Where's The Little Street? A Classic Yiddish Folk Song In The Lamenting Tradition

Looking To Old Worlds, Old Ways, Old Music, To Find What I May Not Say I Miss

This came across my screen and when I began to listen, I found myself crying, so I felt I ought to share it.

Marina Tsvetaeva once captured the relationship between crying and truth in a toss off phrase I never forgot, which was “….as you would believe a person in tears.”

I think there’s a reason why I’m looking for clues in folk music, fold dance, ancient architecture, and of course poetry. The richness of Yiddish—language, literature, song—is immense. It’s something I find I can connect with, unlike whatever fragments of (modern, reform) Judaism I was randomly exposed to “growing up.”

I never understood what anything meant, I was afraid of the foreign words, (Hebrew) and only felt “connected” (spiritually) when my (Swedish, Lutheran, then Catholic, then Jewish by conversion) mother (my parents, long divorced by then) placed me in a Catholic school at age 9—The Convent Of The Sacred Heart. Thus began my love for Jesus, who I always believed was real and would protect me. All these years later, I have no doubt. He did. Despite all the times I avoided, deflected, stumbled, fell, and outright became devil food. (The “depression” decades.)

Catholic School, in uniform, was also the first time I excelled academically. And the nuns were not only wonderful, they had us performing Shakespeare in Elizabethan English, as children.

Or did I dream all this?

I am aware many people were traumatized by nuns, but in my experience, they were the first people to try to connect me to learning and my own mind and soul, so I am grateful. I used to just adore my grey uniform and took such care to make sure my white blouse was washed and ironed.

Before this, in New York City Public Schools, which were modeled on prisons, I used to freeze* like an opossum when they tried to test me, and would score “0.”

Something about this feels important, to this day.

Tonic Immobility In Small Frog

Were I an educator I would test first for trauma, then and only then try to make contact with the child’s (learning) mind.

In any case, this song, goes out to Bud Weiss, friend, early HIV dissident, and Cantor.

Am I right—Is the singer singing in the tradition of a Cantor?

* From the Wikipedia Page “Apparent Death:”

Tonic immobility (also known as the act of feigning death, or exhibiting thanatosis) is a behaviour in which some animals become apparently temporarily paralysed and unresponsive to external stimuli. Tonic immobility is most generally considered to be an anti-predator behavior because it occurs most often in response to an extreme threat such as being captured by a (perceived) predator. Some animals use it to attract prey or facilitate reproduction. For example, in sharks exhibiting the behaviour, some scientists relate it to mating, arguing that biting by the male immobilizes the female and thus facilitates mating.^[7]

Despite appearances, some animals remain conscious throughout tonic immobility.^[8] Evidence for this includes the occasional responsive movement, scanning of the environment and animals in tonic immobility often taking advantage of escape opportunities. Tonic immobility is preferred in the literature because it has neutral connotations compared to 'thanatosis' which has a strong association with death.^[1][2]