Moisei Fish " was born in March, 1922 in Rivne. His father was known as Zalmen der Miler (b. 1883 in Koloniya Olizarka), since he worked as a house-builder and brick-layer. His mother, Khaye bas Yoyne, was born in 1887 in Zholuds'k, a nearby town. The family moved to Rivne at the start of World War I in 1914. Fish's mother was a housewife and raised the family's five children, of whom Moisei was the youngest. This whole family was killed in the early years of World War II, as were most of the approximately one hundred relatives Fish had before the war. Fish started going to a kheyder (religious school for young boys) at 3.5 years of age and continued until age five. At the age of five-six years, Moisei's father got him a private teacher, who for an hour a day in the afternoon would teach him how to pray. At the age of seven, he began to attend a ""shule"", a Polish-language Jewish school, and continued for seven years. After 7th grade, at the age of thirteen, Fish entered a Polish-language Jewish gymnasium, which he finished in 1939, three months before the war. In the 1930s, Fish participated in Shomer Akiva, a socialist youth group. After graduating from the gymnasium, Fish worked for two months until the war broke out . When the war started, Fish ran on foot to Kotsk at the former Soviet-Polish border, eventually being able to evacuate to the Russian interior and later to Kazakhstan. There, he worked in rice fields, and then in the bookkeeping office in a Korean kolkhoz. He tried to join the army, but he was sent back because he was a former Polish citizen and did not speak Russian well. He moved to Stalingrad and worked in a war-factory for two months. Finally in 1942 he was mobilized and sent to the front. Fish fought in Belarus, Poland, Germany, where he was wounded in the leg by grenade shrapnel, and the Far East. After the war, he completed a Soviet accounting institute. Fish moved back to Rivne in 1946 and found a job as the head accountant in a restaurant, where he worked until 1982. In 1946, Fish married Ida Lakir, a Jewish woman from Kalinindorf, one of the Joint-supported Soviet Jewish kolkhozes. They had three sons. Fish and his wife prepared to immigrate to Israel, but could not go in the end because of his wife's health. Fish has been involved with the local religious community since 1995, where he serves as a leader/cantor [gabe un khazn]. "
Other Interviews:
Private Teacher"Look, over there is a Jew"
a Childhood Ditty
Rivne, Ukraine
Moisei Fish not only enjoyed an extensive private religious education, but also absorbed religious culture at home. In this clip, Fish sings a Yiddish-loshn koydesh ditty, which he learned from his mother.
alcohol gives you strength.
Strength is the main thing,
alcohol makes you drunk.
"Ov" is a father,
”keyder" is a tatar.
A tatar is a “keyder,"
”begodim" are clothes.
Clothes are “begodim,"
”khut" is thread.
Thread is “khut,"
”lekhem" is bread.
Bread is “lekhem,"
”Rekhem" is thought.
Thought is “rekhem,"
“ "shmoyno" is eight.
Eight is “shmoyno,"
a dove is “ yoyne."
“ Yoyne" is a dove,
“ Mitsnefes" is a hoist.
A hoist is a "mitsnefes,
a stall is "refes."
"Refes is a stall,
"Moro" is gall.
Gall is "moro,"
a cow is "poro."
"Poro" is a cow,
"boyker" - morning.
Morning is "boyker,"
expensive is "yoyker."
"Yoyker" is expensive,
"Eysh" is fire.
Fire is "eysh,
"bosor" is meat.
Meat is "bosor,"
"mayim" is water.
Water is "mayim,"
let’s all make lekhayim.
Childhood ditties were designed to teach Hebrew words. They include words that were rarely, if ever, used in East European Yiddish. This particular ditty was tremendously popular and recorded in Poland, Lithuania, Transcarpathia and elsewhere.
The master scholar of Yiddish folklore, Yehudah-Leib Cahan, published this ditty in the second volume of his Yidishe folkslider, mit melodien, oys dem folk-moyl gezamlt (Yiddish Folk Songs, with music notes, collected directly from the people) in 1912. More recently a version of the rhythmic song was published on the Yiddish Wiki Library. In 2009, the Hasidic blogger Hirshel Tzig published another version. Moreover, Australian cantor, singer, teacher and entertainer Velvl Lederman performs this ditty in a "Polish" (Central) Yiddish with a poignant and wickedly embittered anti-German addition at the end. This part was added in the wake of the Holocaust.
This ditty was also popular among many Yiddish writers. It was cited by Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Itzik Manger alluded to it in his playfully anachronistic "khumes-shpil" (quasi-Biblical short play) entitled "Inside Noah's Arch".
The following section will illustrate a couple of things: first, how the distinction between Moisei Fish's native dialect and the "standard" whole Hebrew pronunciation of Hebrew words has been preserved; and, second, the text itself will be put in comparison with other recordings.
Fish pronounces the Hebrew words according to standard Eastern Ashkenazi form. Moreover, his pronunciation is based to a large extent on Lithuanian Ashkenazi Hebrew (minus the "ey" for "kholem"), rather than on the "local" Volhynian (i.e.,northern variety of Ukrainian) form. Accordingly, "ov", "begodim", "khut", "moro", "poro", "bosor" rather than those current in his own dialect – "uv", "bgudem", "khit", "muru", "puru" and "buser". The preservation of the first short vowel and the last one in "shemoyno" (rather than the more expected one – "shmoyne") and of the diphthong in the single syllable word "eysh" (rather than the more Yiddishized "esh") also clearly testify to a careful presentation of the so-called "whole Hebrew" pronunciation, i.e. the way Hebrew should be pronounced per se in distinction from the Hebrew words which are an integral and fully integrated component of Yiddish.
Moisei's version has two lines (possibly a trace of larger missing segment) which so far couldn't be found in other extant versions:
Kleyder zenen begodim
Khut iz fudem.
Fudem iz khut,
Lekhem iz broyt.
The rhyme here is not preserved in the first couple (i.e. begodim // fudem, instead of *bgudem // fudem) and the second couple is not much of a rhyme at all (khut // broyt). Other variants have no trace of the "fudem" and "khut" element. Instead they have:
Kleyder zenen bgudem (bgodem)
Royt iz udem (odem)
Odem iz royt
Lekhem iz broyt
Another couple in our version that doesn't rhyme too well is:
Fleysh iz bosor
Mayim iz vaser
This is in all likelihood the result of the following missing lines that can be easily found in other versions:
Fleysh iz boser [whole Hebrew: bo'sor]
Khazer iz oser [kha'zir, o'sur]
Oser iz khazer
Mayim vaser
Judging by some rhymes in other variants, there was not much insistence on the "correct" whole Hebrew pronunciation, as it clearly seems to be the case in Moisei's version. He skips a few lines, but on the whole he preserves his early childhood version. It exemplifies a case of distinguishing between proper Ashkenazi pronunciation of traditional Hebrew, side by side with genuine Yiddish folklore.