ISBN 600313465840. 8.5" x 11" inches. Yiddish, English. Text: Avrom Reisen.
"Zog, Maran. . . is perhaps the best known Yiddish Passover song."
"In Zog Maran, [the poet Avrom] Reisen adds to the Pesach (Passover) rituals a dimension the holiday assumed for Jews since the beginning of the Common Era: the festival that, because of holiday celebrations and dietary restrictions, most set Jews apart, and, in times of overt anti-Semitism, made observant Jews most vulnerable. Zog, Maran makes this especially poignant because the subject is a Marrano, an Iberian Jew forced by the Inquisition to adopt the overt identity of a Christian but who secretly maintained Jewish tradition and practice, risking death if discovered."
"The story in Zog, Maran is told using a rhetorical pattern: in each verse, the poet asks the Marrano a question about how he secretly observes the holiday rituals (making a Seder, making matzoh, keeping a Haggadah, and, finally, what would happen if the anti-Semites heard the Seder in progress). The Marrano answers and the poet repeats the answer. In this arrangement, the repetition is sung in English, providing a running translation of the answers and, by inference, the questions." - Mark Zuckerman
Use: concerts, Passover-related services; high school, college, community, professional, temple choruses |
