Doyres fun der tsukunft [Future Generations]

When Avrom Reisen (1876-1953) settled in the United States from Russia in 1914, he already had an international reputation as a Yiddish writer. A Socialist, Reisen’s work frequently expresses sympathy for the poor and downtrodden. Because many of his poems have the character of folksongs, a number (like the Chanukah song Borukh Ato and the Passover song Zog, Maran) have been set to music. Doyres fun der tsukunft (Future Generations) is a setting of the first stanza from the poem of that name; it issues a warning and a plea:

Future generations, brothers still to come, don’t you dare be scornful of our songs. Songs about the weak, songs of the exhausted in a poor generation, before the world’s decline. [Translation by Leonard Wolf]