs and Sources This is the best information I have about the songs discussed here. Corrections are welcome! Where I only found one or two recordings I listed them. Margaritkelech. Zalman Shneour, in Eleanor Gordon Mlotek, Mir Trogn a Gezang (hereinafter MTAG), p. 40, and on many recordings. Reyzele, by Mordechai Gebirtig, MTAG p 48, and on many recordings. Schmendrick’s Kalle, Joseph Kammen & Louis Gilford, Most Popular Jewish Songs for Voice and Piano, p 54, recorded by Mauro Wrona, The Best of Yiddish Vaudeville. Sapozhkalekh, traditional, found in Eleanor & Joseph Mlotek, Songs of Generations, p. 30, under the title “Little Boots,” and recorded in a somewhat abridged version by Mauro Wrona in The Best of Yiddish Vaudville. Mekhuteneste Mayne, Beregowski & Feffer, modified by Bastonski, MTAG p. 58, and on many recordings. Di Grine Kuzine, A. Schwartz & J. Leiserowitz, MTAG p. 142 and on many recordings. Ikh Bin a Border Bei Mein Weib, Rubin Doctor, recorded by Paul Zim, A Yiddish Delight and Mauro Wrona, The Best of Yiddish Vaudeville, also fuller lyrics at http://www.library.upenn.edu/friends/freed/sampler/ikh.html You can listen to this song by clicking on the link to my Interaccess website. Jeckele, Shik Mir A Checkele, Yesha Kretzberg & Jacob Jacobs, Kammen Folio of Famous Jewish Songs, Volume 2, p 38, and recorded by Mauro Wrona, The Best of Yiddish Vaudeville. Shtil di Nakht, Hirsch Glik. In We Are Here, Songs of the Holocaust compiled by Eleanor Mlotek and Malke Gottlieb, recorded in We are Here, Songs of Remembrance, Hope and Celebration in the Jewish Tradition by Rosalie Gerut & Friends. © Joan D. Levin 2002