Watch: Jews in America
Dovy Meisels, a contemporary American Hasidic singer and songwriter, has published on Youtube a new music video clip in Yiddish called “Jews in America” (“Yidn in Amerike”). Other performers are Lipa Schmelzer and Hershy Weinberger, who is also the song’s composer. The video producer and director is Meir Unger.
The song is dedicated to Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira of Munkacs (Mukachevo, Ukraine, formerly Austria-Hungary). At the wedding of his only daughter, this Hasidic leader said just a few words in Yiddish to American radio journalists: he urged the Jews of the New World to keep the Sabbath. The rebbe’s words inspired many Jewish immigrants in the United States to continue observing religious traditions.
Today’s Munkacs Hasidim are centered in New York, the home of their current rebbe, Moshe Leib Rabinovich, and continue to speak in everyday life the Yiddish dialect of their Austro-Hungarian ancestors, which can be heard in the video clip.