Written by Shlomo Shmulevitz and published in 1912, and again in 1916 the by Hebrew Publishing Company. The particular pandemic that inspired these lyrics may have been the “Russian Flu” (as the 1889-90 flu pandemic was sometimes named), or else the constant scourge of tuberculosis. At the time the Hebrew Publishing Company published these lyrics, the most recent worldwide plague was the 1915 Encephalitis lethargica pandemic. For more details, find this article at Tablet by Shalom Goldman.

We are indebted to Sveta Kundish & Daniel Kahn who brought these lyrics back to life, and to Yeva Lapske for their transcription. All on hand (Sveta, Daniel, Yeva Lapsker and Patrick Farrell) contributed to the translation. The text presented here was derived from the closed captions provided for the video on Youtube. Shalom Goldman properly credits Jane Peppler for initially unearthing this song for which she offered a romanized transcription and translation on her blog, Yiddish Penny Songs, in 2017. There she mentions that Mark Slobin discussed “Mentshn-Fresser” in his book, Tenement Songs (1982) pp.148-150.

Source(s)

Menshen-Fresser (Solomon Small 1916) cover art

Menshenfresser (Solomon Small 1916) sheet music

“מענטשן־פרעסער | Mentshn-Fresser (“People Devourer”), a Pandemic Ballad by Shlomo Shmulevitsh (1916)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Daniel Kahn (translation)

Daniel Kahn is a Berlin-based Yiddish singer and songwriter.

Yeva Lapsker (translation)

Yeva Lapsker is a translator and dancer.

Patrick Farrell (translation)

Patrick Farrell is an accordionist, composer and bandleader from the USA, currently living in Berlin. His ongoing projects include newly composed Yiddish song duets with soprano Sveta Kundish, the avant/traditionalist klezmer ensemble Yiddish Art Trio, unique and unusual duets with New York trumpeter Ben Holmes, and chamber/folk group Ljova and the Kontraband. Farrell has appeared on dozens of recordings in many different musical genres, including with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Adrienne Cooper, and Never Enough Hope. A passport-carrying citizen of Yiddishland, he has performed with many of Europe and North America's leading klezmorim, including The Klezmatics, Alicia Svigals' Klezmer Fiddle Express, Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars, and the Strauss/Warschauer Duo. Over the years, Farrell has taught klezmer music and composition at KlezKanada, Yiddish Summer Weimar, Shtetl Neukölln, and at universities and in workshops throughout North America and Europe. He can be found at www.pattysounds.com

Sveta Kundish (translation)

Sveta Kundish was born in Ukraine in 1982 and began studying music at age seven. After settling in Israel with her family in 1995, she continued her music studies at the Tel Aviv Municipal Arts High School, focusing on voice and piano. Following her graduation, she studied voice with Ella Akritova, a prominent singer and former professor at the Kiev Conservatory and, in 2001, began attending the Yiddish music master class of Nechama Lifshitz. In 2003, she enrolled in the musicology program at Tel Aviv University, earning a B.A. in 2007; that same year, she was invited by Prof. Yuri Kokozey to study voice at the Prayner Konservatorium in Vienna. During her studies in Vienna, Sveta won first prize at the 2008 Golden Hanukkia international vocal competition in Berlin. Following her graduation in 2011, Sveta began a master studies program at the Cantorial Department of the Abraham Geiger Kolleg in Berlin, which she completed in 2018.

Shlomo Shmulevitz

Shlomo Shmulevitz (also Shmulevitsh [a/k/a Small], 1868 – 1943) was a songwriter, lyricist, bard, actor, badkhn (wedding entertainer), balladeer, and early recording singer. He was born in Minsk, Belarus, and immigrated to the United States in 1889. He was one of the most prolific and talented of the early Yiddish composers who fashioned a type of Yiddish counterpart to American popular song around the turn of the 19th–20th century and in the immediately ensuing years. He wrote a profusion of songs (words and music) and many lyrics for other songwriters. His subject matter ranged from immigrant families, labor conditions, biblical vignettes, Judaic observances, Jewish historical incidents, nostalgia, immigration obstacles, and current topical subjects to wedding celebration songs. In the last decade of his life—when, to eke out a basic subsistence, he toured the United States and traveled across Canada from Halifax to Calgary and Winnipeg, entertaining local Jewish audiences with his own and similar songs—he mused on man’s course through life in his song Man shpilt teater (Mankind Plays in a Theater): “We act as if we were all on the stage, each one acting out his little life to a script written and directed by Almighty God.” Throughout the first two decades of the 20th century Shmulevitz recorded his songs in many of the earliest recording studios on a regular basis. Thereafter he continued to turn out melodies and lyrics for others to sing. His legacy comprises about 150 known or traceable songs and song lyrics—of which "A brivele der mamen" is now unquestionably his most famous—although in a letter to the press he once referred to twice that number with his own tunes, in addition to 200 sets of words to melodies by others. (by Neil W. Levin from the Milken Archive of Jewish Music)

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Associated Image:   

Colorized negative stained transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicted some of the ultrastructural morphology of the A/CA/4/09 swine flu virus. (credit: C. S. Goldsmith and A. Balish, CDC)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17