“Ot azoy, azoy zeyt der landsman” (This is how the farmer sows)

“This is how the farmer sows” is a children’s song about a farmer planting and harvesting grain. This recording was sung by Shmerke Kaczerginski. Kaczerginski was a leading poet in Vilna before World War II, and a hero of the Jewish resistance in the Vilna Ghetto. He was a leader of the “Paper Brigade.” This small group of men and women risked their lives to hide Jewish cultural treasures from the Nazis. Kaczerginski survived the war but died in a plane crash in Argentina in 1954. This recording was made by ethnomusicologist Ruth Rubin. She collected 1,900 Yiddish folksongs and field recordings between 1949 and the 1970s.