← Back to lessons
Klezmer is the wedding-and-funeral music of Eastern European Jews, clarinet, fiddle, accordion, and a melodic mode that carries 500 years of joy and lament inseparable. Israel has its own klezmer revival (Daniel Zamir, the Hasidic rock scene). Yiddish songs from Tumbalalaika to Oyfn Pripetshik carry the soul of Yiddishland. This lesson maps the music vocabulary.
Cultural note, In Israel, klezmer was once "music of the diaspora" and rejected. Now it\'s reclaimed: the Safed Klezmer Festival is a major summer event. Hasidic music (Hassidish) is its own genre, Avraham Fried, Yaakov Shwekey, Lipa Schmeltzer perform in Yiddish and Hebrew, sometimes English. Mizrahi singers occasionally cover Yiddish songs as cultural bridges.
Klezmer Instruments & Form
Famous Yiddish Songs
Hasidic Music Vocabulary
Israeli Yiddish-Influenced Artists
Music Verbs & Concepts
Lyrics: "Oyfn Pripetshik"
First verse of the most beloved Yiddish lullaby, written by Mark Warshawsky, late 19th century. About a small fire on the hearth, a teacher teaching children Hebrew letters. Hebrew transliteration of Yiddish.
Hasidic Wedding Snapshot
A few exchanges at a Hasidic wedding, the hora dance, the rebbe, the music.