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....