women in yidish song

[Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan...>]

Hi all,

This was written by a friend of mine who is interested in some feedback. 
Her email address is at the bottom. Comments both to the list and to 
Joan would be appreciated.

Lorele




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.

During my first introduction to Yiddish at the Oxford Yiddish Institute 
Summer Program in London in 2001, I had a chance to spend three weeks 
with Yiddishists from all over the world, studying the grammar, 
literature and music of this language.

Once home I knew my task was to retain what I had learned and to 
continue learning. It seemed to me that one way to do this was through 
song. Accordingly, I bought Yiddish CDs and books of Yiddish songs, 
dusted off the guitar I had not touched in years, and jumped in!

At first I was indiscriminate in my choices - one song was as good as 
another, and I dived right in playing and singing everything in my book, 
singing along with everything on my CDs, all the while looking up words 
I didn't know.

But in time some specific themes caught my interest, especially those 
involving women. I had found many songs written about women, which were 
all, 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.

I welcome your comments! Joan D. Levin jdlevin (at) interaccess(dot)com


-- 
You can now hear Lori's new CD, Songs My Bubbe Should Have Taught Me; Vol.1: 
Passover, at: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lcahan Only $15 & postage. Email me for 
more info.
 


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