DONATE TO YIVO GO TO YIVO INSTITUTE HOME
YIVO Online Exhibitions

The Ruth Rubin Legacy
Archive of Yiddish Folksongs

Genre

Title

Genre

Rights

YIVO owns the compilation of content that is posted on this website, which consists of text, images, and/or audio, and video. However, YIVO does not necessarily own each component of the compilation. Some content is in the public domain and some content is protected by third party rights. It is the user's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in YIVO websites.

The materials on this web site may be used for personal, research and educational purposes only. Publication (including posting on the Internet and online exhibitions) or any other use without prior authorization is prohibited. Please visit https://www.yivo.org/Rights-Reproductions for more information about use of materials from this website.

YIVO has employed due diligence in seeking to identify copyright holders of the materials in this compilation. We invite any copyright owners who are not properly identified to contact us at yivomail@yivo.cjh.org.

Items in the Genre Collection

"The Haskalah movement attempted to transmit to the Yiddish-speaking, Hebrew-reading Jews the thought and literature of the non-Jewish world through articles, essays, plays, poems, and songs. Although it did not attack religion, it did satirize the…

"A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion. At best, a ballad does not tell the reader what’s happening, but rather shows the reader what’s happening, describing…

"From earliest infancy the Jewish child in the Pale heard singing and chanting, humming and intoning. In the home, in the back yard, in the narrow village street, in the cheder, in the synagogue, at the Shabbath table, during holidays, the children…

See "Yiddish Folksongs from the Ruth Rubin Archive" p. 214

"In Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century, of all the categories of Yiddish folk songs, love songs were the most numerous, popular, melodious and poetic. This fact for a time challenged a number of writers on Jewish literature and folklore, who…

"During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the songs of the craftsmen and apprentices were but a distant echo. New sounds and rhythms, under the pressure of economical and political struggles against tsarist oppression, were surfacing in a…

"Most of the songs were created in the ghettos set up by the Germans in 1940 in Warsaw, Kovno, Vilna, Lodz, Bialystok, Riga, Cracow, and other centers. The songs described the crowded quarters, the food scarcities, the backbreaking toil, the…

"The folksongs created in and around the environment of the Jewish underworld communicate the sentiments and experiences of its members and their world. Their songs tell us about uncertainties, hazards and risks involved, apprehensions and fears of…

"The older Yiddish lullabies usually expressed the basic aspiration of the Jewish mother in the Pale, who functioned as wife, parent, and often as provider for the family. In the role of provider lay the deeper meaning of her commitment, which was to…

Collection Tree