Chiribim Chiribom

Source language

Yiddish

Russian adaptation

Olga Anikina

English adaptation

Walter J. Kin · 2026

Chiribim Chiribom comes from the Yiddish song tradition; the modern release describes its original composer and lyricist as unknown. A concrete record of its earlier circulation is Smithsonian Folkways’ Chiribim from the 1967 album Jerusalem of Gold, with Margalit Ankory and the Feenjon Group. The catalogue identifies the language as Yiddish.

This documents a recording, not the birth of the song or its first performance.

The English adaptation is by Walter J. Kin, dated 2026 in the author’s publication and based on Olga Anikina’s Russian adaptation. Kin is also credited with arrangement and production, and Riglis Band performs it. That chain matters: the English text reaches the Yiddish song through another poet’s Russian reimagining.

Its images should not automatically be treated as literal translations of a single fixed original.

The opening creates a town already filled with music. Birds dance and sing, food is being prepared, a dreidel turns and the holiday gathers everyone together. The refrain can be joined without understanding a plot or translating a sentence. Its repeated sounds give the storyteller a place to pause and the listeners a part to play.

The next scene punctures a claim to special power. A rabbi boasts about bargaining with the sky, but rain drenches him while the neighbors stay dry. The humor comes from the gap between a grand claim and an ordinary wet person. It is a comic figure inside a song, not evidence about a real rabbi or religious practice.

The final verse turns toward Helem, the Chelm of the English description, where supposed fools enjoy themselves. It ends by handing the judgment back to the listener: who is wiser, those who laugh or those who only complain? The English recording carries these three scenes.

A Russian explanatory article does not substitute for a Russian performance; the earlier Yiddish repertoire also deserves its own separately verified musical illustration.

Select the Russian recording to hear Olga Anikina’s version alongside the English adaptation. Shared source material does not make their words identical.

Choose Chayela Rosenthal’s Yiddish performance to hear another voice in the song’s tradition alongside the Russian and English adaptations. Her family memorial links this recording; it does not establish its recording date.

Language English

Music Traditional Yiddish song

This version Olga Anikina · Russian adaptation; Walter J. Kin · English adaptation, arrangement and production

Performer Riglis Band

License Free, non-commercial

Yours for your school, choir, or family

You may sing, perform, teach, record, and share Chiribim Chiribom for non-commercial purposes: schools, synagogues, JCCs, choirs, camps, museums, families, and individuals. Keep the credit to RIGLI and JewishSong.org, and please do not charge for the performance or resell the files.

Walter J. Kin created the English adaptation from Olga Anikina’s Russian version and supplied arrangement and production for this recording, published by Rigli Publishing as part of JewishSong.org. The source is a traditional Yiddish song. Full terms and a copy-paste credit line are on our License - Free page.

For-profit or commercial use is handled separately.

Smithsonian Folkways · Chiribim · 1967

Listen here

Chayela Rosenthal · family memorial and recordings

Читать по-русски