Comments on Yankev Krakovski’s “Dos Lid Fun Leo Frenk”

Presented at the Conney Conference on Jewish Arts University of Wisconsin-Madison

Gideon Klionsky gklionsky@gmail.com

April 6, 2011

This paper is available online at http://bit.ly/LFpaper. The presentation is available at http://bit.ly/LFconney.

Originally prepared as a term paper for Prof. Jonathan D. Sarna’s course entitled “It Couldn’t Happen Here: Three American Antisemitic Episodes”

Brandeis University Fall 2010

Klionsky 1

I. Introduction

The Leo Frank Affair, which unfolded in Atlanta, GA and the surrounding areas between

April 1913 and August 1915, inspired a variety of cultural representations.1 The story of Leo

Frank’s alleged murder of Mary Phagan, the subsequent commutation of his death sentence, and

his eventual lynching has been told in Fiddlin’ John Carson’s contemporary “The Ballad of Little

Mary Phagan”2 and “The Grave of Little Mary Phagan”. Furthermore, a quick search of the

existing materials about the case reveals several films, two television series, some novels, and a

Broadway musical in the intervening century since Frank’s lynching. None of those retellings,

though, approaches the case from the perspective of the Jewish community, of which Leo Frank

was a member. Despite the symbolic value that Jews across the country placed on the Frank

case, no3 Yiddish songs on the subject appear in the major Yiddish musical indices

4 or in any of

the best-stocked archives of Yiddish song — except one. This paper will explore the text and

context of that song, making reference to the way the Jewish community interpreted the case.

1 My thanks go to Professor Sarna for introducing a musical aspect to our discussions of the Leo Frank case; to

Chana Mlotek for going back to her notes to answer my questions; to Bob Freedman of the UPenn Jewish Sound

Archive for a document of Ms. Mlotek’s clarifying the existence of a Leo-Frank-related verse of another

contemporaneous song; to Judy Pinnolis of the Brandeis Library and the Jewish Music WebCenter for further

valiant but fruitless searching; and, I hope, to Ethan Goldberg and Steven Shapiro for providing the klezmer groups

to record what may be the only existing performances of the song. 2 The lyrics that one-time Northwestern University President Snyder reports (Snyder 1918) via Helen Duncan

via a one-armed singer in Alabama in Winter 1917 are very similar to Carson’s lyrics; any differences are surely due

to regional changes that occurred as the song propagated from its source. Mary Phagan’s great-niece (who shared

her name) heard a recording of this song in school in 1943 as she writes in her 1987 recounting of the case (Phagan

1987). 3 The notes in New Pearls indicate that another song in the anthology, “Lebn Zol Kolumbus” (‘Long Live

Columbus’) contained a second verse that was originally about Frank and Conley but it was replaced by a verse

about Wilson and the 1915 Burnett Immigration bill after Frank was lynched. The Robert and Molly Freedman

Jewish Sound Archive at the University of Pennsylvania (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/freedman) was

kind enough to send me Chana Mlotek’s comments on this original verse, though no one was able to supply a

recording of the song that included it. 4 In researching this paper, I contacted the Freedman Archive; the Florida Atlantic University’s Jewish Sound

Archive (http://faujsa.fau.edu); the Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~djsa); and the

YIVO archive (http://www.yivoinstitute.org/library/index.php); in addition to several less-known or personal

resources.

Klionsky 2

Eleanor (Chana) and Joseph Mlotek’s 2004 anthology, the New Pearls of Yiddish Song,

contains the lyrics and a short historical note about “Dos Lid Fun Leo Frenk”.5 According to the

introduction to the song, the words and music were written “by Yankev Krakovski” and were

“printed on a broadside in Toronto”. Searches of the Jewish music archives listed above3 reveal

no songwriter by the name of Krakovski, nor any songs with Frank’s name in the title. Chana

Mlotek corroborates that the source of the text is a broadside but “cannot locate it at present”

among her non-catalogued collections and cannot at present provide any further information

about the source, text, or composer of the song.6 Fortunately, the content of the song makes

pretty clear that it was composed during the eight weeks between when Governor John Slaton

commuted Frank’s death sentence to life in prison (June 21, 1915) and when he was kidnapped

from jail and lynched (August 17 of the same year).

There are two main reasons that this song is worth analyzing. First, I believe that artistic

representations of history can teach us a lot about the viewpoints of those who may not have

been writing history at the time — we can create a social history of the event. Secondly, as a

student interested in music in general and Jewish music in particular, I want to take this

opportunity to revive what seems to be a totally invisible song. Other Yiddish songs written at

the same time have been forgotten except for the work of one reviver. For example, others have

recorded Joshua Rayzner’s “Lid Fun Titanik” but without Mandy Patinkin’s arrangement, it is

unlikely that the song would have survived the shift to the age of digital media. I hope to be able

to do that with “Dos Lid Fun Leo Frenk”.

5 Attached as an Appendix (Krakovski 2004)

6 Personal communication (Mlotek 2010)

Klionsky 3

II. Music

In order to understand the song and what it says about the American Jewish community’s

internalization of the events, we must be able to understand the music as well as the text.

Musically, the song is divided into two very distinct parts: verse and chorus. Both are presented

in D minor, which might be called the neutral or default key for ‘Jewish’ music. But the

characters of these two sections could not be more opposed. The Mlotek text includes four

verses and a chorus, plus sheet music corresponding to each section, which will be discussed

below.

Verse

The verse is in 3/4 time and makes for a slow, somber waltz. The tied dotted-half notes that

overrun bar lines suggest that an arrangement of the song might feature a lasting hit on the

cymbals at the end of each of the musical phrases (each of which corresponds to a lines of the

text). In other words, each line could be punctuated by a sound that ends only after echoing like

cymbals. One such sound might be the sliding closed of a jail cell and its ensuing reverberation

throughout the ward. In addition, the melody of the verse is built almost entirely from quarter

notes played on the beats. This suggests a certain uniformity or regularity, reminiscent of how

each prisoner lacks the freedom to be unique.

The music in the verse is unstable, suggesting apprehension even without the foreboding

lyrics. In music, the chords a fourth and a fifth above the root tend to play important roles in the

structure of a song.7 In “Frenk”, G minor is the subdominant (fourth above the root) of D minor

and appears several times in the verse. But instead of hearing a G minor, the chord is always

7 This observation is truer with simpler music; folk music tends not to be structurally complex so it can be easily

played. The “circle of fifths” is even built into some instruments, such as the accordion or the strings. Jewish music

incorporates both the biases of the structural simplicity of folk music and of the instruments commonly associated

with it. Therefore that category may demonstrate an even stronger-than-average tendency towards fourth- and fifth-

chords.

Klionsky 4

featured under a melody that includes an E natural — a note that shifts a solid G minor triad of

G–Bb–D to a haunted, diminished chord of E–G–B

b, a pattern that contains the “devil’s” tritone

and has no real root. Nothing good can be happening with a melody like this one.

Even more unnerving is that for an appreciable extent of the verse, the melody goes

somewhere stable only to return to its tritone. In folk song like this one, a standard pattern is for

the dominant8 to be played at the close of the verse in order to lead to the chorus. Anyone

familiar with Western music, even those with no formal training, is conscious of this pattern.9 So

at the end of the sixth line of the verse when we hear that dominant A major, we do not expect to

regress immediately towards the second iteration of the unstable G minor chord — but, in fact,

the song does exactly that. Krakovski’s melody is unhappy and stuck in what sounds like an

ungrounded cycle with no definite end. After the final line of the verse ends with an A, we

wonder whether the composer will have played another trick on us and whether we will move

back to the G minor or somehow find a way to escape the gloom.

Chorus

The shift is immediate and cannot be missed. Krakovski leaves the plodding, uniform,

unstable waltz behind in the verse. Both the verse and the chorus are marked Andante, but while

the former is in 3/4 time, the latter is in 2/4. There are stressed notes fifty percent more often.

Most importantly, the tritones are gone and the chorus is sung with lively syncopation in place of

quarter notes on the beat. The second chord of the chorus is a G chord — G major! As we

discussed earlier, a G minor chord is perfectly standard in a song written in D minor, but in the

verse it was coupled with a devilish tritone. Here in the chorus, on the other hand, the

8 Or ‘fifth’. In the key of D minor, the dominant is A.

9 Think of the final two words of “Happy Birthday: “to” is sung over the dominant or fifth chord and simply

floats in the air until followed by (or resolved to) “you” on the tonic (root) chord.

Klionsky 5

subdominant transforms into its major-mode counterpart giving an even more immediate kick of

glory. Finally, since the text of the chorus is made of symmetric pairs of 4-bar lines, the music

repeats itself over again, providing the opportunity to learn the catchy refrain quite easily; as

with many songs, the chorus is the part designed to stick in the listener’s brain.

The music of “Frenk” on its own signifies that there are two parts to the story, one downcast

and gloomy and the other peppy and hopeful.

III. A note on the text

The text is attached as Appendix A and the sheet music as Appendix B. As it was published

in New Pearls, 10

the text of the chorus consists only of its second half. Normally, when the

same music is repeated twice over, the entire set of lyrics is included, listed in two parallel lines

beneath the notes. It is particularly confusing because, considering the chorus as two groups of

four lines, just the third line differentiates the two halves. If only four of the lines were to be

included in the sheet music, by all means they should have been the first four. After considering

how best to spread the song, though, I decided to reduce the Mlotek’s ambiguity and added the

lyrics of the first half of the chorus as well.

I arranged the lyrics of the song so they can be read more fluidly. Instead of presenting the

Yiddish and transliteration on opposing sides with the translation below, I placed all three in

parallel columns. For easy reading, I placed the transliteration furthest to the right in the

‘butterfly’ style popularized recently by the new Koren siddur. Using the sheet music as a basis

for the intended melody, I went through each of the verses to parse the stress patterns; this

explains the collection of acute accents placed above the transliteration column. L.1-7 in the

verse consists of three beats (bars), plus a fourth one due to the tied dotted-half-note that crosses

10

The only criticism I have of the Mloteks’ parsing can be found in footnote 11 in Appendix A.

Klionsky 6

bar lines. L.8, in each of the verses, contains four full stresses which helps emphasize the shift in

meter of the chorus.

The translation appears on the left; since the Mloteks’ translation did not appear to employ

any strategy (i.e.: retaining the meter or rhyme scheme of the original) I approached the meaning

of the Yiddish more closely while annotating any changes from the earlier translation.

IV. Lyrics

Just as the music was split between gloomy verses and a mirthful chorus, the lyrics of the

respective sections also break into two separate thematic categories. Several themes come out of

the four verses. Perhaps the most striking is the exultation Krakovski suggests is due to Gov.

Slaton. Another is the sense that the fate of an entire community is in the balance, not just the

fate of a single man. The third is the fear expressed in the Passover Haggadah that “in every

generation they stand up to us to destroy us,” and the fourth is the faith that at those times, “God

will save us from their hands.”11

Everything is gloomy for Leo Frank in the first verse, chained in jail with the hangman and

the noose waiting for him. In L.4, “the night” may be another depiction of what was

undoubtedly a dark prison cell; but it may very well refer to “the night” of June 20, 1915, less

than two days before a new governor of Georgia would be sworn in and just six days before Leo

Frank was scheduled to die. Early on the morning of the 21st, the popular Gov. Slaton published

a 29-page letter announcing that he would “be a murderer if [he] allowed that man to hang,”12

citing a variety of miscarriages of justice and expressions of doubt among those responsible for

11

The text is from the V’hi she’amda paragraph that follows the Four Sons in the Haggadah. The author is

unknown. The translation is mine. 12

(Dinnerstein 2008, 126)

Klionsky 7

producing Frank’s verdict.13

The Governor, then, is the “star” that “shines” for Frank in prison.

Krakovski poetically captures what Frank — and those concerned with injustices committed

upon him – must have felt when he learned he would remain alive.

In the second verse, Gov. Slaton is compared to Mordechai, the hero of the Purim story. In

the biblical version, Jews across Persia were set to be killed by royal decree until Mordechai

prods his niece, who had become Queen, to plead for the security of the Jewish people, asking,

“Who knows if but for this time you became royalty?”14

By invoking this story, Krakovski

indicates the feeling of a communal fate shared by Jews all across the country. Gov. Slaton here

is an honorary Jew: he becomes the one standing up to the powers attempting to destroy the

Jew.15

The Purim metaphor extends even further, bringing in the apparent cyclicality of Jewish

history: for two millennia, villains have been responsible for “promulgating libels” against Jews

and “putting up a gallows” for him. As Gov. Slaton is compared to Mordechai, standing up for

the security of the Jew, Jim Conley is Haman, the villain.

The third verse is thematically closest to the chorus, and explaining one will elucidate the

other. In both, Krakovski references a contemporary anti-Semitic accusation that we may — but

should not — be surprised about. In March 1911, just eight years after the Kishinev pogroms, a

young boy was found dead outside of Kiev. Pamphlets were handed out to mourners suggesting

the age-old anti-Semitic charge that “the kikes have tortured [the boy] to death” to use his blood

in the Passover matzah.16

Four months later, a proposed culprit was found in the form of a

13

(Slaton 1915). The governor goes so far as to mention several pieces of evidence that had not been properly

examined during the trial. These include the piece of human excrement found intact at the bottom of the pencil

factory’s elevator shaft, indicating that the elevator had not been taken to the basement, proving false Conleys’s

story of Frank murdering Phagan on the second floor and taking her to the basement via the elevator. 14

(Book of Esther, 4:14). Translation is mine. 15

Lindemann, independently, says something similar, referencing the Mordechai of the Dreyfus Affair: “If one

is to find a heroic figure in this drama, one who might be compared to Picquart in terms of the personal risks taken

to see that justice was done, it was the governor of Georgia, John M. Slaton . . .” (Lindemann 1991, 268) 16

(Lindemann 1991, 177)

Klionsky 8

Jewish factory manager, Mendel Beilis. Given the political uncertainties in Russia at the time,

though, and in stark contrast with the initial perceptions in the Frank case, the general public was

never strongly against the official suspect. He was well-respected in his neighborhood despite

being the only Jew in the district. Furthermore, there was a vast outpouring of international

pressure — Jewish and non-Jewish — on the government of Russia to do a better job finding a

real suspect. According to the accepted version of the story, the real murderer was Vera

Cheberyak,17

the mother of one of the boy’s friends and a member of a gang. The boy had

threatened to reveal secrets and the gang mangled the body in the style of a traditional European

ritual murder to throw suspicion away from themselves.18

Reading the song a century later, we may ask why Krakovski referenced the Beilis Affair

rather than the Dreyfus Affair, which today is the far-more-widely-remembered of the two.

Granted, the Dreyfus trial was nearly two decades before the Frank trial while Beilis had just

been acquitted in October 1913, but the literature on anti-Semitism in 2011 still references the

Argentina bombs of 1992 and 1994. But even if it is lesser known today, the Beilis Affair is a

much more apt comparison. By invoking Beilis rather than Dreyfus, Krakovski makes at least

two appropriate comparisons. The first is the obvious similarity: in both cases, a Jewish factory

owner was thought to have desecrated a holiday19

and was charged with murdering a child. By

contrast, Dreyfus was a man of much higher stature than either Beilis or Frank and was accused

of a grave breach of military trust.

A second, and more abstract similarity, is the reaction of Jews to the various charges. With

Germany a stark foe of France during the Dreyfus trial, many Jews were suspicious of anyone

17

Or, in Mlotek’s rendering of Krakovski’s Yiddish, “Shterbakova”. See footnote 4 in Appendix A. 18

(Lindemann 1991, 182) 19

Mary Phagan was murdered on Confederate Memorial Day, supposedly by the Northern businessman Frank.

As for Beilis: traditional blood libels are always tied up with Passover, which, especially in the Orthodox Church, is

always tied to Easter. In April 1911, Orthodox Easter fell three days before the first Seder.

Klionsky 9

alleged to be a traitor, Jew or otherwise. Lindemann suggests that the case of several Jews who

escaped punishment in Panama was fresh in the mental background of French Jews, and few

wanted to come out starkly on the wrong side of history so early in a similar case.20

On the other

hand, as mentioned above, very few people seriously entertained the Russian government’s

charges against Mendel Beilis. While Jews certainly did not want to ruffle any feathers in the

Frank case, many very quickly understood that the Georgia environment was not conducive to

Frank getting a fair trial. In this way, the Jewish reaction to the Frank case is more similar to

Beilis than to Dreyfus.

One way in which Dreyfus is a more appropriate comparison is that in neither his affair nor

Frank’s was the case initially anti-Semitic. We must notice that even a case built on anti-

Semitism, as Beilis’ was, was objectively unable to sway many Russians to the official position.

But the Jewish perception of these two cases occurring as wide apart “as the sea” is something

like: ‘we knew we were unsafe in Russia, but in America?’ Suddenly, the generational curse

upon the Jew was rearing its head even on this side of the ocean. If a blood libel can be made

against a Jew in Atlanta just like the ones leveled against a Jew in Kiev, how are Jews any safer

in America than in the Old World?

Krakovski’s recourse, both personally for Frank and generally for the Jewish people, is God,

“the Jewish father.” This is the point at which some biographical information about the

composer might inform our understanding of the song better. Was the chorus simply catchy, or

did the composer believe in a personal God watching the suffering of the innocent and punishing

the guilty? In either case, it is clear that he analyzed the commutation of Frank’s sentences as a

superb result. It is interesting to note that commutation — not pardon — was so highly praised

that the prediction of Frank’s eventual freedom is almost an afterthought at the end of V.3.

20

(Lindemann 1991, 104)

Klionsky 10

The chorus can be considered as eight lines, though because of the shift in meter to 2/4 it is

written here as twelve. Four of those eight are identical: “Have no fear, God is with you.” This

is the part of the chorus with the most syncopated rhythm and so is the catchiest. We can take

from this that Krakovski probably did place God in a traditional, retributive role.

It may be God that saves the Jews from the cycle of villains attempting to interfere with the

flow of Jewish history, but it is Gov. Slaton, “the True Governor”, the “saint”, who has “saved

millions from hanging / And exonerated the Jewish nation.” This is quite laudatory language for

a man who eventually did the right thing but was by no means forceful about it throughout the

process of the trial. “The True Governor” is likely a phrase that responds to enraged Georgians’

reactions to Gov. Slaton. He was burned in effigy in downtown Atlanta with people shouting,

“We want John M. Slaton, Georgia’s Traitor Governor!”21

Since “True” and “Traitor” are nearly

opposites in this context, we can imagine that Krakovski was aware of the specific language of

the protests.22

The final verse ends on a grand scale that contrasts starkly with the personal image of Leo

Frank sitting in his cell alone. Each verse has a wider scope than the previous one, which

demonstrates the sense that while Frank was the only one in jail, the fate of the rest of the Jewish

community was tied up in his Affair. The first verse is extremely personal: Frank is in the dark,

crying, then suddenly he is comforted and his tears are wiped away. In the second, Krakovski

expands to a traditional model of Jewish heroism, that of the Purim story. In the third, he

21

(Dinnerstein 2008, 132) 22

This raises an interesting but not-pursuable point about Krakovski’s whereabouts as he composed this song.

In personal communication (Mlotek 2010), Chana Mlotek was unable to reference the notes that she had

incorporated into the publication of the song in New Pearls. Those notes indicate that the “words and music…were

printed on a broadside in Toronto” but they say nothing about where Krakovski was based when be composed the

song. Furthermore, as stated in the introductory section, none of the organizations most like to be familiar with the

composer or the song have ever heard of either one, and any supporting information in Chana Mlotek’s records

relies on finding the source of the documentation.

Klionsky 11

contextualizes the Frank case with another major recent occurrence of the hijacking of a Jew’s

justice. Finally, at the close of the song, “millions” are “exonerated” — the entire “Jewish

nation” is “saved from hanging”. Perhaps he recognized that the Jewish community in America

was facing a severe threat, and that, depending on the outcome of the case, anti-Semitism was

either going to disappear thanks to the “True Governor” or would regress to what many Jews

were used to from Europe.

V. Conclusion

Unfortunately, “Dos Lid Fun Leo Frenk” is almost entirely unknown. From a purely musical

standpoint, it has a catchy chorus to go along with four somber verses; both of these, from a

technical standpoint, are well-constructed to convey their meanings. The verse is slow and

syllables almost exclusively fall on quarter-note beats. There are several false endings and

dissonant tritones. Suddenly, the meter of the song shifts from 3/4 to 2/4 and Krakovski

introduces syncopated rhythms and a surprise major G chord that make “Have no fear” really

stand out.

The four main themes in the text of the song are interwoven throughout. They are: praise is

due to Gov. Slaton for the great deed he has done in commuting Leo Frank’s sentence; the sense

that the entire Jewish community had been on trial and was going to be on the hangman’s

platform with Frank; that Conley was just another in a long line of Hamans hatching plans to

destroy Jews; and that, matching that long line of Hamans, God is always present to watch over

the Jews and prevent national catastrophe.

The next step of the research can only be one thing: the broadsheet on which the Mloteks

found this song must be excavated and examined more closely if we are to find out any more

information about the unknown Yankev Krakovski and what his connection may have been to

Klionsky 12

Toronto or Atlanta. At least the date of the song’s composition can be narrowed down quite

well: since Krakovski lauds Gov. Slaton but also includes the line “Frank will also be freed,” the

song must have been written between June 21 and August 17, 1915 — the period between when

Slaton commuted Frank’s death sentence to life in jail and when Frank was lynched.

VI. Revival and recordings

Thus far I have been unable to organize a decent musical group to perform and record the

song, so I have made two recordings myself. The first is a piano-solo recording of one verse and

one chorus and is available via this link: http://bit.ly/DLFLF. The second is a vocal solo of the

entire song, including four verses and their alternating choruses and is available via:

http://bit.ly/DLFLF2. Please note that the last part of the URL is case-sensitive. Clicking the

links will take the reader directly to the streaming mp3 files. In order to download the files and

listen to them in a preferred digital music player, right-click the links and select “Save Target” or

its equivalent. I will further pursue getting an instrumental recording plus vocalist and will then

see about sending it to the various Jewish music archives that reported never having heard of the

song before. I have already submitted and received confirmation from the Freedman Jewish

Sound Archive of their receipt of the first of these recordings. It is my hope that one of the

Jewish artists at the Conney Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will take a

liking to this song and revive it with a more interesting interpretation than I have given it.

Klionsky 13

Works Cited

Book of Esther. "Esther 4:14." Mechon Mamre.

Dinnerstein, Leonard. The Leo Frank Case. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2008.

Krakovski, Yankev. "Dos Lid fun Leo Frenk." In Songs of Generations: New Pearls of Yiddish

Song, by Eleanor G. (Chana) and Joseph Mlotek, 138-140. New York: Jewish Book

Center of the Workmen’s Circle, 2004.

Lindemann, Albert S. The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic affairs (Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank)

1894-1915. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Mlotek, Chana, interview by Gideon Klionsky. Personal Communication (Nov. 1, 2010).

Phagan, Mary. The Murder of Little Mary Phagan. Far Hils, NJ: New Horizon Press, 1987.

Slaton, John. "In Re Leo M. Frank, Fulton Superior Court, Sentence to be executed, June 22nd,

1915." Letter, State of Georgia, Atlanta, 1915.

Snyder, Franklyn B. "Leo Frank and Mary Phagan." Journal of American Folklore 31, no. 120

(1918): 264-266.

The Song of Leo Frank1 Yankev Krakovski

פרענק א יל פון ליד דאס קראקאװסקי יאנקעװ

Dos Lid fun Leo Frenk

Verse 1: It’s dark in prison, chains clang The hangman holds the noose and laughs He’s waiting to hang Leo Frank The night moves slowly for him2 Suddenly a star lights up for Frank And shines for him in the prison It comforts him and wipes away his tears And sings him to sleep with songs of life

Refrain: Have no fear, God is with you The Jew’s gallows is broken Broken forever3 Don’t be afraid, little Jew, they’ll be silent You’ll overcome all your troubles Have no fear, God is with you Have no fear, God is with you The Jew’s gallows is broken Broken forever For Beilis’ libels and for Frank Shterbakova4 and Conley will suffer Have no fear, God is with you

Verse 2: Two thousand years have flown by quickly In every generation a Haman puts up a gallows They keep promulgating libels of sucking blood5

סטראפע 1: קלינגעןקײטן , פינצטער אין תפיסה

דער תלין האלט דעם שטריק און לאכט אױף ליא פרענק װארט ער צום הענגען

לאנגװײליק איז אים די נאכט פלוצלונג לײכט אױף פרענקס א שטערן

און ער שײנט אים אין תפיסה ארײן ער טרײסט אים און װישט זײנע טרערן

לידער שלעפערט ער אים אײן-מיט לעבנס

:רעפריין גאט איז מיט דיר, האב ניט קײן מורא

יז צעבראכן דעם יידנס תליה א צעבראכן אן א שיעור

זײ װעלן שטומען, יידל, שרעק ניט אלע צרות װעסטו איבערקומען

גאט איז מיט דיר, האב ניט קײן מורא גאט איז מיט דיר, האב ניט קײן מורא

יז צעבראכןדעם יידנס תליה א צעבראכן אן א שיעור

בילבולים און פאר פרענקען' פאר בײליסעס װעט שטערבאקאװא און קאנלי קרענקען

גאט איז מיט דיר, האב ניט קײן מורא

סטראפע 2: צװײ טױזנט יאר באלד פארפלױגן אין יעדן דור א המן תליות שטעלט

זױגןמען מאכט נאר בילבולים בלוט

Strafe 1: Fíntster in tfíse, keytn klíngen ´ Der tályen halt dem shtrík12 un lákht ´ Oyf Léo Frenk várt er tsum hángen ´ Langváylik íz im di nákht ´ Plutslung láykht oyf Frénks a shtérn ´ Un er sháynt im in tfíse aráyn ´ Er tréyst im un vísht zayne trérn ´ Mit lébns-líder shléfert er im áyn

Refreyn: Hób nit keyn móyre, gót iz mit dír Dem yídns tlie is tsebrókhn Tsebrókhn on a shír Shrék nit, yidl, zéy veln shtumen Ále tsores vestu íberkumen Hób nit keyn móyre, gót iz mit dír Hób nit keyn móyre, gót iz mit dír Dem yídns tlie is tsebrókhn Tsebrókhn on a shír Far Béylises bilbulim ún far Frenken Vet Shtérbakova un Kónli krenken Hób nit keyn móyre, gót iz mit dír

Strafe 2: Tsvéy toyznt yór bald farflóygn ´ In yédn dor a Hómen tlies shtélt ´ Men mákht nor bilbúlim blut zóygn ´

1 Text and transliteration from [Krakovski, Yankev. "Dos Lid fun Leo Frenk." In Songs of Generations: New Pearls of Yiddish Song, by Eleanor G. (Chana) and Joseph Mlotek, 138-140. New York: Jewish Book Center of the Workmen’s Circle, 2004]. Translation based on Mlotek; comments made with reference to that version. 2 Mlotek: “The night drags for him.” 3 L. 2-3 are condensed to “The Jew’s gallows are broken, shattered” probably to avoid repeating a translation of “tsebrokhn”. 4 In the notes preceding the song, Mlotek has “Sherbakova”. In the text of the song — Yiddish, translation, and transliteration — a [t] has been added: Shterbakova. And in the sheet music, it is Shtsherbakova. Given that ‘Cheberyak’ has no [t] it is likely that the Yiddish version should have none, too: Sherbakova. We would have to cross-reference other Yiddish reports of her name.

Now a Haman – a Conley – appears in the world6 God must also create a Mordechai A Governor Slaton in time7 Who doesn’t believe in gallows and weapons And frees Frank from death8 Verse 3: The tears are not yet dried From Mendel Beilis’ blood libel And we Jews must hear again A Phagan libel as broad as the sea9 Do you know God, the Jewish father? He helps them out of every misfortune He didn’t hurt Beilis and won’t hurt him10 And Frank will also be freed Verse 4: With courage and joy will Jews remember John Slaton, the True Governor11 And bless his father and his mother Who brought such a saint into the world He has saved millions from hanging And exonerated the Jewish nation Who else could have done something like that If not you, Governor Slaton

יעצט קומט א קאנלי א המן אױף דער װעלט מוז גאט אױך א מרדכי שאפען

א גאװערנאר סלייטאן אין צײט װאס גלײבט ניט אין תליות אין װאפן

און פרענקן פון טױט באפרײט

סטראפע 3:פגעטרינקט די טרערן נאך ניט א

דם- עלילת' פון מענדל בײליסעס װײטער הערן, יידן, מיר דארפן

א פײגאנס בילבול גרױס װי דער ים קענט איר גאט דעם יידישן טאטן?

פון יעדן אומגליק העלפט ער זײװעט אים ניט שאטן'ניט געשאט בײליסן און ס

און פרענק װעט אױך װערן גאנץ פרײ

סטראפע 4: מיט מוט און שימחה װעלן יידן דערמאנען

דער אמת גאװערנאר, דזשאן סלײטאן און בענטשן דעם טאטן און דער מאמען

זױ א זון געברענגט אהער'װאס האבן פגענומען מיליאנען פון תליה ארא רײן געװאשן דעם יידישן נאציאן

זױ װאס נאך קאנען'װער װאלט װען ניט דו גאװערנאר סלײטאן

Yetst kumt a Kónli a Hómen oyf der vélt ´ Muz got óykh a Mórdkhe sháfen ´ A Góvernor Slétyon in tsáyt ´ Vos gléybt nit in tlíes in váfn ´ Ún Frénkn fun tóyt bafráyt Strafe 3: Nókh nit ópgetrinkt di trérn ´ Fun Mendl Béylises alílas-dam ´ Dárfn mir, yídn, vayter hérn ´ A Feygans bílbl gróys vi der yám ´ Kent ir Gót dem yídishn tátn? ´ Fun yédn úmglik helft er zéy ´ Nit geshat Béylisn13 un s'vét im nit shátn ´ Ún Frénk vet óykh vern gants fráy Strafe 4: Mit mut un símkhe13 veln yídn dermónen ´ Dzhan Sléyton, der émes góvernor ´ Un béntshn dem tátn un der mámen ´ Vos hobn ‘zóy a zun14 gebréngt ahér ´ Fun tlíe aropgenúmen milyónen ´ Reyn geváshn dem yídishn natsyón ´ Ver volt 'zóy vos nókh kónen ´ Vén nit dú Góvernor Sléyton

5 Literally “sucking”. Mlotek has “drinking”. 12 The sheet music provided by Mlotek places dem on the first beat of the bar, but articles receiving stress is marked; the simpler parsing is to sing halt dem as eighth notes in the previous bar and to stress shtrik. 6 Perhaps, given the following line, “Now that a Haman…” is more accurate though less faithful 7 In time” is the center of somewhat confusing syntax in this verse. The intent seems to be: “Now that a Haman (Conley) has appeared, God must create a Mordechai (Slaton) who doesn’t believe in gallows and weapons, in time to free Frank from the death sentence.” 8 Mlotek has “…from the death sentence,” though the Yiddish is just “frees Frank from death.” 9 Mlotek: “As broad as an ocean,” though der in der yam is the definite article. 10 Mlotek’s translation appears to lose the reference to God in this line. For L. 7-8: “It didn’t hurt Beilis and it won’t hurt him, and Frank will also be freed.” Geshat is a third-person past singular, meaning that either “he” or “it” is an appropriate subject for the predicate. But “it” does not seem to refer to anything, while “he” would refer to God mentioned in L.5 as “God” and in L.6 as “he”. 11 Capitalized to contrast with epithets of “Georgia’s Traitor Governor” shouted at Gov. Slaton after he commuted Frank’s sentence. See essay for more detail. 13 This is an awfully long pick-up note, but it is the best of several awkward choices. The contraction s’vet makes that word almost certain to carry one of the stresses, and the final word shatn must carry one as well. The post-verse stress is the third one, leaving Nit geshat Beylism un all within one stress boundary. Same reasoning applies to L.1 of V.4. 14 Zun could also carry this stress, but placing it in the same bar as gebrengt makes the whole thing sound like a single verb, zungebrengt. Leaving zun in the previous bar keeps the entire noun phrase “such a saint” under one major stress.