For those of us who grew up hearing Yiddish in their household, and those that spoke it are now gone. Here's remembering my parents, Max and Phylis Mirabel, Holocaust survivors. I miss hearing you speaking to one another in Yiddish and Polish.(Yiddish 🙂💡I sort of understood, but I was lost when you spoke Polish 😕) After loosing you in 1990 & 1986, respectively, I miss you terribly, even more than before.
Losing your mother before your father is such an Ashkenazi thing. It’s kind of wild how much more common that is among American Jews than other Americans.
Shalom Platypus, right you are, I'd rather say music overcomes boundaries, even between sworn foes. Yasmin Levy is even able to bring together an armenian & a turkish musician & they play their instruments together in perfect harmony as if they both were brothers to support her marvellous voice. Don't know how she managed that, but she did, she really did.
P.S.: + There is a church in Nazareth where messianic jews & christian arabs meet to sing praises in perfect harmony too. It's amazing, it's awesome, you can even feel the Shekhinah there. The ability to play instruments & to sing at the same time is a gift from HaShem. It also is unique to mankind as something even very intelligent bonobos are not able to do...
Tragically, Hitler and the Nazis pretty well destroyed Yiddish culture. It was a vibrant culture full of great writers, musicians, philosophers, painters, and wonderful salt of the earth people. It is truly a blessing to keep this language alive. A mitzvah to keep it alive with a rendition of this wonderful song. It moves me so much because I feel a strong connection to my ancestral roots in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. This song rendition has so many layers of meaning and artistic merit. The spirits of the dead are freed by this soulful music. Yasha koyech!
Yiddish language being resurrected by younger Jewish people. It is a blessing. Important to reach back into the mists of time no matter how painful and heal the broken spirits of our ancestors....
@@sn00pysfone What I perhaps meant so say then is that it is being spoken by more and more people who are seeking their roots and never learnt it as a mother tongue.
@@jimbobb3509 Starting a sentence with the phrase „you people“ is the equivalent of a giant flashing neon sign over your head that says: „I‘m a racist“.
My great grandfather was a German jew in the 30's. He was one of the lucky ones who got out before he died in a camp, and although he himself survived, we have lost a great deal of the culture in which he grew up, including the yiddish language. It makes me very happy to see our current generation bringing this language back from death's door
My beloved Jewish husband and I watched this video often before he passed. We laugh so hard. Thank you for the wonderful memory. I will be teaching the grandchildren Yiddish in memory of him.
I may not understand all the words, but all songs in yiddish make me cry. I remember my parents and grandparents speaking yiddish. Some words and phrases are familiar to me.
This is the first time I've actually heard Yiddish...and as a German, it shocked me when I realised how much I was able to understand despite not speaking a single word of Yiddish. I know the two languages are closely related as westgermanic languages, but still...I did not expect this.
Yiddish is close to German, but how well Yiddish speakers and German speakers understand each other depends on the individual speakers. Often, to German ears, Yiddish sounds like a very "challenging" German dialect. But Yiddish also has a lot of Hebrew words for ordinary things (for example, voice is "kol," rather than "Stimme") which makes things more difficult for mutual comprehension. You probably also noticed that German has turned about half of its kh-sounds into more "gentle" ones, while Yiddish never did. All this, of course, is all secondary to how lovely this version of the song is. :)
i speak swedish and i could also understand a little, and that's probably because of swedish similarities to german and german to yiddish. i tried to learn german actually but a lot of words were too similar so i just got so confused i basically spoke swedish with german pronuncation.
Thank you Daniel, you are performing a wonderful mitzvah keeping the Yiddish language alive and really alive, for us young people in the diaspora who do not hear it spoken everyday life. This rendition is so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes, Leonard would have loved it.
It makes me miss mine too. Yiddish was my parents first language, along with my babas, my zayde, aunts and uncles. I miss hearing it, and come to this page to listen because they are all gone now.
@@imisstoronto3121 I know just how you feel. 3 years ago I lost my beloved mother (she was almost 94) and last year her youngest sister (also almost 94), the last ones of that generation --born in N.America with Yiddish as first language). See if there is a Yiddish club near you. We have one in my city, Allentown, PA. We have members still fluent and others learning Yiddish. We use UA-cam to play Yiddish songs (I type up weekly song sheets with the lyrics in English transliteration, translation, as well as Yiddish in the original). YIVO, Yiddish Book Center, and others have online resources. Many ways to reconnect.
No matter how often I listen to this, I am moved to tears each time. It brings back the tiny homes in Eastern Europe and the lives never lived out, memories of what should have been, memories of the elders in the family, of the old neighborhood. They knew the heavy price of being "Americanized" and assumed/hoped it would keep us all safe. Maybe it's time to learn/speak Yiddish again.
For those commenting they don’t understand but it’s beautiful - I’ve been studying Yiddish only a brief time, and even understanding less than half the words, this lodges itself in my soul and melts me open.
We just lost my mother at age 90. She was the daughter of Russian immigrants, members of the Workmen's Circle in NYC. She spoke Yiddish before she spoke English (though didn't remember much of it later). During this time of mourning, I can't listen to news/politics (when I'm usually a junkie for that stuff); I just keep listening to this video endlessly. Thank you, Daniel Kahn.
I lost my mother several years ago. She was a Holocaust survivor where her family was not. But she used to mix Yiddish words in her sentences all the time and I loved it, because that was one of the few things left of her family she could pass on. To me her family were just names written down, no face nor other knowledge of them. I mean the few photo's people could afford were destroyed and nothing was left when WWII ended and she went to their former home in Amsterdam where now a Christian family lived who said they had not seen any possessions of her parents, while she saw her mothers crystal glasses on the cupboard...... Anyway, every time I hear someone sing or speak Yiddish I get this bittersweet feeling in my heart......
this moved me to tears. I grew up in a diverse neighborhood and spent many high holidays with my Jewish friends. to hear this in Yiddish...transported me to a better time. I have lived many years now in the south. and I grieve.
What a touching sentiment Cheryl. I feel your emptiness as if it were my own longing to return to the homeland as if a curse, I exist as a wandering Jew and am always on my way back home. It's a lonely longing to be back where I belong as a Jew, in the holy land. I have a prayer for you and one for me too. "Next year in Jerusalem"! And along the way, let us stay connected by music and listen to the sounds and melodies of our beautiful, poetic, mother tongue Hebrew (and Yiddish of course). Then let us sing hallelujah!
You are just so right ! It sounds like this song was conceived from the very beginning in yiddish. Just as if Daniel had felt this. It brings to this song a truthfull nudity...
MILLE FARSAKHS ופרסין Khayyám humbled - oh, this poor tentmaker poet! My Persian very sumply can’t compare ... dare I show it, Tattered, antic, threadbare in this world? A dark Ferrásh says “David, why not sow it... ...Back into the earth for now, forev- Er, if in your place and time a scarif- Ying desert wind burns your cheek- Leonard’s writing on the wall, sans serif.
It is, indeed, phenomenal. Does anyone know for certain whether Leonard Cohen spoke Yiddish? With his background it could be that it is his mamaloshen ... I’d like to think those are his words.
This reminds me so much of when as a child 70 odd years ago, my father took me to his fathers synagogue where nearly everyone still spoke Yiddish. It was a small place in Notting Hill in London that had a wooden interior and felt as though it had been transplanted straight from a Belarus shtetl, all the way to North London. Listening to this version brings all those memories flooding back to me!
@@Piratinas17 Same thing. I am pretty sure my mother has a jewish backround, but we have been christian for generations. I love this music and the language. In the end aren't we as christians not just a branch that split off of judaism?
Unbelievably amazing. Not only translated, but translated so it carried the original message of Leonard Cohen without using the same exact words. The Yiddish words were different than the straight translation. It's difficult to do this without "losing something in the translation" it was done expressing the deeper meaning. Fantastic
Agreed. It's as if this is what LC wanted to say all along, only he put it in English instead, and thus some of it was lost in translation - which has now been recovered...
In@@sigridrpclip Leonard Cohen said he wrote one hundred verses for this song - and never got a version he was satisfied with. So you could say Daniel Kahn helped him finish the song with six cogent verses.
(LC would have loved this - but from his grandmother he heard more German than Yiddish in childhood, so this would have been a leap - he was genuinely humbled on first hearing Judy Collins’ version of “A Thousand Kisses Deep”, which eclipsed his own, as thus this - agh but I’ll say no more, when hearts are humbled words are vain, from Alphonse K to Kahnweiler to that Elton John song about getting on a plane ... I can just hear that old story from the army and the red tail litotes ...)
Wir sagen auch Halleluja in deutsch… schön wenn wir das sagen können und vor allem was dies heißt…. Maranatha - der Herr kommt bald. Der Messias möchte bald für alle kommen……
This is a tremendous act of translation. Lyrically, conceptually, and culturally. I'm not Jewish, I don't speak Yiddish, but this is blatantly beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you Daniel for a absolutely incredible rendition of Hallelujah. Yiddish such a very special and beautiful language to me. It's the language of my family. May it live on forever.
Thank you...I am crying and it is hard to write...My Mother has passed on...but in these beautiful, Yiddish words...I hear my Mommy. I am 63 and will say it, again, thank you for allowing me to "hear" my Mommy, in the language of her childhood, but not mine, one more time. Thank you. May G-d bless you for this.
Thank you Daniel Kahn, for touching my soul. I know very little Yiddish, Ladino is my familyʻs mother tongue, but I know the kavanah of this song. Someone earlier in this thread praised you for the ambivalence that so many of us feel when we say hallelujah to G-d, and at times at G-d. I lost my husband of 29 yrs last October to cancer and this song helped me get the feelings out when nothing else worked; it also helped me feel close to G-d again even while still working through the anger at G-d. You really have done a mitzvah by translating and performing this song. It is now how I end my nightly Selichot as I prepare for Yom Kippur. Todah rabah!
I've loved Leonard Cohen's original version for decades, was hugely impressed by what the IDF did with the Hebrew version, and am now delighted to see it so ably translated to Yiddish. As a Sephardic Jew, whose own Ladino language is imperiled, it warms my heart to see Yiddish perpetuated. Mazels, Daniel! xxx
@@anamariaguadayol2335 Somebody really should. Ladino is such a beautiful language, and there is a great heritage of fantastic music from Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Albania and other southeastern European countries where our people used to live and make music.
A fallen prophet yet prophet still, his vocal reverberations we continue to feel, hours come and in seconds they disappear, life, l'Chaim Leonard's unique poetry heals... may his soul RIP
The most beautiful, and heartfelt performance of this amazing prayer/ song. Never want, to hear another version every again. This is the best! Shalom, shalom. Moira From England.
Thank you. I'm also tearing up. Thank you. Reminds me of my early childhood, visiting my grandmother and aunt....Sounds like warmth and chicken soup and beautiful crochet work...and sadness for what happened to that world. No one who stayed in the town of my grandparents survived.
It's the very First time I've heard this song in Yiddish - I'm really impressed how wonderfully it sounds in Yiddish and how beautifully it's performed by a Real Master! Thank you!
My goodness. Tears. Many do not understand the rhythm of Yiddish. It's structure to modern english majors breaks all the rules. This in a song about how fakaktah things are is simply perfection. Thank you! Truly inspiring, and humbling. Thank you.
I don't think it's really accurate to say this translation "adds" anything. There is nothing here that was not in the original, it's just what was only implied in the original is here made explicit, and much of what was made explicit in the original is here implied.
@@HeiressEllie I imagine it was as close as he could come to the original and still find Yiddish words that rhymed in the right places. Translation is almost always pretty tricky. He certainly sings it with feeling.
Yiddish here is like a secret key that opens up hidden power of a song. For many people who comment on this this language brings comforting nostalgic flavour but to me it as well as modified verses just sharpen original brutality of the lyrics. To seek comfort here is like trying to find rural simplicity in Dostoyevsky books. Amazing piece, Daniel Kahn is an amazing singer and poet. Thank you for this piece.
As soon as I heard the first lyrics-I started to cry. My Yiddish is limited and rusty--but it does not matter. The melody, the spirit of the music pierces straight through to the Soul. Such an amazing and wonderful idea--to combine the beautiful , passionate, revealing, , searingly intuitive poetry of Master Cohen with the earthy and haunting Yiddish is truly inspired. So much Beauty-no wonder it brings one to tears-- thank you, Daniel Kahn, and blessings to you LC, for always being with Us in Spirit. We need your wisdom and comfort NOW more than ever-during this so very dark time for the World.
I love the original by L. Cohen, but hearing this in Yiddish was awesome. I am not Jewish, nor do I speak Yiddish, but I simply love the natural musicality of whatever language I'm listening to.
I feel the same way. I listen to it when mourning my husband overwhelms me. And it always reminds me to be grateful and sing my praises - whether they be loud and clear, or soft, secret, even disillusioned. Hallelujah.
Such a beautiful song, which always brings me to tears (and I'm an atheist). Even when I don't understand the words, the music is sublime. Daniel Kahn, you did a wonderful job.
En yiddish.en Anglais.En Francais.En Hebreu.Toujours la meme Emotion internationale de la Poesie musicale de Leonard Cohen.Un chef d'oeuvre du coeur et de partage
Daniel Kahn's version is far more powerful and spiritual than Leonard Cohen's original. I think about the way John Lewis was beaten by the billy clubs of the Selma police. It is his desire for spiritual connection, the right to exist within society as equal souls, that makes one want to cry Hallelujah. This is a cry for God's Light for forgiveness, correction, healing, and redemption.
This song and all the music you record is so very beautiful! Please, Daniel Kahn, never stop making music!!! ❤️😍🥰 The world desperately needs more of your sound.
Dear Tara Hutchinson, although this is 4 years late, my heart goes out to you over the horrible tragedy in Pittsburgh. I am glad you were able to experience some healing from this beautiful music.
My grandparents, Saul and Gertrude, used to speak Yiddish and their roots came from Ukraine and Poland. Hearing this famous song in their tongue makes me think of my grandparents. It’s a beautifully done cover.
Sometimes we do; sometimes we don't. If King David himself couldn't count on the continual presence of HaShem ... It is an act of spiritual valor to try to sort things out for oneself - and keep singing with both sets of emotion in mind. "Histarti punekha huyiti nivhal"
I'm German . i don't know yiddish, but i understand! not every word, but i say 70% the first time i heard it. the 2 times, I've got used to it. then it was about 80-85%! a very beautiful language.
I grew up Presbyterian, but when I was maybe five years old, I found a two-volume Funk and Wagnall dictionary that included glossaries of several languages in the shelf by my Dad's Encyclopedia Britannica (part of the set), and one of the tabs was (you guessed it) Yiddish. I have, in the intervening half-century-plus, picked up a few words, have come to recognize how many loan-words have come from Yiddish into English. It is a beautiful, expressive language, and although I understand little of it, I thoroughly enjoy hearing it.
i’m Dutch and a fluent German speaker, it’s actually really good understand. I remember for years a woman in a secondhand bookshop, she picked up a book an said, oh how wonderful, a Jiddischs book of nursery rimes, and startet to read one. I knew the one in Dutch, it was almost completely the same. Oh, if you like Jiddischs songs, do a search for Leo Fuld. He was world famous, in the 40’s and 50’s, then completely forgotten, and then rediscovered shortly before he died.
@@fennecabumukallalabdulmasi3867 German Translation (without knowing Yiddish): Ja, es ist so schön, da könnte mir das Wasser aus den Augen laufen. Jiddisch ist ein 1000 Jahre altes Deutsch mit slawischen Wörtern drin, verstehst?
@@TheMicrofox Mikrofuchs, Kompliment! Du verstehst nicht nur teilweise, sondern deine Übersetzung passt komplett. Wobei der Ausdruck "Wasser aus den Augen laufen" auf Deutsch einfach flennen heißt, wenn ich mich Recht irre, also das jiddische Pendant zum deutschen Ausdruck "Ich könnt heulen vor ..." darstellt. Du verstehst es tatsächlich besser als Du meinst. Was Du nicht verstehst, sind vermutlich Lehnwörter, die nicht dem Schwäbisch von vor 1000 Jahren entstammen, sondern aus semitischen und slawischen Sprachen, aber das ist idR. weniger als 20/100 vom jiddischen Wortschatz.
@@fennecabumukallalabdulmasi3867 Flennen stimmt, oder heulen oder weinen, aber ich wollte wörtlich übersetzen. Die Lehnwörter sind nicht nur aus dem Schwäbischen (Alemannisch) sondern auch Bajuwarisch, bzw. wahrscheinlich auch aus anderen deutschen Sprachräumen. Und ja, Slawisch verstehe ich gar nichts, aber neben Deutsch und Englisch auch romanische Sprachen wie Italienisch und Französisch, da ich 6 Jahre Latein Unterricht hatte.
Fabulous. Yiddish is such an important language much hurt through the Shoah. Love this translation and so fitting, almost perfect, for the subject, author and the human condition. Sincere thanks Daniel for gifting this to us all.
What a lovely, heartfelt, deeply personal tribute to Leonard Cohen, z"l. This adaptation captures the essence of LC's original while also transforming it in a way that gives special voice to the OTD/ post-Orthodox experience (but can certainly be appreciated on a more universal level as well). One nuance that may be lost on those who are unfamiliar with religious Jewish culture is that each time the singer says the title word Hallelujah" (in the context of this song, as opposed to traditional prayer), he is simultaneously praising, defying, and defiling the name of G-d... so the very title of the song captures the spiritual essence of this song at a level that exceeds even the complexity of the original LC version. Thank you so much for this- its the closest thing to the "prayer" wish I offer right now... I can't stop watching it- something new jumps out at me each time. Masterfully done. Thank you.
Meine Grossmutter sang mir als Kind Yiddische Lieder vor und sprach mit mir Yiddisch.Höre ich heute,60 jahre später diese schöne Sprache fühle ich mich geborgen,zu Hause.
OH, Daniel I couldn't be prouder of my former Jr. Choir member--a beautiful song and sung with such sensitivity in the "mother tongue" Yiddish----thank you
For those of us who grew up hearing Yiddish in their household, and those that spoke it are now gone. Here's remembering my parents, Max and Phylis Mirabel, Holocaust survivors. I miss hearing you speaking to one another in Yiddish and Polish.(Yiddish 🙂💡I sort of understood, but I was lost when you spoke Polish 😕) After loosing you in 1990 & 1986, respectively, I miss you terribly, even more than before.
Losing your mother before your father is such an Ashkenazi thing. It’s kind of wild how much more common that is among American Jews than other Americans.
Just amazing performance! Yiddish touches the heart...
Dont speak any Yiddish. I’m a black girl from Oakland. But this is beautiful. Music stops at no boundaries
you dont need to speak the Language to understand the PAIN
Shalom Platypus, right you are, I'd rather say music overcomes boundaries, even between sworn foes. Yasmin Levy is even able to bring together an armenian & a turkish musician & they play their instruments together in perfect harmony as if they both were brothers to support her marvellous voice. Don't know how she managed that, but she did, she really did.
P.S.: + There is a church in Nazareth where messianic jews & christian arabs meet to sing praises in perfect harmony too. It's amazing, it's awesome, you can even feel the Shekhinah there. The ability to play instruments & to sing at the same time is a gift from HaShem. It also is unique to mankind as something even very intelligent bonobos are not able to do...
@@fennecabumukallalabdulmasi3867 Messianic "Jews" are Christians trying to abolish Judaism, though.
Aw thank you ❤️
Tragically, Hitler and the Nazis pretty well destroyed Yiddish culture. It was a vibrant culture full of great writers, musicians, philosophers, painters, and wonderful salt of the earth people.
It is truly a blessing to keep this language alive. A mitzvah to keep it alive with a rendition of this wonderful song. It moves me so much because I feel a strong connection to my ancestral roots in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. This song rendition has so many layers of meaning and artistic merit.
The spirits of the dead are freed by this soulful music. Yasha koyech!
💗 When I was very young, my grandmother used to sing me songs in Yiddish
When I hear this language, I feel "at home" but only then .... !!! 💗
Thank you. Your words went to my heart
Crying as I watch this video- during my study break from learning Yiddish on Duolingo! We must keep it alive ♥️
@@ShartinScorsese 💗
Stalin did the same with Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union
Yiddish language being resurrected by younger Jewish people. It is a blessing. Important to reach back into the mists of time no matter how painful and heal the broken spirits of our ancestors....
Yiddish never needed resurrecting, it never stopped being spoken in religious Ashkenazi communities.
@@sn00pysfone What I perhaps meant so say then is that it is being spoken by more and more people who are seeking their roots and never learnt it as a mother tongue.
@@markmcelroy1872 ביידיש זה אכן נשמע הכי אמיתי.
@@sn00pysfone des stimmt
@@jimbobb3509 Starting a sentence with the phrase „you people“ is the equivalent of a giant flashing neon sign over your head that says: „I‘m a racist“.
My great grandfather was a German jew in the 30's. He was one of the lucky ones who got out before he died in a camp, and although he himself survived, we have lost a great deal of the culture in which he grew up, including the yiddish language. It makes me very happy to see our current generation bringing this language back from death's door
Go to New York. The culture is alive and well with thousands and thousands of people who speak Yiddish at home, shul, and work.
or Los Angeles.
Speaking Dutch and German. It is amazing how intelligible a the yiddish language is. I am glad your grandfather made out alive.
@marchauchler1622 thank you
I a neither jewish nor do i have jewish relatives but luckily i understand a good part of yiddish quite easily. It is a wonderful language
My beloved Jewish husband and I watched this video often before he passed. We laugh so hard. Thank you for the wonderful memory. I will be teaching the grandchildren Yiddish in memory of him.
May his memory be a blessing and may you be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. Much love ❤️
I'm so sorry for your loss. Beloved indeed is a man who can appreciate this video. Sending you peace and love.
may he rest in peace and may god bless you, ýour children and grandchildren
I'm so sad for your loss....
But this song also means to prosper!
🕍🙏🕯️🔯📿🗽🤔❣️♥️🕯️😏🎵👍
I may not understand all the words, but all songs in yiddish make me cry. I remember my parents and grandparents speaking yiddish. Some words and phrases are familiar to me.
This is the first time I've actually heard Yiddish...and as a German, it shocked me when I realised how much I was able to understand despite not speaking a single word of Yiddish. I know the two languages are closely related as westgermanic languages, but still...I did not expect this.
Yiddish is close to German, but how well Yiddish speakers and German speakers understand each other depends on the individual speakers. Often, to German ears, Yiddish sounds like a very "challenging" German dialect. But Yiddish also has a lot of Hebrew words for ordinary things (for example, voice is "kol," rather than "Stimme") which makes things more difficult for mutual comprehension. You probably also noticed that German has turned about half of its kh-sounds into more "gentle" ones, while Yiddish never did. All this, of course, is all secondary to how lovely this version of the song is. :)
I speak hebrew and I could understand just a few words, so yes, it's much more similar to german
Ja ich auch 🤯
Jiddisch ist doch auch die westgermanische Sprache, die am nächsten mit Deutsch verwandt ist oder?
i speak swedish and i could also understand a little, and that's probably because of swedish similarities to german and german to yiddish. i tried to learn german actually but a lot of words were too similar so i just got so confused i basically spoke swedish with german pronuncation.
Thank you Daniel, you are performing a wonderful mitzvah keeping the Yiddish language alive and really alive, for us young people in the diaspora who do not hear it spoken everyday life. This rendition is so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes, Leonard would have loved it.
c'est incroyablement émouvant, le Yiddish apporte beaucoup. Bravo
The first language I spoke was Yiddish. The song awakens in me longings for my departed parents. Great singing. Fantastic song. CN
It makes me miss mine too. Yiddish was my parents first language, along with my babas, my zayde, aunts and uncles. I miss hearing it, and come to this page to listen because they are all gone now.
@@imisstoronto3121 I know just how you feel. 3 years ago I lost my beloved mother (she was almost 94) and last year her youngest sister (also almost 94), the last ones of that generation --born in N.America with Yiddish as first language). See if there is a Yiddish club near you. We have one in my city, Allentown, PA. We have members still fluent and others learning Yiddish. We use UA-cam to play Yiddish songs (I type up weekly song sheets with the lyrics in English transliteration, translation, as well as Yiddish in the original). YIVO, Yiddish Book Center, and others have online resources. Many ways to reconnect.
@@imisstoronto3121 Me too
No matter how often I listen to this, I am moved to tears each time. It brings back the tiny homes in Eastern Europe and the lives never lived out, memories of what should have been, memories of the elders in the family, of the old neighborhood.
They knew the heavy price of being "Americanized" and assumed/hoped it would keep us all safe.
Maybe it's time to learn/speak Yiddish again.
it's long past time
I think that being raised up in the Yiddish language keeps it forever in the soul....... deep and pure and delicious.
I have never learned jiddisch, but still this song moves me to tears every time I listen to it. Every. Single. Time.
Each time I hear I am moved to tears - the mame loshen which I no longer fully understand
I love your comment. It says everything I am thinking in the perfect words. Thank you.
For those commenting they don’t understand but it’s beautiful - I’ve been studying Yiddish only a brief time, and even understanding less than half the words, this lodges itself in my soul and melts me open.
We just lost my mother at age 90. She was the daughter of Russian immigrants, members of the Workmen's Circle in NYC. She spoke Yiddish before she spoke English (though didn't remember much of it later). During this time of mourning, I can't listen to news/politics (when I'm usually a junkie for that stuff); I just keep listening to this video endlessly. Thank you, Daniel Kahn.
My condolences for your loss. May the good memories of your mother stay with you. Losing a mother at any age is not easy. Time is a great healer.
i do the same thing. I listen to this video a lot, because I miss hearing Yiddish
I lost my mother several years ago. She was a Holocaust survivor where her family was not. But she used to mix Yiddish words in her sentences all the time and I loved it, because that was one of the few things left of her family she could pass on. To me her family were just names written down, no face nor other knowledge of them. I mean the few photo's people could afford were destroyed and nothing was left when WWII ended and she went to their former home in Amsterdam where now a Christian family lived who said they had not seen any possessions of her parents, while she saw her mothers crystal glasses on the cupboard...... Anyway, every time I hear someone sing or speak Yiddish I get this bittersweet feeling in my heart......
DirkjeA I feel for you! My Oma's little Ukrainian schtetl was wiped off the map completely - is no longer there, but I still hear her voice ...
I went to the workmen's circle school and forgot how to read Yiddish, and need help reading my grandparents tombstones, and foot stones
I don`t know why but i love everything jewish. And i am Israel`s biggest fan in Europe. This song is wonderful.
this moved me to tears. I grew up in a diverse neighborhood and spent many high holidays with my Jewish friends. to hear this in Yiddish...transported me to a better time. I have lived many years now in the south. and I grieve.
I had the same reaction.
Yes, me too.
What a touching sentiment Cheryl. I feel your emptiness as if it were my own longing to return to the homeland as if a curse, I exist as a wandering Jew and am always on my way back home. It's a lonely longing to be back where I belong as a Jew, in the holy land. I have a prayer for you and one for me too. "Next year in Jerusalem"! And along the way, let us stay connected by music and listen to the sounds and melodies of our beautiful, poetic, mother tongue Hebrew (and Yiddish of course). Then let us sing hallelujah!
Thank you so very much. What a wonderful thought to meet a new friend in Jerusalem.
Enjoy this Cheryl! It's a favorite of mine.
youtu.be72QC8EGnxTw
Seriously, this is beautiful. Sounds like it was meant to be sung in Yiddish all along.
You are just so right !
It sounds like this song was conceived from the very beginning in yiddish.
Just as if Daniel had felt this. It brings to this song a truthfull nudity...
MILLE FARSAKHS ופרסין
Khayyám humbled - oh, this poor tentmaker poet!
My Persian very sumply can’t compare ... dare I show it,
Tattered, antic, threadbare in this world?
A dark Ferrásh says “David, why not sow it...
...Back into the earth for now, forev-
Er, if in your place and time a scarif-
Ying desert wind burns your cheek-
Leonard’s writing on the wall, sans serif.
I agree
well its written by a jew so..
It is, indeed, phenomenal. Does anyone know for certain whether Leonard Cohen spoke Yiddish? With his background it could be that it is his mamaloshen ... I’d like to think those are his words.
Thank you. So beautiful. Singing songs in Yiddish warms my heart.
This reminds me so much of when as a child 70 odd years ago, my father took me to his fathers synagogue where nearly everyone still spoke Yiddish. It was a small place in Notting Hill in London that had a wooden interior and felt as though it had been transplanted straight from a Belarus shtetl, all the way to North London. Listening to this version brings all those memories flooding back to me!
There is nothing better to listen to when you're feeling isolated as a Jew than this right here
very agree
or when you are missing your beautiful Jewish husband who passed away. It fills my heart. How I miss him speaking Yiddish!
@@viral2015 follow your leader, Nazi.
I am Christian and I like this song too and find it very helpful when you are sad.
@@Piratinas17
Same thing. I am pretty sure my mother has a jewish backround, but we have been christian for generations. I love this music and the language. In the end aren't we as christians not just a branch that split off of judaism?
Unbelievably amazing. Not only translated, but translated so it carried the original message of Leonard Cohen without using the same exact words. The Yiddish words were different than the straight translation. It's difficult to do this without "losing something in the translation" it was done expressing the deeper meaning. Fantastic
Agreed. It's as if this is what LC wanted to say all along, only he put it in English instead, and thus some of it was lost in translation - which has now been recovered...
In@@sigridrpclip Leonard Cohen said he wrote one hundred verses for this song - and never got a version he was satisfied with. So you could say Daniel Kahn helped him finish the song with six cogent verses.
Quite. And they are beautifully phrased, too.
(LC would have loved this - but from his grandmother he heard more German than Yiddish in childhood, so this would have been a leap - he was genuinely humbled on first hearing Judy Collins’ version of “A Thousand Kisses Deep”, which eclipsed his own, as thus this - agh but I’ll say no more, when hearts are humbled words are vain, from Alphonse K to Kahnweiler to that Elton John song about getting on a plane ... I can just hear that old story from the army and the red tail litotes ...)
@@sigridrp LC rejected Yiddish and Hebrew as essential to Judaism.
I understand enough Yiddish to grasp what he did; a brilliant translation that works on many levels.
Soul crushingly beautiful.
Well written! I wanna keep this english expression in my mind: soul crushingly beautiful! Congrats!
Wow! This young man is a poet . Love his voice. He is also very beautiful in appearance.This is superb.
Hallelujah, a Hebrew word written by a Jewish man sung in Yiddish.. there’s something poetic about it
Yiddish is about 20% Hebrew. 70% German, 20% Hebrew, 10% Slavic/Polish/Russian/ Aramaic
Wir sagen auch Halleluja in deutsch… schön wenn wir das sagen können und vor allem was dies heißt…. Maranatha - der Herr kommt bald. Der Messias möchte bald für alle kommen……
This is a tremendous act of translation. Lyrically, conceptually, and culturally. I'm not Jewish, I don't speak Yiddish, but this is blatantly beautiful. Thank you.
bla·tant
[ˈblātnt]ADJECTIVE
(of bad behavior) done openly and unashamedly:
"blatant lies"
synonyms: flagrant · glaring · obvious · undisguised · unconcealed · open · shameless · barefaced · naked · unabashed · unashamed · unblushing · brazen
completely lacking in subtlety; very obvious:
"forcing herself to resist his blatant charm"
it works. sean is ok. get over it
Couldn't agree more. Instantly captivating, same as the original. The changes add even more layers to be appreciated. Well done!
Sean Dillon
Leonard Cohen tribute
Agreed - it's one thing to just transliterate lyrics, and quite another to really translate it. This is amazing.
Heart warming and spiritually uplifting.Yiddish is the spirit of Yiddishkeit
Thank you Daniel for a absolutely incredible rendition of Hallelujah. Yiddish such a very special and beautiful language to me. It's the language of my family. May it live on forever.
I felt like my roots were honored by this rendition.
pintele yid no?
more than a pintel
Thank you...I am crying and it is hard to write...My Mother has passed on...but in these beautiful, Yiddish words...I hear my Mommy. I am 63 and will say it, again, thank you for allowing me to "hear" my Mommy, in the language of her childhood, but not mine, one more time. Thank you. May G-d bless you for this.
Wow, you brought tears to my eyes, my friend... Let's do our best to preserve the precious heritage of human culture, in all its versions!
Thank you Daniel Kahn, for touching my soul. I know very little Yiddish, Ladino is my familyʻs mother tongue, but I know the kavanah of this song. Someone earlier in this thread praised you for the ambivalence that so many of us feel when we say hallelujah to G-d, and at times at G-d. I lost my husband of 29 yrs last October to cancer and this song helped me get the feelings out when nothing else worked; it also helped me feel close to G-d again even while still working through the anger at G-d. You really have done a mitzvah by translating and performing this song. It is now how I end my nightly Selichot as I prepare for Yom Kippur. Todah rabah!
I grew up speaking Yiddish to my parents. The song brings me to tears. I cry every time I listen to it. It is fantastic.
Ich farstaye Chanale
This is clearly a triumph of meaning. Very profound and deep.
This is truly one of the greatest works of musical transformation I've heard. I never want it to stop.
Thank you Daniel for a great tribute to a great jewish songwriter and poet. we will miss him.
Gebirtig's "shlof shoyn mayn Jankele" brought me here and I am speechless. This is heartbreaking beautiful. I wish Cohen could listen to this
This was like listening to my grandparents. I didn't realize I knew that much Yiddish. Moving. Brought me to tears.
Yup.
So sweet I feel a same
Es is asoy sheyn dos mer loyft dos wossr oys di oygn. Halleluyah !
Yashir koach Daniel! The beauty of that is beyond words. Thank you so much, Joel
I'm not Jewish, but have always loved Yiddish. This is beautiful!
I've loved Leonard Cohen's original version for decades, was hugely impressed by what the IDF did with the Hebrew version, and am now delighted to see it so ably translated to Yiddish. As a Sephardic Jew, whose own Ladino language is imperiled, it warms my heart to see Yiddish perpetuated. Mazels, Daniel! xxx
Tellement beau. Emouvant. Meme si je ne comprends pas tous les mots de yiddish Quand c est chante !!! Ich bin a proud jew. Love to the world
Yeish coach to to you! May the ladino language live on forever, as well as Hebrew, Yiddish and the holy languages! Blessings from Israel
Oh, how I wish someone would do this with ladino.
@@anamariaguadayol2335 Somebody really should. Ladino is such a beautiful language, and there is a great heritage of fantastic music from Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Albania and other southeastern European countries where our people used to live and make music.
AMEN
A fallen prophet yet prophet still, his vocal reverberations we continue
to feel, hours come and in seconds they disappear, life, l'Chaim
Leonard's unique poetry heals... may his soul RIP
The most beautiful, and heartfelt performance of this amazing prayer/ song.
Never want, to hear another version every again.
This is the best!
Shalom, shalom.
Moira
From England.
Thank you. I'm also tearing up. Thank you. Reminds me of my early childhood, visiting my grandmother and aunt....Sounds like warmth and chicken soup and beautiful crochet work...and sadness for what happened to that world. No one who stayed in the town of my grandparents survived.
so sad
It's the very First time I've heard this song in Yiddish - I'm really impressed how wonderfully it sounds in Yiddish and how beautifully it's performed by a Real Master!
Thank you!
just amazing! I love this song and it means so much to hear it in yiddish!
My goodness. Tears. Many do not understand the rhythm of Yiddish. It's structure to modern english majors breaks all the rules. This in a song about how fakaktah things are is simply perfection. Thank you! Truly inspiring, and humbling. Thank you.
This translation adds an incredible amount of esoteric depth to what was already the most profound song ever.
I don't think it's really accurate to say this translation "adds" anything. There is nothing here that was not in the original, it's just what was only implied in the original is here made explicit, and much of what was made explicit in the original is here implied.
@@pestoriusj I think some of it is wildly far afield from Cohen's senses.
@@leonavid Daniel Kahn always asks forgiveness for the "indelicacy" of his translations, but I love the feelings his syntax evokes.
@@HeiressEllie I imagine it was as close as he could come to the original and still find Yiddish words that rhymed in the right places. Translation is almost always pretty tricky. He certainly sings it with feeling.
Yiddish here is like a secret key that opens up hidden power of a song. For many people who comment on this this language brings comforting nostalgic flavour but to me it as well as modified verses just sharpen original brutality of the lyrics. To seek comfort here is like trying to find rural simplicity in Dostoyevsky books. Amazing piece, Daniel Kahn is an amazing singer and poet. Thank you for this piece.
As soon as I heard the first lyrics-I started to cry. My Yiddish is limited and rusty--but it does not matter. The melody, the spirit of the music pierces straight through to the Soul. Such an amazing and wonderful idea--to combine the beautiful , passionate, revealing, , searingly intuitive poetry of Master Cohen with the earthy and haunting Yiddish is truly inspired. So much Beauty-no wonder it brings one to tears-- thank you, Daniel Kahn, and blessings to you LC, for always being with Us in Spirit. We need your wisdom and comfort NOW more than ever-during this so very dark time for the World.
I love the original by L. Cohen, but hearing this in Yiddish was awesome. I am not Jewish, nor do I speak Yiddish, but I simply love the natural musicality of whatever language I'm listening to.
I could listen to him for ages. Absolutely enchanting.
This interpretation simply goes deep into the soul. Amazing.
This is exquisite, a balm to the soul. God rest my dear mother and my beloved husband.
I feel the same way. I listen to it when mourning my husband overwhelms me. And it always reminds me to be grateful and sing my praises - whether they be loud and clear, or soft, secret, even disillusioned. Hallelujah.
Such a beautiful song, which always brings me to tears (and I'm an atheist). Even when I don't understand the words, the music is sublime. Daniel Kahn, you did a wonderful job.
En yiddish.en Anglais.En Francais.En Hebreu.Toujours la meme Emotion internationale de la Poesie musicale de Leonard Cohen.Un chef d'oeuvre du coeur et de partage
Yiddish really has a unique and beautiful sound to it, made even better when performed by great singers like this one.
Outstanding. I am completely blown away!
Wow, the depth it adds.
Daniel Kahn's version is far more powerful and spiritual than Leonard Cohen's original. I think about the way John Lewis was beaten by the billy clubs of the Selma police. It is his desire for spiritual connection, the right to exist within society as equal souls, that makes one want to cry Hallelujah. This is a cry for God's Light for forgiveness, correction, healing, and redemption.
Thank you. I do not speak Yiddish,nor Ladino, I date an Indian woman- but I am a Jew,a yahud,a judio- and I shall always be one.
This song and all the music you record is so very beautiful! Please, Daniel Kahn, never stop making music!!! ❤️😍🥰 The world desperately needs more of your sound.
I needed to hear this, after the tragedy in my city of Pittsburgh. Thank you for giving this to us in such a beautiful language.
Dear Tara Hutchinson, although this is 4 years late, my heart goes out to you over the horrible tragedy in Pittsburgh. I am glad you were able to experience some healing from this beautiful music.
My grandparents, Saul and Gertrude, used to speak Yiddish and their roots came from Ukraine and Poland. Hearing this famous song in their tongue makes me think of my grandparents. It’s a beautifully done cover.
Just found this Hallelujah of a gem. Still mourning our beloved Leonard Cohen... But found a treasure in Daniel Kahn... Thank you and blessings!
אין מילים. ככה שומרים על היידיש. יישר כוח, דניאל!
I've listened to this three times now, each time I've cried.
I listen to it again and again, and every time it brings my tears out.
Oy, do bisht du nit allayn, do loyft mir asoy dos wossr oys di oygn...
Such memories it brings back, my parents and uncles and aunts speaking in yiddish and singing the old shtetl songs.
“I’m not expecting the messianic age”...wow. I’m struck in awe. What a phrase.
I am expecting. And when it happens, it will be glorious.
Sometimes we do; sometimes we don't. If King David himself couldn't count on the continual presence of HaShem ... It is an act of spiritual valor to try to sort things out for oneself - and keep singing with both sets of emotion in mind. "Histarti punekha huyiti nivhal"
Мое сердце и душа вся в слезах!!!! Благодарю за ваш талант и еврейскю душу
I don't speak a word of Yiddish, but I still love this version. It's so beautiful in a way that transcends language
I'm German . i don't know yiddish, but i understand! not every word, but i say 70% the first time i heard it. the 2 times, I've got used to it. then it was about 80-85%! a very beautiful language.
I dont speak yiddish but it was my parents' first language. So i feel the rhythm in my body and emotion. TY
You catch the feeling of the master himself. Impressive.
yes, he is very good, but there will NEVER be another Leonard Cohen, as we know he was truly impressive and put such feelings into every work he did.
I love it so much better in Yiddish. Everything is more beautiful in Yiddish.
Yiddish is such a beautiful language, and I don’t even understand it! Love this song, and I think it is even more beautiful in Yiddish.
I grew up Presbyterian, but when I was maybe five years old, I found a two-volume Funk and Wagnall dictionary that included glossaries of several languages in the shelf by my Dad's Encyclopedia Britannica (part of the set), and one of the tabs was (you guessed it) Yiddish. I have, in the intervening half-century-plus, picked up a few words, have come to recognize how many loan-words have come from Yiddish into English.
It is a beautiful, expressive language, and although I understand little of it, I thoroughly enjoy hearing it.
I don't even speak Yiddish but this transported me to another state of mind. This is the first time this song has ever made me cry..
I love this language!! Keep it alive!
Words fail me. This is so beautiful my heart shatters.
i’m Dutch and a fluent German speaker, it’s actually really good understand.
I remember for years a woman in a secondhand bookshop, she picked up a book an said, oh how wonderful, a Jiddischs book of nursery rimes, and startet to read one. I knew the one in Dutch, it was almost completely the same.
Oh, if you like Jiddischs songs, do a search for Leo Fuld. He was world famous, in the 40’s and 50’s, then completely forgotten, and then rediscovered shortly before he died.
I simply love this Yiddish version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallejuah."
Hearing this beautiful song in Yiddish makes me think of my Zadie Myer, and I'm so happy I found it. I wish my Yiddish was stronger.
This is so beautiful. Absuteley moved to tears. Thank you Daniel Kahn for sharing this with the world.
playing this over & over. adore this. thank you , for sustaining my soul
actually i am rebecca must be logged in via my beloved z'l'
I cry every time i listen to it. I can hear my parents speaking
And my bubbas and zayde, and all my aunts and uncles. it was their first language.
Just beautiful. Being a native German speaker, it is amazing how much I can understand of the Yiddish words.
Yoy, es is asoy sheyn, kent mer loyfn dos wassr oys du oign. Yiddish is a 1000 yor oyds daitsh mit slovishe Verter drin, farshteyst?
@@fennecabumukallalabdulmasi3867 German Translation (without knowing Yiddish): Ja, es ist so schön, da könnte mir das Wasser aus den Augen laufen. Jiddisch ist ein 1000 Jahre altes Deutsch mit slawischen Wörtern drin, verstehst?
@@TheMicrofox Mikrofuchs, Kompliment! Du verstehst nicht nur teilweise, sondern deine Übersetzung passt komplett. Wobei der Ausdruck "Wasser aus den Augen laufen" auf Deutsch einfach flennen heißt, wenn ich mich Recht irre, also das jiddische Pendant zum deutschen Ausdruck "Ich könnt heulen vor ..." darstellt. Du verstehst es tatsächlich besser als Du meinst. Was Du nicht verstehst, sind vermutlich Lehnwörter, die nicht dem Schwäbisch von vor 1000 Jahren entstammen, sondern aus semitischen und slawischen Sprachen, aber das ist idR. weniger als 20/100 vom jiddischen Wortschatz.
@@fennecabumukallalabdulmasi3867 Flennen stimmt, oder heulen oder weinen, aber ich wollte wörtlich übersetzen. Die Lehnwörter sind nicht nur aus dem Schwäbischen (Alemannisch) sondern auch Bajuwarisch, bzw. wahrscheinlich auch aus anderen deutschen Sprachräumen. Und ja, Slawisch verstehe ich gar nichts, aber neben Deutsch und Englisch auch romanische Sprachen wie Italienisch und Französisch, da ich 6 Jahre Latein Unterricht hatte.
I teared up listening to this beautiful rendition. In Yiddish it takes on a special and poignant extra meaning. Bravo.
Or rather: it liberates the layers of meaning that were already in there? That is how I feel about it, anyway.
Fabulous. Yiddish is such an important language much hurt through the Shoah. Love this translation and so fitting, almost perfect, for the subject, author and the human condition. Sincere thanks Daniel for gifting this to us all.
What a lovely, heartfelt, deeply personal tribute to Leonard Cohen, z"l. This adaptation captures the essence of LC's original while also transforming it in a way that gives special voice to the OTD/ post-Orthodox experience (but can certainly be appreciated on a more universal level as well). One nuance that may be lost on those who are unfamiliar with religious Jewish culture is that each time the singer says the title word Hallelujah" (in the context of this song, as opposed to traditional prayer), he is simultaneously praising, defying, and defiling the name of G-d... so the very title of the song captures the spiritual essence of this song at a level that exceeds even the complexity of the original LC version. Thank you so much for this- its the closest thing to the "prayer" wish I offer right now... I can't stop watching it- something new jumps out at me each time. Masterfully done. Thank you.
totally agree. It's a masterpiece.
Thank you for sharing your insights!
I also agree, you have very precisely expressed the awe and angst this song evokes in yddish, thanks !
וואו, זה פשוט מדהים. אין מילים.
Wow, absolutely amazing.
Just moves me to tears. I could watch you Daniel, play that song the whole day long. Perfect song for this sad Sabbath day.
coffeehugger "coffeehugger" what a great name!
Incredible I can’t thank you enough for this
this is a beautiful version of hallelujah Daniel Kahn performs the song to perfection
Thank you for letting me hear Yiddish. This song is SO beautiful in English, but it is even more so in Yiddish!!!! I toast you and say L'chaim!!!!.
Wow. This version makes sense of much of the song for me.
Meine Grossmutter sang mir als Kind Yiddische Lieder vor und sprach mit mir Yiddisch.Höre ich heute,60 jahre später diese schöne Sprache fühle ich mich geborgen,zu Hause.
yiddish is truly such a beautiful language
This is so freaking beautiful, my grandmother used to sing me lullabies in Yiddish when I was little and this makes me feel just like that
OH, Daniel I couldn't be prouder of my former Jr. Choir member--a beautiful song and sung with such sensitivity in the "mother tongue" Yiddish----thank you
INCROYABLE d'émotions refoulées Shoah.Yiddish Schtetls. And our présent world with Léonard Cohen's Great Po et and musician passed away.zal.
Yes, our mother tongue. The Mama Loshen
Sweet, @Elaine Greenberg.
Huge thank you to Daniel Kahn for continuing the preservation of Yiddish for future generations.
I think Cohen would have loved it, for the record.