Raisins and Almonds/Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen

The father of the Yiddish theater, Abraham Goldfaden was born in the Ukraine, and began his career as a writer of Hebrew lyrics. While traveling in Romania, he came in contact with the Broder Singers who sang and acted out Yiddish songs in wine cellars and restaurant gardens. Hearing them gave Goldfaden the idea of incorporating songs with prose dialogues and setting them into larger plots. Thus, in 1875, the uniquely Jewish institution of the Yiddish theatre was born. Goldfaden produced these theatre works in Romania and Odessa, and they soon became extremely popular in Jewish communities throughout Russia. By 1883, however, with the rise of a new Tzar who was not at all as sympathetic to the Jews as his predecessors were, the Russian government banned all theatre performances in Yiddish, and Yiddish theater was forced to migrate abroad to Paris, London and eventually New York; following the flood of Jewish immigrants who came west at that time to escape the progroms, extreme poverty, and social oppression from rising anti-Semitism. Several of the songs on this CD came out of the Yiddish theatre. One of the most beautiful, the popular lullaby, Rozhinkes mit Mandlen (‘Raisins and Almonds’) comes from Shulamis, Goldfaden’s most well known production. It is a story based in Bible times, with Goldfaden’s trademark of “sugar-coating” lessons of Jewish identity, history, and hope to the downtrodden Russian Jews barely able to survive. Both Goldfaden and The Yiddish theatre were ridiculed by many in higher society as being crude and uncultured, but it provided a greatly needed venue bringing inspiration, hope and encouragement as well as religious and moral education to the working class Jewish emigrants.

The most beloved of songs written by Goldfaden has survived long after the production of Shulamis. In Rozhinkes mit Mandlen, the lyrics are sung to a baby who seems doomed to a life of cruel labor and hopelessness, but they prophecy that the child will grow up and become rich and powerful in spite of everything – this was and is every immigrants’ dream. This was especially so for the poor, desperate Jewish men, women and children who lived in the ghettos of the Pale and then the tenements of New York - working ungodly hours in sweat shops and factories just so they could eat. Sadly, even Abraham Goldfaden himself died in poverty and deprivation in New York City because of his financial losses related to the theatre, even after bringing hope to so many. However, in spite of this, at his funeral, thousands and thousands of people came to honor him, blocking traffic for hours. Perhaps in a vindicating way, the ‘prophecy’ of Rozhinkes mit Mandlen has come to pass here in America and the west, where so many Jews did eventually find great opportunity, prosperity and influence despite their humble and desperate beginnings.