This clip is from Chisinau, Moldova where the AHEYM team passed through on their 2011 expedition throughout the cities and shtetlekh of Podolia, Bukovina and Bessarabia. The regular video clips are not yet available, but in the meantime, we are pleased to share with you some of our latest photos and a special audio excerpt. In this audio clip, we hear Zelda Davidovna Roif (b. 1930) sharing the opening lines of Oy mayn libe basarabye (Oh, My Beloved Bessarabia). As Zelda explains earlier in the interview, for her, the young shepherd and his scattered sheep represent the relationship between G-d and the Jewish People, especially during the Great Patriotic War. The words are sung to the tune of a doina, a Moldovan and Jewish musical form often associated with the region’s shepherds.
The words, transcribed as she sings them in a Bessarabian dialect, are as follows:
There once was a young shepherd
Just a child among children
He used to shepherd his father’s
Sheep, lambs, goats and oxen
He used to shepherd his father’s
Sheep, lambs, goats and oxen
One time he forgot
to close the gate
and all his sheep ran out into the world...
Oh my beloved Bessarabia!
Land of joy
And land of sorrow!
S’iz geveyn a mul a postekhl
Nokh a kind fin tsvishn kinder
Fleyg er ba zayn totn posn
Shufn, lemlekh, tsig in rinder
Fleyg er ba zayn totn posn
Shufn, lemlekh, tsig in rinder
Vi of a mul ‘ot er fargesn
Dus tirl tsi farmakhn
Zenen ole zayne sheyfelekh oyf der velt tselofn...
O mayn libe basarabye
Lond fin freyd
In lond fin trouer!
