To Sing Away the Darkest Days

Poetry. Jewish Studies. Music. TO SING AWAY THE DARKEST DAYS is the culmination of a five-year project which saw Norbert Hirschhorn source more than one thousand Yiddish songs. Ruth Rubin, pioneer archivist of Yiddish folksong, wrote: "Yiddish folksongs are in a vernacular closest to the popular speech of the folk." For Hirschhorn they helped him to rediscover and trace his own Jewish cultural history. However, some of the songs 'spoke' to him as a poet and begged for a new translation--or 're-imagining' as he calls it--into English poems. The resulting collection of poems tells the story of the emigrant, the Jew in the Diaspora. Norbert adds his unique view: he personalizes the Diaspora, and at the same time brings a vanished culture back to life. The collection is funny and poignant and captures the Jewish experience, but the struggle and questioning of the poet add an extra dimension.