Miriam Goldstein

October 16, 2014

Recycled Raisins: Building on the Jewish Story through Song

No raisins and no almonds. None for the Jewish people. None for the Holocausts
victims. And certainly none for little Eva Spiegel, the deceased daughter of Isaiah Spiegel, thenresident of the Lodz ghetto and author of the song Nit keyn Rozhinkes, Nit keyn Mandlen, or
in English, No Raisins, No Almonds (see Figure 1 in Appendix).1 When ghetto elder Chaim
Rumkowski heard it performed for the first time at the March 1, 1941 opening of the Lodz ghetto
Culture House (a project Rumkowski himself had initiated), along with another of Spiegels
lullabies, he immediately placed a ban on the songs and even threatened Spiegel with
deportation.2 It is difficult to say which of the two songs both performed that day by opera
singer Ella Diament, backed by a string orchestra led by noted conductor Teodor Ryder caused
Rumkowski the most distress.3 However, with its clear roots in one of the most popular Yiddish
tunes of the day, Abraham Goldfadens Rozhinkes mit Mandlen [Raisins and Almonds] (see
Figure 2 in Appendix), Spiegels updated, negative version of the song where the young child
being rocked to sleep now lacks the sweet treats that would have ensured him a pleasant future
surely touched all those who heard it, for familiaritys sake if nothing else.4 For reasons
unknown, No Raisins, No Almonds does not share Goldfadens haunting yet comforting tune,
instead relying on a new, equally eerie melody devised by the ghettos regular composer, David
Beygelman. 5 (Featuring a widow singing her only son to sleep, Raisins and Almonds is not an
entirely happy tune itself.) Nonetheless, by relying on a song that had become part of the folklore
of Eastern European Jews, Spiegel was able to add an important dimension to his lullaby.6
Without its basis in the earlier song, No Raisins, No Almonds, would have still effectively
communicated the story of a parent who had just lost his child. But as an inversion of a song that
had already stirred the hearts of millions of Jews around the world, it serves a much broader
purpose. Although motivated by the ordeal of just one man, No Raisins, No Almonds
demonstrates how the experience of loss during the Holocaust can be woven into the larger story
of the Jewish people.
Spiegels rewriting of Goldfadens famous lullaby is not by any means the only example
of a Holocaust song based on an earlier hit. In fact, according to historian Eliyana Adler, the
majority of new songs written in the ghettos and camps were actually just reworkings of much
older ones.7 Musicologist and historian Shirli Gilbert regards this trend as part of a larger, long1

Frieda W. Aaron, Bearing the Unbearable: Yiddish and Polish Poetry in the Ghettos and Concentration Camps
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 122.
2
Aaron, 125; Lisa S. Duhl, Rocking an Empty Cradle: A Psychological Study of Yiddish Holocaust Lullabies
(PhD diss., The California School of Professional Psychology, 1999), 203-204; Lodz Ghetto, Yad Vashem,
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/music/lodz.asp (accessed October 14, 2014); Isaiah Trunk.
d Ghetto: A History, trans. and ed. Robert Moses Shapiro (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006),
338.
3
Duhl, 203; Teodor Ryder, World ORT, http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/ghettos/lodz/ryderteodor/ (accessed
October 14, 2014).
4
Aaron, 120; Eliyana R. Adler, No Raisins, No Almonds: Singing as Spiritual Resistance to the Holocaust,
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 24, no. 4 (Summer 2006): 60.
Duhl, 210, 212-213; Eva Metzger, The Lullaby in Yiddish Folk Song, Jewish Social Studies 46, no. 3/4 (SummerAutumn 1984): 255; Marsha Bryan Edelman, Discovering Jewish Music (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
2003), 105; Michele Klein, A Time to be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1998), 249.
5
Aaron, 124-125; Adler, 65; Duhl, 203; Trunk, 337.
6
Adler, 60; Duhl, 212-213; Edelman, 105.
7
Adler, 57.

Miriam Goldstein

October 16, 2014

held Jewish tradition of song manipulation.8 Indeed, Raisins and Almonds itself was based on
a much older folk lullaby.9 The widespread proliferation of Goldfadens song following its 1880
release allowed for further rewrites. In her dissertation on the psychological implications of
lullaby writing during the Holocaust, Lisa Duhl notes that out of the twenty-three lullabies
collected by Saul Ginsburg and Pesach Marek for their 1901 anthology of Russian-Jewish folk
songs, five had a raisins-and-almonds theme.10 Furthermore, Spiegels No Raisins, No
Almonds was just one three known Holocaust versions of Goldfadens number.11 However,
unlike the other two revisions as well as the majority of other instances of song recycling
during the Holocaust Spiegels rendition, as already noted above, does not retain the earlier
songs melody.12 Instead, by focusing on preserving the themes found in the original song, it
takes on a more complex, although perhaps more rewarding, task. According to musicologist
Marsha Bryan Edelman, Goldfadens Raisins and Almonds was made memorable by its
reliance on an already accessible text.13 Likewise, Spiegels reversal of the song finds its
significance in prompting the audience to compare their current state of affairs with life before
the war.14 Its listeners are made acutely aware of the fact that unlike little Yidele of Goldfadens
tune, their children may have no future. The optimism of the original songs widow Bas Zion
who, according to psychologist Michele Kleins research, is a metaphor for Jerusalem is nearly
extinct, and with it, all promise for the deliverance of the Jewish people.15 Perhaps this is why
Rumkowski, who saw himself as a guardian of his Jews, and especially the Jewish children,
was so offended by the song. In literary scholar David Roskies opinion, Rumkowski saw the
song as a direct attack on his inability to protect the ghettos youngest residents, who were dying
at abnormally high rates.16 If the ambiguous he in the last two verses of No Raisins, No
Almonds is interpreted as God, it suggests, according to Roskies, that in light of
Rumkowskis failure, the ghetto dwellers only hope for survival is in a high power.17 Just as in
Goldfadens version, there was never any expectation that the father would return to his
widowed wife and son. Both the singular childs and, through him, the whole Jewish peoples
future has always been in Gods hands. If interpreted as such, No Raisins, No Almonds is
really not any more despairing than the original. Raisins and Almonds, like the great majority
of other Yiddish lullabies, never professed to be soothing. In the words of poets Benjamin Katz
and Brache Kopstein, Yiddish lullabies are not slumber-songs but awakening-songs, terrorsongs, battle and fury-songs, filled with social storm and stress; and the cradle has become a noncradle no longer is there a home; the open field is now home, in a no-mans land besieged by

Shirli Gilbert, Songs of the Holocaust, in Literature of the Holocaust, ed. Alan Rosen (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2013), 212.
9
Adler, 60; Duhl, 212-214; Edelman, 104.
10
Duhl, 213; Edelman, 72-73.
11
Adler, 60, 64.
12
Ibid. 57, 60.
13
Edelman, 105.
14
Adler, 54; Gilbert, 212.
15
Adler, 60. Michele Klein, A Time to be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1998), 249.
16
Duhl, 204; Trunk, 200, 219.
17
Duhl, 204, 217.

Miriam Goldstein

October 16, 2014

war, in ghettos and concentration-camps the whole ravaged Jewish life is reflected in tens of
lullabies.18
It is not possible to know precisely what Isaiah Spiegel hoped to gain from turning the
tragedy of his daughters death into song, but it is clear that his decision to do so had some
purpose. As Adler importantly notes, singing and songwriting took time and energy and was not
necessary for survival, yet it was done all the same, and frequently so.19 Writing No Raisins, No
Almonds, may have originally served as a cathartic activity for Spiegel, as a way for him to
critique his own shortcomings as a father and to deal with his guilt. At one point, Spiegel,
starving, fled Lodz for Warsaw, leaving his wife and baby daughter, Eva, behind. By the time he
returned, Eva was already dead.20 Obviously, this caused great distress for Spiegel, who certainly
would have wished that he had done more to prevent the loss of his only child. It is also possible
to look at No Raisins, No Almonds as a protest song. Indeed, as discussed above, Rumkowski
may have perceived it as a direct affront to his policies and power. Perhaps Spiegel, who had lost
his daughter to starvation, saw Rumkowski as the one responsible for denying Eva and the rest of
the children of the ghetto the sustenance, the raisins and almonds, that would have saved them.21
But even if Spiegel was criticizing Rumkowski for his failure to adequately feed the children of
the ghetto, it is doubtful that Rumkowski could have done much about it. Although he was the
ghettos official Jewish leader, his power only went so far, and it is unlikely that he actually
would have wanted to see children die, especially if he could have done something to prevent it.
A third option is that, much like the leaders behind the Oneg Shabbat in the Warsaw ghetto,
Spiegel was the writing of No Raisins, No Almonds as a way to preserve a moment in Jewish
history. Along with his two lullabies, Spiegel also wrote a number of short stories while in the
ghetto, which he hid in a cellar, and miraculously, was able to recover at the wars end.22 Spiegel
clearly made a conscious effort to save the rest of his ghetto writings, so why should a song be
any different? Additionally, had Spiegel only written No Raisins, No Almonds for himself,
why would he have taken the effort to have it mirror Goldfadens beloved tune, already a symbol
for Jews throughout Europe and across the Atlantic? More likely, Spiegel was aware of the
added power of songs that draw on earlier works. By writing No Raisins, No Almonds, he
could contribute a page to the eternal story of Jewish suffering and survival.
Spiegel survived the war and published No Raisins, No Almonds in 1949. However, by
1948, writer and activist Shmerke Kaczerginski had already included it in his famous 1948
anthology of songs from the ghettos and concentration camps.23 Because Rumkowski had
banned the song from the beginning, it was never performed, at least not publicly, in the ghetto.
Who knows if anyone from Lodz even remembers hearing it. Over the years, it has been picked
up by a few performers of Yiddish songs most notably Adrienne Cooper and Zalmen Mlotek,
including it on their 2000 album Ghetto Tango who likely first read about it in Kaczerginskis

18

Benjamin Katz and Brache Kopstein, Unter Yankeles Vigele (Tel Aviv: Farlag Shalom, 1976), quoted in Aaron
Kramer, ed. and trans., The Last Lullaby: Poetry from the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,
1998), 33.
19
Adler, 50.
20
Duhl, 259.
21
Duhl, 195.
22
Ben Furnish, Isaiah Spiegel, in Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work, edited by S.
Lillian Kremer. Vol. 2: Lerner to Zychlinsky (New York: Routledge, 2003), 1189.
23
Adler, 53, Duhl, 170.

Miriam Goldstein

October 16, 2014

book.24 Although Spiegels song has yet to attain great popularity (nor will it probably ever),
there are clearly those who see it worthy of revival. In part, it may be the story of one mans loss,
but by basing it on perhaps the most famous Yiddish lullaby of all time, Spiegel guaranteed it a
place on the spectrum of Jewish experience. One could never call No Raisins, No Almonds a
masterpiece; it is just not that type of song. But it is a reminder of the way in which Jewish songs
and along with them, moments in Jewish history are constantly being recycled. And for that
alone, it is enormously valuable.

24

Stefan Kanfer, Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in America (New
York: Knopf, 2006), 250-251.

Miriam Goldstein

October 16, 2014

Appendix
Nit keyn rozhinkes un nit keyn mandlen,
No raisins and no almonds,
Der tate iz nit geforn handlen,
Father has not gone trading,
Lulinke, mayn zun.
Hush, my son,
Lulinke, mayn zun.
Hush, my son.
Er hot farlozt undz un avek,
Vu di velt hot nor an ek,
Lulinke, mayn zun,
Lulinke, mayn zun.

He has left us and gone away,

To the end of the world,
Hush, my son,
Hush, my son.

Sshrayen soves, svoyen velt,

Got, derbarem zikh un helf,
Lulinke, mayn zun,
Lulinke, mayn zun.

Owls are screeching, wolves are howling,

God, take pity on us and help,
Hush, my son,
Hush, my son.

Ergets shteyt er un er vakht,

Mandlen, rozhinkes a sakh,
Lulinke, mayn zun,
Lulinke, mayn zun.

Somewhere he stands and watches,

With lots of almonds and raisins,
Hush, my son,
Hush, my son.

Kumen rvet oyf zikher shoyn,

Zen dich, kind, mayn eyntsik kroyn,
Hush, my son,
Hush, my son.

He will surely come soon,

To see you, child, my only crown,
Hush, my son,
Hush, my son.

Figure 1. Nit keyn Rozhinkes, Nit keyn Mandlen lyrics, with English translation. Original
Yiddish words by Isaiah Spiegel, with music by David Beygelman.
Sources: These lyrics are a composite of the Yiddish and English lyrics provided in Aaron and
Kanfers books, Duhls dissertation, and on Fonda and World ORTs websites.

Miriam Goldstein

October 16, 2014

In dem Beys Hamidrash in a vinkl kheyder,

Zitst di almone bas Zion aleyn,
Ir ben yokhidl, Yidele, vigt zi keyseder,
Un zingt im a lidele, sholfn tsu geyn.

In the corner of the synagogue,

There sits the widow Bas Zion,
She rocks her only son, Yidele, to sleep,
And sings him a tender lullaby.

[Refrain]:
Unter Yideles vigele
Shteyt a klor vays tsigele,
Dos tsigele iz geforn handlen,
Dos vet zayn dayn baruf.
Rozhinkes mit mandlen,
Shlof zhe, Yidele, shlof.

[Refrain]:
Under Yideles cradle
Stands a snow-white kid,
Its a merchant, and has been to market,
That will be your calling, too.
Raisins and almonds,
Sleep, my child, sleep.

In dem lidl, mayn kind, lign file nevuos,

As du vest aleyn zen oyf der velt,
A soykher vestu zayn fun ale tevuos,
Un vest in dem oykh fardinen fil gelt.

In this song, my child, are many prophecies,

As you will find out for yourself,
You will become a trader in grain,
And thereby earn a lot of money.

[Refrain]

[Refrain]

Figure 2. Abraham Goldfadens Rozhinkes mit Mandlen lyrics, with English translation.
Source: Adapted from Metzgers The Lullaby in Yiddish Folk Song.

Miriam Goldstein

October 16, 2014

Bibliography
Books

Aaron, Frieda W. Bearing the Unbearable: Yiddish and Polish Poetry in the Ghettos and
Concentration Camps. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990.
Bergen, Doris L. Music and the Holocaust. In The Holocaust Introductory Essays, edited by
David Scrase and Wolfgang Mieder, 133-147. Burlington, VT: The Center for Holocaust
Studies at the University of Vermont, 1996.
Edelman, Marsha Bryan. Discovering Jewish Music. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
2003.
Gilbert, Shirli. Songs of the Holocaust. In Literature of the Holocaust, edited by Alan Rosen,
211-224. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Kanfer, Stefan. Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in
America. New York: Knopf, 2006.
Klein, Michele. A Time to be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth. Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1998.
Kramer, Aaron, ed. and trans. The Last Lullaby: Poetry from the Holocaust. Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press, 1998.
Furnish, Ben. Isaiah Spiegel. In Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their
Work, edited by S. Lillian Kremer. Vol. 2: Lerner to Zychlinsky. New York: Routledge,
2003, 1189-1192.
Trunk, Isaiah. d Ghetto: A History, Translated and edited by Robert Moses Shapiro.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Articles
Adler, Eliyana R. No Raisins, No Almonds: Singing as Spiritual Resistance to the Holocaust.
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 24, no. 4 (Summer 2006): 50-66.
Metzger, Eva. The Lullaby in Yiddish Folk Song. Jewish Social Studies 46, no. 3/4 (SummerAutumn 1984): 253-262.
Web Sources
Fonda, Batya. Nit keyn rozhinkes un nit keyn mandlen. Jewish Folk Songs.
http://www.jewishfolksongs.com/en/nit-keyn-rozhinkes (accessed October 13, 2014).

Miriam Goldstein

October 16, 2014

World ORT. Nit kayn rozhinkes, nit kayn mandlen. Music and the Holocaust
http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/ghettos/lodz/nit-kayn-rozhinkes/ (accessed October
9, 2014).
Miscellaneous
Duhl, Lisa S. Rocking an Empty Cradle: A Psychological Study of Yiddish Holocaust
Lullabies. PhD diss., The California School of Professional Psychology, 1999.