Levyosn's Dream

Levyosn is a different Yiddish folk band. They are writing new songs in Yiddish, which is unusual, but not unheard of. And they are using melodies that feel different from the Eastern European folk melodies with which we grew up. I hear influences from English folk music to Balkan harmonies, and the result is American folk songs that happen to be mostly sung in Yiddish, (including Yiddish folks songs, such as the songs collected by Ruth Rubin that appear on this recording).

Adah Hetko is also a marvelous songwriter. I am in love with the love song that opens the album, "A Bletele Vert a Bletl," "A tiny love becomes a love / A tiny song becomes a song…," as well as her extension to a poem by Malka Heifetz Tussman, "Vaser on Loshn," (water without language) to which she appends the air pollution from climate-change-charged forest fires "A red moon, no more blue sky / A mountain disappears behind smoke." The album ends with her hopeful "Neymashin" (Sewing machine), "A rainbow will appear soon / because God is sewing rain...."

Along with writing beautiful, contemporary Yiddish songs, the band is about harmony. From a capella songs such as "Zhumen Binen" (sung partly in English) or "Kholomen Khaloymes" to the polyphony of Ruth Rubin-collected "Mit a Nodl", an almost joyous work song that, nonetheless, also captures the home piecework that exemplified Jewish immigrant work 100 years ago (and perhaps in timely fashion, new immigrant piecework as we return to labor market of yesterday, today). The theme is driven home with the haunting harmonies in another collected song, "Eyder Ikh Leyg Zikh Shlofn". The songs are not sung as preserved collector's items; rather as contemporary laments exploring (as the liner notes put it) "our relationship with labor, dignity, agency, and value."

Oddly for a band known for getting audiences up and dancing, the instrumentals on this recording are melancholy. "Rivka's Zhok," a new dance by Jaffe, is a slow, end-of-day meditation. "A Gute Nakht, Yasherke," a sad lament. Yet, in the end, this album is about joy, love, and hope, exemplified by "A Sukele a Kleyne," an old folk song (with KCB's Judy Bressler guest-singing the melody!) about a temporary sukkah that has been extended as a hopeful metaphor of our time, "In times of need / We always rebuilt / Don't let the wind bother you. However many winds many roar / However many generations may come / The sukkah will always stand" and "Geyen Mir Shpatsirn" (we go a-roving) "And we go arovin' / In a field of gray and green / Ay vey, dushe leybn / Morning light is near a-breakin'."

This second recording by Levyosn is my new favorite Levyosn album. With a host of local celebrities, from Ezekiel's Wheels' Abigale Reisman and The Lithuanian Empire's Cantor Becky Khitrik, to Judy Bressler and Zach Mayer, this is a party with the best of Boston's current generation of Jewish musicians. Most wonderfully, the songs and playing and voices have a depth and maturity that makes this one of my favorite albums this year, and one that I hope to share frequently.

Reviewed by Ari Davidow, 3-June 2026 .

Songlist

1. A Bletele Vert a Bletl—A tiny leaf becomes a little leaf (Adah Hetko) 3:21
2. Fayerdike Libe—Fiery love (trad folk via Ruth Rubin; arr Lysander Jaffe) 4:32
3. Kholemen Khaloymes—Dreaming of dreams (words: Aliza Greenblatt; trans: Adah Hetko; music: Solomon Golub; arr Lysander Jaffe) 2:54
4. Mit a Nodl—With a needle, without a needle (trad folk, via Ruth Rubin; arr Jaffe) 3:20
5. Eyder Ikh Leyg Zikh Shlofn—By the time I can lie down to sleep (trad folk, via Ruth Rubin & Y.L. Cahan; trans: Chana Mlotek; arr Jaffe) 3:43
6. Rivka’s Zhok (music: Lysander Jaffe) 4:08
7. A Sukele a Kleyne—A little sukkah (trad folk via Avrom Reyzen; Add'tl text: Alta Gitty Jakubo & Adah Hetko; arr Uri Schreter) 3:06
8. Vaser on Loshn—Water without sound (words: Malka Heifetz Tuffman & Adah Hetko; music: Adah Hetko & Lysander Jaffe) 4:07
9. Geyen Mir Shpatsirn—And we go a-rovin' (trad folk via Ruth Rubin; trans Adah Hetko & Weaver) 3:49
10. Zhumen Binen—Bees a-buzzing (text: Emmanuel Kazkevitch; trans: Adah Hetko; music: Leyb (Lev) Yampolsky; arr Lysander Jaffe) 4:43
11. A Gute Nakht, Yasherke (music: Lysander Jaffe) 5:34
12. Neymashin—Sewing machine (Adah Hetko) 3:15

Not seeing anything from the new album online yet, but love this fundraising video, and a brilliant set with the Workers' Circle Chorus last year

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