Brivele / Khaveyrim Zayt Greyt
Brivele / Khaveyrim Zayt Greyt, 2025
CD or digital download available from Bandcamp.
At this year's Yiddish New York, it became clear to me what a large presence the young Yiddish punk-folk "neo-Bundist" activists have within this world of modern Yiddish. I would argue that there has always been such a presence, but never has it been more visible nor more vital. Yiddish was the language with which many Jews of Eastern Europe (many of whom migrated to di goldene medina, America, starting with the pogroms in the 1880s) mediated their encounter with modernity. Assimilation, the Holocaust, and the post-Holocaust turn by world Jewry to Israel and Hebrew created a breach in that dialogue. With the "klezmer revival," it was resumed, and post 10/7 (and Israel's horrific response) Yiddish is again a noticeable force in the Jewish encounter with the world.
Brivele go back much further than 10/7. I remember encountering them pre-pandemic in a small cafe near Boston, MA. I wrote: "A new generation of Yiddish punk folk singing has arrived and it is really, really good." This new release can only enhance that reputation. If the Jewish Bund were revived, Brivele would be the band leading the march against oppression, from eviction and the housing crisis, to the notion that "Amerika" is the "goldene medine" for all, and yet, there is still that dream given voice by Langston Hughes:
O, let America, America, America be America
The land that never yet has been
O, let America, America, America be America
A land where everyone is free.
Elsewhere, the duo sings Earl Robinson's "Joe Hill" (af yiddish) and Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" and with a delightful "eggcorn" (misheard lyric) turns Chava Alberstein's "Di Krenitse" to a statement against the anti-immigrant panic that has gripped so much of the world (the United States, too, in ways that have greatly endangered our democracy).
From the desert blows a breeze
across the burning sands.
Through the ruins, girls are walking
with the truth in their hands.Pale and paler grows the moon
above a drumming band.
Where the rule of law does not apply
and the truth is tacitly falsified
and mass death is simply justified,
closed borders dot the land.
Many of the songs Brivele have recorded here have long lineages, pulled and adapted from country to country, language to language, to meet the struggles of the moment (see song credits, below). Like The Klezmatics, Daniel Kahn, Josh Waletsky, Jordan Wax, Ira Khonen Temple, and so many others, Brivele are providing the soundtrack and documenting our hopes and times, and determination. As Billy Bragg exclaimed at a concert I attended recently, "the right music enables us to believe that change is possible." Now it's on us to go out there and change things for the better.
Reviewed by Ari Davidow, 6-Jul-2026.
Performers
Stefanie Brendler: vocals, accordion, glockenspiel, & miscellaneous percussion
Maia Brown: vocals, banjo, bells, & miscellaneous percussion
Songs
- Evikshon Kamf—Eviction Struggle [Yiddish poem by N.D. Korman, written to document the anti-eviction organizing of The Council of the Unemployed in New York City in the 1930s; English translation by Amelia Glaser, pub in Proletpen: America’s Rebel Yiddish Poets (2012); Music: Maia Brown] 2:43
- Rumenye iz Amerike [From “Roumania, Roumania”: Aaron Lebedeff (1941); “Lebn zol Kolombus”: Louis Gilrod (1918); “Di Grine Kuzine”: J. Leiserowitz (1922); “Let America Be America Again”: Langston Hughes (1935)] 5:04
- Joe Hill (Earl Robinson & Alfred Hayes; Yiddish: Michael Wex) 3:37
- Bella Ciao [Trad Italian labor/antifascist partisan song; Yiddish: Anne Gawenda; shared with us by The Bashevis Singers (Melbourne, Australia)] 3:54
- Di Grenetsn (Yid+Eng trans: Stefanie Brendler; after “Di Krenitse” by Itsik Fefer; music after “Di Krenitse—The Well” by Chava Alberstein & The Klezmatics) 3:08
- Dayne Orems—Your arms [Yiddish poem: Dora Teitelboim (1944); English: Amelia Glaser, pub in Proletpen: America’s Rebel Yiddish Poets (2012); Music: Maia Brown w/adaptation of “Doyne”: Zelig Barditshever (1903-1937) of Beltsy, Bessarabia (Romania) as sung by Arkady Khunovich Gendler of Zaporozhye, Ukraine (1921-2017) and taught by Ethel Raim] 2:56
- About the Sunset [Poem “Der arbetlozer redt tsum kind vegn zun-fargang”: L. Miller (1937); English: (“The Man Who is Out of Work Talks to His Son about the Sunset”): Amelia Glaser and published in Proletpen: America’s Rebel Yiddish Poets (2012); Music: Maia Brown] 3:21
- Un Du Akerst—We make these treasures [Yiddish: Chaim Zhitlowsky (1865-1943). Zhitlowsky's text, written in 1891, was based on his translation of a poem by German poet Georg Herwegh (1817-1875). The poem "Bundeslied," was written for the General Federation of German Workingmen in 1863. English: Stefanie Brendler.] 3:03
- Anthem [Leonard Cohen (© 1992 Stranger Music Inc.), except: Verse 3 by Stefanie Brendler; Verse 6 excerpted from “Un Du Akerst;” Verse 7 English translation of verse 6: Stefanie Brendler; Yiddish chorus translated by Stefanie Brendler, with guidance by Wendy Marcus, Faith Jones, and Miri Koral] 5:21
- Strayk [Yiddish poem: Aaron Rapoport (1935); English: Amelia Glaser, published in Proletpen: America’s Rebel Yiddish Poets (2012); Music: Maia Brown] 3:01
- Zumpland Brider—Swampland brother [Yiddish translation: Moissaye Joseph Olgin (1878-1939) from the German “Die Moorsoldaten”
Lyrics by Johann Esser and Wolfgang Langhoff (1933); Music: Rudi Goguel (1933), later adapted by Hanns Eisler & Ernst Busch in 1935;
English translation from the Yiddish by Maia Brown & Stefanie Brendler] 4:37
“Die Moorsoldaten” was the first song to be written in a Nazi concentration camp by prisoners at Börgermoor in 1933. Our recording begins by shifting Goguel's melody into a klezmer mode, played under Olgin's Yiddish lyrics (we know three verses of the song’s original six). We then shift lyrically and musically: into our own English translation of Olgin's Yiddish, and into Eisler and Busch's melody, which is likely what Olgin based his translation on, and likewise what influenced Paul Robeson’s performances of the song and Pete Seeger's iconic banjo adaptation. - Cable Street (Sean Cooney; arr: Sean Cooney, David Eagle, Michael Hughes © 2017 SGO Music Publishing Ltd administered worldwide by BMG; Lyrics adapted: Stefanie Brendler) 5:29
