В путь народ мой в путь

V put narod moy v put

Как родилась эта версия

Let My People Go, the song of the Exodus

Let My People Go, also sung as Go Down Moses, is an African-American spiritual. By origin it is not a Jewish song. But its words carry the story at the very heart of Judaism: the Exodus, when Moses is sent to Pharaoh with the cry let my people go, and the Jewish people are led out of slavery in Egypt. That is why so many Jewish artists sing it as one of their own.

Because the song belongs to the Jewish story, RIGLI brought it into Russian, and Olga Anikina wrote a beautiful translation and adaptation. In her version the call rings out to a whole people to rise and go, onward, toward freedom and toward home.

An English RIGLI version is planned next, with the words adapted so the song becomes fully our own. This is part of the mission of Jewish Songs for All: to carry the songs that tell the Jewish story to the world, in the languages people actually speak.

The words, line by line

Russian adaptation by Olga Anikina, from the spiritual Let My People Go. The English below is a literal, line by line rendering of her Russian for meaning, not a singing version.

Credits & rights

Free to sing, free to teach

These songs are free for synagogues, JCCs, museums, schools, yeshivas and families. For everyone else, free to start, and a modest fee later, so the songs travel and take root.

Questions, or a use we have not thought of? Write to doublesign28@gmail.com.

More about the wider Jewish Songs. For All project at havanagila.org.