Children's games

This videoclip is based on the drawings and paintings of Alexander Vaisman. The soundtrack includes two nostalgic recollections of childhood in a small corner of Central Europe, the land between the Prut and Dniester rivers, which was a birthplace to so many Yiddish poets, songwriters and singers.

In the first song, "Kinder yorn", written by Leybu Levin to words by Itzik Manger, barefoot boys are getting their first taste of rhymes, which are likely to stay with them all their lives.

In the second song, "Etele", written by Asya Vaisman to words by Shike Driz, the old poet revisits an imagined shtetl and a little girl he might have once known in his dreams.

The songs are performed by the authors of the music, Leibu Levin and Asya Vaisman. Asya is accompanied on piano by Hankus Netsky.

Animation by Shura Vaisman.

kinder yorn:

Let's go to Verbezh
Anyone who wants may come
There by the Prut play our childhood years
Small Jewish boys, barefoot and tattered
They whistle like the birds
And have not a care in the world
They ride the goats that jump around the field
They yell "Hesto! Vyo! Giddy up! Yeehaw!"
And ride away...
Let's go to Verbezh
Anyone who wants may come
There by the Prut play our childhood years
Small Jewish boys in torn caps
They speak in rhyme
like real-live poets!
"Shir hamales don't ask questions
Save your sorrow for tomorrow
Poverty: go sell the talis
and no more you'll have to borrow"
Let's go to Verbezh
Anyone who wants may come
There by the Prut play our childhood years
They lie down in the grass
---Don't think that this is so bad!---
and show to the immodest sun
all their ....icks (!)
Small Jewish boys, barefoot and tattered
they send hearty greetings to me and you!

(Translated by Seb Schulman)

etele:

I will dream up a wonderful shtetl,
And my dream, my Etele, will settle there.
Dressed up, with braided hair,
She will play with a ball on the steps
Until I will come knocking
Knock knock-on her door.
In my hunting bag, I will bring her a freckle, a kheynpintl,
Which will be worth a third of the land,
The steppes of Bessarabia and all of Bukovina,
The nests in the forests, the coolness of the grass,
The secret of my heart, and something else, too!

(Translated by Asya Vaisman)

www.vaisman.org
© 2009, VVV Productions

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• kinder yorn
• etele
• Shike Driz
• Itzik Manger
• Leibu Levin
• Asya Vaisman
• Hankus Netsky
• Alexander Vaisman
• yiddish song
• klezmer

[rweithorn]

love this!