SaveTheMusic Presents: Rivkele, a Yiddish Tango

Rivkele, Rebeka
Music: Z.Białostocki, Yiddish text: unknown
vocal: Olga Avigail, piano: Hadrian Tabęcki, bandoneon: Grzegorz Bożewicz, guitar: Piotr Malicki
Performed in Cultural Center Wilanów Warsaw
…(from Polish Jewish Cabaret):

The tango Rebeka was perhaps Polish Jewish composer Zygmunt Białostocki’s most beloved and often-recorded song. It’s said that people requested it so often at the nightclubs, they would request it a second time while it was still playing the first time! Bialostocki used snatches of familiar chasidic niggunim (melodies) to tell the story of a poor Jewish shopkeeper’s assistant who falls in love with a handsome goy when he comes to buy newspapers and dreams of a better life with him…
In Yiddish version, which maybe was sung by Tadeusz Faliszewski, Rivkele is rejecting the love of polish nobleman, because of her attachment to Jewish tradition.