Brivele -- Khaveyrim Zayt Greyt
Just in time for May Day, the radical duo Brivele gift us with Yiddish folk to fight back against fascism.
My grandparents were so assimilated, I didn't even listen to enough Yiddish music to know they looked down on it. (Perhaps that silence was messaging enough.) For whatever reason, there are plenty of queer klezmer bands out there – maybe an article for another time – but I often feel some form of second-hand embarassment when I listen. It's hokey. It's so earnest. It's cringe. But Brivele has shut me right up, and their new album Khaveyrim Zayt Greyt represents a monumental achievement of heavy – but fun – music that calls to all of us.
Brivele translate the songs of our grandparents and great-grandparents into something urgent and immediate. "Rumenye iz Amerike" rejects this country's entire premise, a bitterly sarcastic rejection of the American dream. The English interludes help us feel the full weight of the song – and it serves as a harsh reminder that we continue to labor under false promises, even as more people are lured to this country and punished for doing so.
"Di Grentsn" is downright beautiful – not something typically applied to Germanic languages. As the mournful introduction settles into an endictment of border policy, Brivele connects us to the deep emotions that a lot of us (or at least I) tend to mask with theory. But, at the end of the day, people are dying, and that is a raw truth in any language.
Khaveyrim Zayt Greyt is somber, humorous, and rousing. On this May Day, we must remember that our collective power can do great things and we must harness it. There are more of us than there are of them.
