Yiddish music
 

so, anybody into Yiddish music?
i have been getting pretty into it recently, both klezmer music and old/new yiddish songs. maybe a word or so on yiddish is needed? it was a widespread language among jews for centuries in central and eastern europe. the language and culture were basically annihilated because of the holocaust, the second generation immigrants in the US not learning it, and the state of israel shunning it as a language and culture of the diaspora.

but there was, and is, a really great culture of music, film, literature, theater and activism that goes along with the language, a lot of it has been seeing a revival in the past two decades or so. so here are some cool songs.

there are some really cool political anarchist songs from the early 20th century as well as some really interesting bands happening these days.

some favorites:
in alle gasn/ daloy politsay
two songs in this clip, the second, daloy politsay translates to "down with the police" and was a song from eastern europe that was sung at rallies and has, in recent years become a cult favorite among many jewish activist circles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBqM0GCWKeI

and a newer version sung by a canadian singer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knnLr65EeGg

another song with a similar melody but different lyrics (still political, forget what about) is this song performed by a great project called the unternational that played current versions of old yiddish socialist songs and was made up of daniel kahn, psoy korolenko and a great israeli band with the awesome name 'oy division'. this song has a great yiddish rap in it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKIXm...eature=related

from that band is the great daniel kahn who does a lot of really interesting things with the genre these days. this song is a song of his based on a true story about a jew in europe named abba kovner who attempted to murder lots of germans as an act of revenge over the holocaust (not actually in yiddish)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1PVnQcTM-k
this is his version of mordechai gebirtrig's march of the unemployed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KFVVKFxr60

this is not political but is just a great song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNKNypH1Juo

aaron lebedef is considered to be one of the greats, and this is a great song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0agi_Gj2IEc

and molly picon was a famous singer and actress during the 20s and 30s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_2sB...eature=related


yeah, so, i hope that interests someone....

Yeah, these are all really good stuff :) Espesh like the unternational tune and the molly picon one (which I'm listening to at the moment). Hope you don't mind, but I posted up the Daniel Kahn "March Of The Unemployed" up at the other place - hope that's all OK :)

http://horinca.blogspot.com/

this is not a bad blog, written by the violinist of di naye kapelye. not all the posts have to do with yiddish music, but you'll find a lot if you look through it with some patience

I don´t know almost nothing about this genre, but Ofra Haza`s Yemenite Songs is very great album!

my Confessor gave me a mix CD of some ridiculously good 1930s era Yiddish folk music but I never gave it as much a chance as it deserves because I am an unabashed music snob

David Krakauer has some nice klez-tone things, worked a bit with Elliott Sharp, anything with E# would be on my recco list

and of course, the Zorn has much stuff along that line

Never realised this thread existed. Thanks to fugazifan, a sorely missed poster on this forum.