“Where is the little street?” (Vi iz dus geseleh?)
A popular singer and group in the 60’s was Jay and The Americans.
Jay Black (Real nameDavid Blatt) was from an Orthodox Jewish background. His most famous song was Cara Mia. They had many top hits. His voice had an operatic/cantorial quality.
He recorded a famous Yiddish song called “Where is the little street?” (Vi iz dus geseleh?) in 1966. Jay adapted it into a version to demonstrate his feelings about the Holocaust. After a long struggle with the record company, he convinced them to let him record it. While recording it he worked with Artie Butler to help him with the arrangement.
He added Chagall’s paintings to provide sentimental visions of the Jewish villages in vivid colors.
Hope you enjoy this! The Chagall pictures are spectacular.
It’s a beautiful piece, probably better than “Cara Mia” (because we don’t know who the “Cara” was that he was referring to). The saddest part of the Holocaust, is that not only were so many millions killed, but for the most part, those who remembered them were also killed. Memory is a large part of who we think we are; but in the end, it’s GOD’s memory, not ours, that will decide who we are forever. To God, those lost Jews are still alive.
I remember that song being sung by my father’s family in Yiddish. They were lucky to have emigrated from Poland in the decade before the Holocaust. Most of their extended family perished. Those few that survived, about 6, did so by going east to Russia which put them in Serbia til the end of the war. Then they went to Israel or Canada.
There are depths to people that we never know about. This is a tremendous revelation about Jay Black. The link below is to a video of Jay Black in his 70s doing Cara Mia. He was magnificent, and showed a great self-deprecating sense of humor. What a mensch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agU1Yx4jZRc&feature=related
And here is Jay Black at the top of his game in 1965:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sFy5_kmEi4
So beautiful, so sad. Wish it had been longer. It is truly amazing, the power of music to amplify and deepen the emotional response to an event. So terrifying as well to realize that music can be used to amplify and strengthen the powers of evil and deceit to transform decency into barbarism.
Ted,
About your
>Those few that survived, about 6, did so by going east to Russia which put them in Serbia til the end of the >war.
In the 1990s there was an old man whom all respected called Reb Haim, who spent his days at the library at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva. He would study Gemara with all, religious, non-religious, girls in mini-skirts….It didn’t matter. Reb Haim would teach Tora to whoever wanted to learn. Reb Haim had been a student at the Yeshiva in Radin. That was the Yeshiva of the Hafetz Haim. When the nazis were on their way to conquer Radin, the Russians reasoned as followed: “The nazis are capitalists. The Jews are capitalists. So if the Jews are here when the nazis arrive, the Jews will help the Nazis.” So in order to prevent such treason, the Russians sent the Jews to Siberia so that they would not be in Radin to help the nazis. This is how some or many Jews escaped to Siberia during the war. Very best wishes to all for a Happy Pesach, Yeruham
Thanks BlandOatmeal…
I survived the war as a boy on the run in Poland, passing for a non-Jew. Stefanek was my false name – I could hardly call myself Rubin Katz! Yiddish is my mother tongue and I remember ‘Voh iz dos Gessele’ very well.
This is not a faithful translation; a gessele is not a village, it’s a crooked alleyway; a village is shtet’l and shtetele is the diminutive. Also the song is incomplete, the poignant ending is missing.
After the Holocaust, all is gone…! Gone is the gessele, gone is dos heimele und shtiebele (my home and cosy room), gone is dos meideleh, the little girl that I loved – all gone never to return…
I don’t know if it is correct to plug it here, but my wartime memoir ‘Gone to Pitchipoi’ will be available as an E-book from Ready to Read Publications in about 3 weeks. It’s the ultimate story of survival and an inspiration to read.
I like this version better.
My ex wife’s relatives, a few, went east to Russian Siberia. After the war they mostly walked to Eretz Yisrael, along with 3 very young kids and the father with TB. They all lived to a respectable age. The ones who didn’t escape didn’t make it.
geseleh is a dimunitive for the German gasse(street) so where are the streets and the the little nooks of the old Yiddishe heim. Nice tune.
in 1968 in WASH.D.C.the only community observance of Yom Hashoa ve Hagvura was sponsored by the Yiddishists. I remember the poet Herman Taub. One poem by the eldest among them recited a “parody ” of Oifen Primichuk brent a fairel … but his heartrenching poem had the words … ” no fire is burning…only ashes … no melamed … no chidren …” Anyone knows the author and the full text??? YOM HASHOA v GEVURA is around the corner !!!
This was originally sung in Russian in the 1950′s by Theodore Bikel, with the first lines; Gde ita ulitsa, Gde ita Dom, Gde ita Vareshna, sto ya lublom. If it was done as stated in 1966 by Jay Black, it may have been lifted from the Russian original; dunno. Any other data?