The swallow, on the other hand, represents the soul, in Weinberger’s interpretation. the body) is mournful because it has become attached to life and fears the unknown of the next world. The calf on the way to the slaughterer is a metaphor for the body’s journey towards death. The body seeks pleasure, wealth and honour, and is a slave to these desires. The calf represents the body, the seat of desire. In a 2010 article in The Jewish Magazine, Mendel Weinberger understands “Dona Dona” as a reference to the struggle between the physical and the spiritual. Over time, the song has been interpreted in many different ways. While Zeitlin – who was living in Poland in the 1930s – was certainly aware of the growing threat of Nazism, he composed the song before the Holocaust began. Indeed, some maintain that “Dona Dona” represents the tremendous suffering and loss of life Jews experienced in the Holocaust. This terrible loss haunted Zeitlin for the rest of his life. His wife, two children, father and brother were killed in the Holocaust. With the outbreak of the war, however, he was unable to sail back to his family. Zeitlin was invited to New York for the performance of Esterke, which is an indication of how influential Yiddish theatre was in the pre-Second World War Jewish cultural world. Male and female actors sang “Dona Dona” as a solo, as a duet and as a chorus with orchestration. The play about Esterke and Kazimierz the Great was a Polish-Jewish mystery in four acts. Zeitlin first published it in 1932 in Globus, the Yiddish literary journal he edited. “Dona Dona” was part of Zeiltin’s Yiddish play Esterke, based on the legendary relationship of a Jewish woman named Esther and King Casimir of Poland. Zeiltin’s original “Dos Kelbl” was put to music by Sholom Secunda in 1956, Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz translated it into English. It has been sung in Japanese, German, French (in this version, the calf is replaced by a boy trying to figure out his future) Swedish, Hebrew, Russian, Italian, Catalan and Vietnamese.
Over a 75-year period, Aaron Zeitlin’s “Dona Dona” (in Yiddish, “ Dos Kelbl,” “The Calf”) has been sung by some of the 20th century’s biggest English-speaking performers, including Joan Baez, Donovan, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Chad & Jeremy, and countless others. How does a 1940 Yiddish theatre song – probably based on a passage from the Talmud’s Tractate Bava Metzia – end up becoming a popular piece sung around the world? A death well-planned – an excerpt from Anne of Oasis.Reflections of her childhood – an excerpt from The Singing Forest.Community milestones … Goldschmidt, Mines, BGU & Weizmann Institute.Made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). A graphic novel co-created by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor David Schaffer for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust & Human Rights Education project.
0 kommentar(er)
