18. "Es Meg Zayn Khoyshekh"

^{Eliyahu Kum, dedication of the Habbad Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, 2January 1968; Recorded by Yizhak Weinberg.}

There may be darkness everywhere
And the whole world full of hate,
I shall never, never, despair,
Nor shall I lose my holy faith.

It may be so dark, it may be so bitter;
I believe in Israel's victory.
The end will be, Oy vey, a good one,
God, I shall not lose my trust.

There have been countries, kings and princes
That have persecuted and afflicted us.
Today they have all become ruins and corpses,
Only we survive.

True, we live in [a time of] pogroms and persecution,
But we are living, despite all the troubles.
May we live to see how the kingdom of evil
Shall become one big cemetery.

My hofy faith shall not be lost,
I know that there is no cause for worry.
Not everything will remain the same,
For a bright morning will soon dawn.

There will be a world of Jewish greatness,
A world of peace and rest.
There comes a world of a Jeivish state,
"And the kingdom will be the Lord's."

This is an abbreviated version of a Yiddish song entitled "'Zame'ah lekha nafshi" ("My soul thirsts for You"), based on the Pan-Hasidic dance niggun "Ken ba-qodesh hazitikha" ("Yea, I shall behold You in the Sanctuary"), attributed by some authorities to the Vizhnitz repertoire. The complete version (see Ha-shir veha-shevah, pt. II, pp. 258-260) has six stanzas and a refrain. Each stanza consists of two strophes, corresponding to the two sections of the niggun. The Hasidic niggun with its words serves as the refrain. Kum's version has only three stanzas (or six strophes), without refrain. The complete bipartite melody is sung three times, each time to a different stanza, as in the printed source.

Eliyahu Kum claims that the present version was created in one of the Nazi death camps. In this version there were slight changes in the first stanza. In the other two stanzas, in the fourth and sixth strophes, however, there were significant changes. Instead of the original expression of hope for imminent redemption, bringing in its wake peace and tranquility, as in the complete version of the song, the text expresses hope for Israel's victory over its foes and achievement of peace in the State of Israel. The words, referring to the resurgence of the Jewish nation in its own state, support the conjecture that Kum's version was composed not in the death camps, but in the D.P. camps before the refugees immigrated to Israel.