Who composed these Purim classics? I can’t find the composers listed on any album covers

With Yaakov Brown

You hear it at simchahs, you know the chorus and even the harmony. But who’s niggun is it? In an era of viral tracks and borrowed melodies, the people who composed the background music of our lives are often forgotten, leaving us asking:

WHO WROTE THAT TUNE?

I’d love to know who composed the songs that signal the special time when Adar comes around. In our house, the music is “Mishe mishe mishenichnas Adar marbim, marbim, marbim besimchah oooooo mishenichnas Adar oooooo marbim besimchah,” and its non-identical twin, “Mishe mishe mishe mishe mishe mishe mishe mishe mishe mishenichnas Adar,” with the same tune that’s also sung to “V’nahafoch v’nahafoch v’nahafoch v’nahafoch v’nahafoch hu.”

For my boys, Purim means endless happy rounds of “Chayav inish libesumei…” as well as the song my teachers in elementary school used to sing with us thirty years ago, “Vayehi bimei Achashveirosh…” And in the world of my preschoolers, the teachers are still singing “Chag Purim, Chag Purim… hava narisha rash rash rash…”

Who composed these Purim classics? I can’t find the composers listed on any album covers.

B.N.

Yaakov Brown answers:

It’s not surprising you can’t find the composers easily. On album covers, these songs are usually attributed as “traditional,” which is one way of saying that no-one really knows.

Regarding the first “Mishenichnas” you mention: The tune is a traditional American folk song called “Pick a Bale of Cotton.” It was originally a slave-era plantation work song to make the work less monotonous and the Southern heat more bearable. The popular version was first recorded by Texas state prison inmates James Baker and Moses Platt in December of 1933, and from then on it has been covered by many performers. When did it reach the Jewish community and “convert” into a beloved Purim song? That, I do not know.

Regarding the second one, “Mishenichnas Adar,” also sung as “Venahafoch Hu,” goes down as “traditional.” There is no known background story of interest that I am aware of.

The tune for “Chayav Inish”? That was taken from a Hungarian folk song composed by a fellow named Jenő B. Fehér.

“Vayehi Bimei Achashveirosh” is Niggun #439 in the Chabad Otzar HaNiggunim and is an inseparable part of the Purim atmosphere among Chabad chassidim. Although it was certainly accepted and encouraged by the Rebbe, it is not a Chabad niggun per se, and it existed as a wordless niggun before the first pasuk of the Megillah was incorporated.

As for “Chag Purim,” a tune that feels so perfectly matched to the Purim atmosphere, the truth is that the tune had a rich life of its own long before it ever put on a Purim costume.

The melody is a widely known Eastern European niggun, already well established by the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It circulated as a wordless chassidic niggun, a dance tune, and even a melody for various sacred texts. We know that it was sung at Shabbos tables to “Menuchah V’simchah”, appeared in early Jewish folk-song collections, and was even used for Simchas Torah hakafos in several chassidic courts. Like many niggunim, it shifted slightly from place to place while still remaining recognizable.

In the early 1920s, Levin Kipnis, one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew children’s literature, set his newly written poem “Chag Purim” to this familiar melody. The pairing was an instant success, quickly adopted in Jewish kindergartens and schools, first in Eretz Yisrael and soon throughout the Jewish world, where it remains a Purim staple to this day.

“Chag Purim” is actually a wonderful example of how Jewish music works: A well-traveled chassidic niggun, adopted by poets and educators, transformed into a children’s classic, and still dancing joyfully between sacred and festive worlds, more than a century later.

Yaakov Brown researches and writes about the history of Jewish music, tracing the journeys of niggunim and songs from their earliest roots to the present day. Together with a network of fellow researchers, he uncovers the stories behind the melodies that have accompanied Jewish life for generations.

Song in My Heart

For YIDI BIALOSTOTZKY, his newest album KE’ILU, released just last week, is a bit like sharing his soul with his audience. The chassidish singer and songwriter creates most of his own material, so listening to it definitely feels like you’re getting his drift.

“All these songs were composed over the last two years,” he says, “so these themes are really current messages I’m living in now.”

Yidi, who has a strong presence on today’s wedding circuit, says his songwriting and production process is “like a shidduch. There are a lot of tefillos and a lot of hishtadlus, and the rest is bashert.”

This was evident with the album’s final track, “Piaseczno,” tributes in Yiddish and English to the memory of Rav Klonimus Kalman Shapira, known as the Aish Kodesh of Piaseczno after the name of his sefer, a tzaddik and rebbe who led a kehillah near Warsaw and was a beacon of emunah in the Warsaw ghetto, before his murder in 1943.

“Someone in shul told me a powerful vort from the Aish Kodesh, which inspired me so much that a song just came to me,” Yidi relates. “The producer Lazer Landau was right there in that minyan, and we worked on it together. We had the demo less than two hours later.”

The song traces the life of this tzaddik, who saw his only son before he was killed himself, yet who left an indelible legacy of writings which guide people until today. The Rebbe is gone from This World, but a true chassid never stays depressed — as Yidi sings, “L’chayim, chassidim, l’chayim!”

Giving the album an extra boost of star power, the renowned Chazzan Yitzchok Meir Helfgott joins Yidi on the second track, “Hayom Teamtzeinu. Yidi describes the collaboration as “a dream come true, ” because while the chazzan of Park East Synagogue has been a family friend for many years, Yidi was well aware that Chazzan Helfgott rarely sings as a guest on music albums.

“Chazzan Helfgott is blessed with a huge voice and career, but an even bigger heart,” Yidi relates. “I felt that this song, an old-style neshamadig song, needed a timeless voice, and I reached out to him, although the last time he collaborated on a Jewish music recording was eighteen years ago with Yossi Green.”

The gifted vocalist Shloime Daskal joins for a song dedicated to Lakewood called “Makom Torah;” and “The Secret of Shabbos,” dedicated to Yidi’s good friend and fellow musician Chatzi Katz a”h, features English lyrics written by Sruli Besser and a beautiful arrangement by Shlomi Shinfeld, a rising star on the music scene.

“We were farbrenging together one Friday night, and I sang the chazzanus piece ‘Raza DeShabbos,’” Yidi recalls. “Right afterward, Sruli sent me lyrics for an English song on this theme. Yet those lyrics sat on my desk for months until the tune came to me.”

The song “Tzuzamen,” with the timeless words from Mishlei, “Tovim hashnayim min ha’echad… [Two are better than one… if one falls, the other can lift him up]” is already playing at weddings, as is another Mishlei-inspired “Dor Holech,” a funky last-minute addition that Yidi collaborated on with his co-producer Yanky Steinmetz. The “Dor Holech” track is just two and a half minutes long, which is pretty short even by today’s standards.

“That means you’ll want to replay it,”
Yidi says.

A SONG THAT GETS ME INTO THE ADAR SPIRIT

“Layehudim,” by Yossi Green, is one of my all-time favorite songs. Every time I sing it, I’m instantly back in that Purim energy. Honestly makes me wish Purim could last all year.

—Moshe Tishler

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1100)