Song for the Maskilim
In response to a recent discussion, Lucy Fisher posted this excellent blog post to the Jewish-Music list. It's from the wonderful "Yiddish Song of the Week" blog, edited by Itzik Gottesman:
"Di apikorsim" Performed by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman
The song itself, a maskilic song mocking the Hasidim but sung in the voice of true believers, was a common genre. However, in Apikorsim the humor is quite vulgar. In songs such as "Kum aher du filosof" the irony is much more subtle. Ruth Rubin's book Voices of a People has a nice section on maskilic songs (chapter 10). Rubin also prints Velvl Zbarzher's song "Moshiakh's tsaytn" (pp. 255 - 257) which is on the same theme as di apikorsim.…
The heretics, those loose fellows,
Their lungs will all rattle.
They will burst apart,
when they hear the shofar of the messiah.…