[HANASHIR:5733] Dona, Dona

[Deborah Spector <landsleit...>]

This from our synagogue's Yiddish song troupe:

Deb: This is what Eleanor and Joseph Mlotek have to say in
"Pearl's of
Yiddish Song", the red book on p. 175.
    "Words by Aaron Zeitlin (1889-1973); music by Sholom
Secunda
(1894-1974);
Published by sheet music by Metro Music Co., N.Y. 1943.
    Originally entitled "Dana, dana, dana," the song was
written for
Zeitlin's  play Esterke  produced by Maurice Schwartz in
1940-41 and
printed
in the program. It became the most widely sung Yiddish song
and was
performed
in Yiddish and English translation by Theodore Bikel, Joan
Baez and others.
Translations have also appeared in German and Korean.
    In some collections, beginning with Ben Yomen's (1946)
the words are
erroneously  attributed to Yitzhok Katzenelson,
Hebrew-Yiddish poet active
in
the Warsaw Ghetto underground.  In a recent record produced
in Germany, not
only is the song attributed to Katzenelson, it is also
interpreted as
having
been written in the Ghetto to express Jews longing for
freedom."


Deborah Spector
Oak Park Temple B'nai Abraham Zion
Oak Park, Illinois