Velvel Zbarjer (1824, Zbarazh – 1884), birth name Benjamin Wolf Ehrenkrantz (a.k.a. Velvl Zbarjer, Zbarjur, Zbarzher, etc.), a Galician Jew, was a Brody singer. Following in the footsteps of Berl Broder, his "mini-melodramas in song" were precursors of Yiddish theater. Born in Zbarazh,

Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...

, he moved to Romania in 1845. According to

Sol Liptzin Sol Liptzin (July 27, 1901 – November 15, 1995) was a scholar, writer, and educator in Yiddish and German literature. Life Liptzin was born in Sataniv, Russian Empire, and moved to New York at the age of nine. He graduated from City College o ...

, this move was occasioned by the offense his townspeople took at his "

heresies Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important relig ...

and scoffing verses".Liptzin, 1972, 47 He worked briefly as a schoolteacher in Botoşani, but soon became an itinerant singer, singing in the homes of wealthy Jews and in workers' cafes in Botoşani, Iaşi, Galaţi, and

Piatra Neamț Piatra Neamț (; german: Kreuzburg an der Bistrița (Siret), Bistritz; hu, Karácsonkő) is the capital city of Neamț County, in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in northeastern Romania. Because of its privileged location in the Easter ...

, always glad to sing for a glass of wine or a meal. An actor as much as a singer, he variously sang the praises of his own footloose life and made up

topical song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

s about whatever might be going on in the towns he passed through; the latter often described injustices, or made fun of the Hasidic Jews, and occasionally got him tossed out of various towns. In 1865, having noticed that others were singing his songs without giving him credit, he published them in a Hebrew-

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

booklet. As he grew older, he settled down. He lived in Vienna from 1878 to 1889, then lived out his last years in Istanbul, where he married for a second time, to a woman known as Malkele the Beautiful. This end-of-life romance became the subject, in 1937, of a cycle of twelve verse epistles by Itzik Manger. Writing in the ''Jewish Encyclopedia'' (1901–1906), Singer and Wiernik describe him as "a real folk-poet" whose songs, two decades after his death were "still sung by the Jewish masses of Galicia and southern Russia."

Published works

His first published poem, written in Hebrew and based on a Talmudical parable, appeared in "Kokebe Yizhak," xii. 102-103, Vienna, 1848. His next work, "Hazon la-Mo'ed," a satire on the Hasidim and their rabbis, is also in Hebrew (Iaşi, 1855). His Yiddish songs were published with a Hebrew translation in four parts, under the collective name "Makkel No'am" (Vienna, 1865, and Lemberg—now Lviv—1869–78). A new edition in Roman characters appeared in

Brăila Brăila (, also , ) is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County. The ''Sud-Est'' Regional Development Agency is located in Brăila. According to the 2011 Romanian census there were 180,302 pe ...

, Romania, 1902 (see '' Ha-Meliẓ'', v. 42, No. 125). His "Makkel Hobelim" (1869) and "Sifte Yeshenah" (1874) appeared in

Przemyśl Przemyśl (; yi, פשעמישל, Pshemishl; uk, Перемишль, Peremyshl; german: Premissel) is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was pr ...

Gustaf Hermann Dalman Gustaf Hermann Dalman (9 June 1855 – 19 August 1941) was a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did extensive field work in Palestine before the First World War, collecting inscriptions, poetry, and proverbs. He also collected physica ...

's "Jüdisch-Deutsche Volkslieder aus Galizien und Russland," pp. 29-42, 2d ed., Berlin, 1891 reproduces some of Velvel Zbarjer's songs.''Jewish Encyclopedia'' article "Ehrenkrantz, Benjamin Wolf".

Notes

References

* Bercovici, Israil, ''O sută de ani de teatru evreiesc în România'' ("One hundred years of Yiddish/Jewish theater in Romania"), 2nd Romanian-language edition, revised and augmented by Constantin Măciucă. Editura Integral (an imprint of Editurile Universala), Bucharest (1998), pages 36-37. . ''See the article on the author for further publication information.'' * Liptzin, Sol, ''A History of Yiddish Literature'', Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972, *
Byli tu anebo spíš nebyli
(in Czech), site about

klezmer Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...

and its antecedents {{DEFAULTSORT:Zbarjer, Velvel 1824 births 1884 deaths People from Zbarazh People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Ukrainian Jews Romanian people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Yiddish theatre Badchens Broder singers 19th-century Romanian singers