Menahem Kipnis, Perished in Holocaust “Hundert Folks-Lider” with musical notation, in Yiddish, illust., 1949, Argentina
Each song has the musical notation with the Yiddish text of the songs in the Hebrew/Yiddish alphabet
Hundert Folks-Lider (Cien Cantos Populares)
Dos Poylishe Yidntum 43.
Tzentral-Verband fun Poylishe Yidn in Argentine, Buenos Aires, 1949. Contains texts and sheet music. 1 page illustration, 269 (3) pages.
Black cloth Hardcover with red lettering, 20.5x15 cm.
Good condition, yellow paper to rear endpaper, finger prints to frontispiece.
Weight: 590 gr.
Menachem Kipnis (born 1878 in Ushomyr, Volhynia, d. 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto), was a singer, critic, journalist, humorist, and photographer. He was also an ethnographer of Yiddish songs. As a tenor, Kipnis was a common performer of Yiddish songs. He died from a stroke in 1942.
Menachem Kipnis' father was an educated cantor. From the age of eight, Menachem Kipnis lived with his older brother, who was also a cantor and is the father of the writer Levin Kipnis. Menachem Kipnis received a traditional Jewish education and sang with his brother in the choir of the Chernobyl synagogue. In this he impressed with his beautiful alto voice
Kipnis was a major contributor to the lore of the Wise Men of Chelm. He published a column of Chelm stories in the Warsaw Yiddish daily Haynt, pretending to be a journalist reporting from Chelm. There was a (possibly apocryphal) story that the women of Chelm asked Kipnis to stop doing this because their daughters could not find bridegrooms: every time they hear from shadkhn that the girl is from Chelm, they cannot stop laughing.] He later published these tales in the book Khelemer mayses (Chelm Stories; Polish transcription: Chelemer Majses, 1930)