Mordechai Gebirtig

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Portrait of Gebirtig

Mordechai Gebirtig (

occupied Poland, during the Holocaust.[1] A number of his Yiddish songs are sung to this day, including Es brent
, Reyzele, Moyshele Mayn Fraynd, and Kinder Yorn.

Life

Mordechai Gebirtig was born in

Austro-Hungarian army.[1] Gebirtig became a renowned folk artist in Yiddish literature and song while in Kraków. He was self-taught in music, played the shepherd's pipe, and tapped out tunes on the piano with one finger.[1] He earned his livelihood as a furniture worker; while music and theatre were his avocations. His life ended in the Nazi shooting action carried out in the Kraków Ghetto on the infamous "Bloody Thursday" of June 4, 1942.[1]

Gebirtig belonged to the

cultural autonomy in a democratic Second Republic.[1]

Music

Portrait of Gebirtig in Poland, 2017

From 1906 he was a member of the Jewish Amateur Troupe in Kraków. He also wrote songs and theater reviews for Der sotsial-demokrat, the Yiddish organ of the Jewish Social-Democratic Party. It was in such an environment that Gebirtig developed, encouraged by such professional writers and Yiddishist cultural activists as Avrom Reyzen, who for a time lived and published a journal in Krakow. Gebirtig's talent was his own, but he took the language, themes, types, tone, and timbre of his pieces from his surroundings, in some measure continuing the musical tradition of the popular Galician cabaret entertainers known as the Broder singers, who in turn were beholden to the yet older and still vital tradition of the badchen's (wedding jester's) improvisatory art.

Style of folk songs

He published his first collection of songs in 1920, in the Second Polish Republic. It was titled Folkstimlekh ('of the folk'). His songs spread quickly even before they were published, and many people regarded them as folksongs whose author or authors were anonymous. Adopted by leading Yiddish players such as Molly Picon, Gebirtig's songs became staples of numerous regular as well as improvised theatrical productions wherever Yiddish theatre was performed. It is not an exaggeration to say that Gebirtig's songs were lovingly sung the world over.

S'brent

One of Gebirtig's best-known songs is "

Holocaust
commemoration.

Arbetsloze marsh

Main article: Arbetsloze marsh [es]

One of Gebirtig's political songs that is also still popular today is the Arbetloze marsh or Song of the Unemployed:

Publications and recordings

  • Gehat hob ich a hejm. Edition Künstlertreff, Wuppertal –
    ISBN 3-9803098-1-9
    (gramophone record and booklet)
  • Majn jowl. Edition Künstlertreff, Wuppertal –
    ISBN 3-9803098-3-5
  • Der singer fun nojt. Edition Künstlertreff, Wuppertal –
    ISBN 3-9803098-2-7
  • Farewell Cracow - Blayb gezunt mir, Kroke. Interpretiert von Bente Kahan. Studio Hard, Warschau (CD)
  • 1946: S'brent. Krakau 1946
  • 1949: Meine lider. Farl. Dawke, Paris 1949
  • 1992: Jiddische Lieder. Wuppertal 1992. –
    ISBN 3-9803098-0-0
  • 1997: Mai faifele: unbakante lider. Lerner, Tel Aviv 1997
  • 2005: Shmutsige Magnaten. Anthony Coleman, piano. Tzadik, 2005

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8156-0579-9
    .
  2. ^ "Our Town Is Burning (Undzer shtetl brent)". Music of the Holocaust. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. n.d. Archived from the original on 2009-07-27 – via Internet Archive.
  3. ^ Virtual Kletzmer

Further reading

External links

Official Mordechai Gebirtig Memorial website

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mordechai Gebirtig.
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