The Workers Circle Launches The Yosl and Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection at the Workers Circle—a Rich, Digital Treasury of Yiddish Musical History
March 20, 2023
Contact: Joanna Gallai, joanna@anatgerstein.com, 347-361-8687
Searchable lyrics, translations, sheet music, audio and video performances for over 400 Yiddish songs now available at Yiddishsongs.org
(New York, N.Y.) –The Workers Circle, also known as Der Arbeter Ring among Yiddishists, announces the digital launch of The Yosl and Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection at the Workers Circle. The new bi-lingual website provides a comprehensive and searchable online database for Yiddish music and contains lyrics, translations, sheet music, and audio and video performances to over 400 Yiddish songs—including content curated from YouTube, Spotify, and TikTok videos showcasing newer generations of artists around the globe performing songs from the Collection and highlighting the contemporary celebration of Yiddish arts.
“We are thrilled to be releasing, thanks to the partnership of the Mlotek family and additional community support, The Yosl and Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection at the Workers Circle to the world. For decades this comprehensive series of song books has inspired and educated musicians and made it possible for people to learn and engage with centuries of our Yiddish music heritage. In digitizing the collection, we are providing global access to this incredible resource. New generations of cultural activists will now have the chance to experience this musical treasure trove,” says Ann Toback, CEO of the Workers Circle.
A rich treasury of musical work, the Collection provides the historical context of the songs and their authors and composers, in addition to the origins of music once nearly lost to history in the upheaval of the Holocaust. It draws from research published by Yosl and Chana Mlotek across 40 years of columns in the Yiddish newspaper The Forvertz and in their five published anthologies. The music from the collection spawned the revival of Klezmer as a world music genre and is found in Jewish history and Holocaust museums worldwide.
“This project was a true labor of love, and I am immensely proud to make accessible my grandparents’ work,” says Elisha Mlotek, Creative Director for the Collection. “Yiddish song is a time machine, transporting us to different chapters and places in Jewish history. It is a telegram, sharing the innermost thoughts and feelings of Jews from diverse social and political experiences, from different countries and communities. It is an essential record of our people —the richness and resilience of our culture.”
The release of the Collection online marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first songbook, Mir Trogn A Gezang: Favorite Yiddish Songs, which was compiled and edited by Eleanor Gordon [Chana] Mlotek and published in 1972 by the Workers Circle [Arbeter Ring] Education Department.
Hailed by The Milken Archive of Jewish Music as “the first anthology to bring to wider public attention an annotated sampling of songs by important Yiddish labor, socialist, and revolutionary poets,” the Mloteks’ work has been celebrated through the years for its contributions to the preservation and renewal of Jewish folkloric musical tradition, Yiddish language, and history. Their songbooks “became essential reading,” wrote The New York Times in 2013, when Chana passed at age 91.
Yosl Mlotek (1918-2000) was a prominent Yiddish scholar, impresario, and Education Director of the Workers Circle for 24 years. Chana Mlotek (1922-2013) was a venerable historian, a longtime YIVO Music Archivist, and took a leading role in the couple’s musical research for the collection.
Reflecting on the significance of their work, Nobel laureate, author, and Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel (1928-2016) wrote in his preface to We Are Here: Songs of the Holocaust, a book in the Mlotek Collection, “Yiddish songs pass like eternal prayers from generation to generation [….] The Yiddish song is the celebration of the Yiddish language and its obstinate determination to vanquish despair and resignation.”
"The Mlotek family came to the Arbeter Ring (Workers Circle) two years ago with an idea to digitize the celebrated print collection," shares Mark Mlotek, former president of Workers Circle and son of Yosl and Chana Mlotek. "It was our parents’ lifelong ambitious work to cause Yiddish culture to continue to flourish, not just as a memory, but as a living vibrant institution. Today, with the launch of this site, we, together with the Workers Circle, honor our parents for the benefit of Yiddish and Yiddish culture."
About the Workers Circle
Founded 122 years ago, the Workers Circle (formerly known as the Workmen’s Circle) is a social justice organization that powers progressive Jewish identity through Jewish cultural engagement, Yiddish language learning, multigenerational education, and social justice activism. For over a century we have provided this 360-degree approach to Jewish identity-building. Through contemporary cultural programs, strategic social justice campaigns, vibrant Yiddish language classes, interactive educational experiences and more, we connect Jewish adults, kids and families of all affiliations with their cultural heritage, working to build a better and more beautiful world for all. Learn more at www.circle.org.