VA - Chants Populaires Yiddish - Popular Yiddish Songs (1996)

Today is the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference. On January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials met at a Berlin villa to discuss the "final solution" to "the Jewish question." Deportations to ghettos and concentration camps had already begun, but the Wannsee Conference coordinated plans for the systematic murder of European Jews.

The Yiddish language, which probably began to develop around the tenth century A.D. in south Germany, was the main spoken language and language of oral creation of the Ashkenazi Jews of both Western and Eastern Europe, whereas in the latter region it was influenced by Slavic languages. Both the language and the folksongs, like many other elements of Ashkenazi culture, are made up of a combination of components from different cultures, geographical regions, and periods: the vocabulary, syntax, morphology, and prosody of Yiddish combine German and Hebrew components, and in Eastern Europe also elements of Slavic languages, as well as words of other surrounding languages. In a similar manner, the folksongs of the Ashkenazi Jews bare resemblance to Western European folksongs, Slavic songs from different periods, as well as Ashkenazi liturgical chants.

This combination of diverse and far ranging components is one of the prominent features of the Yiddish folksong. Throughout the ages it has been part of both rural and urban folklore and has developed oral traditions alongside an attachment to the written word. Its performance contexts include functional or gender specific performances (wedding songs, playsongs, lullabies, religious para-liturgical songs), as well as performances that are neither functional (lyric and narrative songs) nor gender specific (dance songs).

This compilation of popular Yiddish songs was released on "Musique Du Monde" in 1996.

Tracklist:

Rumania Rumania (3:05)
Mazel Tov (3:09)
Far neela nolkh neela (2:45)
Al-d-dai-da (2:27)
Odessa mama (2:36)
Yach tsire bim (2:42)
Oib mir Bessarabia (3:10)
Skrip, klezmer, skrip (3:13)
Tsen kopikes (2:25)
Az men farzucht (2:58)
Dos oibershte fun shtoisel (2:31)
Des helige schneider (3:12)
Passach shine sha (3:30)
Meshuigner moshiakh (5:08)
Khazan a shiker (6:21)
My yiddishe momme (5:42)
Eli Eli (4:10)
Den Rebens Nigun (3:07)
Tanst tanst yidelekh (3:02)
Baym rebens sude (3:18)

VA - Chants Populaires Yiddish - Popular Yiddish Songs (1996)

(320 kbps, cover art included)