Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus / JPPC
דער ייִדישער פֿילהאַרמאָנישער פֿאָלקסכאָר
Binyumen Schaechter, conductor
בנימין שעכטער, דיריגענט

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Filmed live in performance
October 14, 2018 • Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
as part of the encore concert of
“To Everything There Is a Season: The Year in Yiddish Song”

(World Premiere: June 10, 2018, Merkin Concert Hall)

Videography: Asaf Blasberg: http://asafblasberg.com

Post-Production: Isaac Bleaman, Avi Eisen, Leyzer Gillig, Libi Miransky, Binyumen Schaechter, and Sam Zerin

Lyric first published 1911 in a larger collection, with author as co-editor. There were many subsequent adaptations and variations of the lyrics made by others. The lyrics in this choral arrangement are the author’s original.

The poet, Mordkhe Rivesman, was a Litvak, a speaker of “Litvish” Yiddish. And he was from an area in and around Lithuania where most of the Yiddish words with the “oy” sound were pronounced as “ey.” In his dialect of Yiddish, “sheyner“and “azeyner” rhyme. But when those two words are sung in other dialects, they don’t. Most people, for decades, have sung the first lines of this song as “Oy khanike, oy khanike, a yontef a *sheyner,* a lustiker, a freylekher, nito nokh *azoyner*”. And Rivesman, nebekh, every time he hears that, he rolls over in his grave… So this choral arrangement includes that rhyme as he intended it.

For a similar reason – though not for a rhyme – this arrangement, which includes the practically unknown 2nd verse of the song, has, in that verse, the word “ufgelebt”, as Rivesman would have pronounced it, rather than the other non-Litvish pronunciations “ofgeleybt” or “ifgeleybt.”

This video can be viewed with subtitles in English, transliterated Yiddish, and, for the first time, Yiddish in the Yiddish alphabet! English and transliterated Yiddish should appear by default. For the Yiddish alphabet, click on the Settings button in the lower right corner of the YouTube video player. Subtitles can also be turned off by clicking on “CC.”