Zog, Maran [Tell Me, Marrano]

When Avrom Reisen (1876-1953) settled in the United States from Russia in 1914, he already had an international reputation as a Yiddish writer. Because many of his poems have the character of folksongs, a number of them have been set to music. Zog, Maran (Tell Me, Marrano), as set by Shmuel Bugatch, is perhaps the best known Yiddish Passover song. Reisen’s holiday poetry tells a story, and uses the story’s setting to evoke the spirit of the holiday. In Zog Maran, Reisen adds to the Pesach rituals a dimension the holiday assumed for Jews since the beginning of the Common Era: the festival that most set Jews apart, and, in times of overt anti-Semitism, made observant Jews most vulnerable.

The story is told using a rhetorical pattern: in each verse, the poet asks the Marrano a question about how he secretly observes the holiday rituals (making a seder, making matsoh, keeping a Hagode, and, finally, what would happen if the anti-Semites heard the seder in progress). The Marrano answers (in Yiddish) and the poet repeats the answer (in English).