And Here I Thought... (Origins of Popular Jewish Tunes)

After posting about the origins of Mishanikhnas, several readers wrote to me about the origins of other popular Jewish tunes that share the same fate as Mishenikhans. I decided to post a compilation of these tunes. If you want to add to the list, feel free to email me OnThisAndOnThat at gmail!

Please note: Some of these videos may have Kol Isha and/or untzinus women.

I'll start with a Purim themed one. The famous tune song on the words "חייב איניש לבסומי בפוריא עד דלא ידע".

I'm not sure which came first, but this seems to be an old Romanian love song.

The next one is a Piamenta brothers classic, on the words of "Asher bara sason vesimha".

Listen to it here performed by the Piamentas, or watch this video below to hear it sung by "Lev Sameah" band.

And the source:

The credit for the following goes to Professor David Asaf, who posted these on his wonderful blog. In the posts, Prof. Assaf goes into lengthy discussions regarding the songs, which are very interesting. I provide the link to each of these individual posts, click and enjoy.

First on the list (link there's also the Hebrew version and the lyrics) is a song first recorded by R. Yom Tov Erlikh, and re-recorded by Avraham Fried.

and here's the source:

Here's another R. Erlikh classic (link, history and lyrics) as recorded by Avraham Fried:

And the source:

A famous Chabad song (link):

and its source:

And a not-so-famous Chabad song (link):

and the source:

The oh-so-famous MBD song (link):

and its oh-so-famous source:

An old Pirchai London song (link):

Its source:

Michoel Shtreicher (link):

The original:

And the last one from Assaf, a tune that took the opposite journey, from Shlomo Karlibach to Russia (link)

The source:

Yeah, apparently Shlomo was great enough to have *his* songs plagiarized...

Itzik Orlev, what a sweet voice!

And it's source:

Lipa Schmeltzer (of course):

Its cute source:

This is the last one. Maoz Tzur:

Its source (partially):

Credit for the following three goes to Wikipedia's entry on MBD. Wikipedia also has the "Yidden" song which we have above from David Assaf's blog.

MBD's "Lichtiger Shabbos":

The source:

MBD's "Daddy Dear":

The source:

MBD's "Shir Hashalom"

And the source:

You have no idea how many times my computer froze during the making of this post...You are welcome.

If you know of anything else, send it in and I'll add it.