I didn't know that the songwriter was Jewish.
This is a very interesting topical take on the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
I am listening to the song in an entirely new way-what a blessing. Thanks, Simcha!
It's a really lovely article from my buddy Simcha Jacobovici.
"But perhaps the most poignant song emerging out of the mass exodus from
Europe was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. The lyrics were written by Yip
Harburg. He
was the youngest of four children born to Russian Jewish immigrants.
His real name was Isidore Hochberg and he grew up in a Yiddish speaking,
Orthodox Jewish home in New York. The music was written by Harold
Arlen, a cantor’s son. His real name was Hyman Arluck and his parents
were from Lithuania."
"Together, Hochberg and Arluck wrote “Somewhere Over
the Rainbow”, which was voted the 20th century’s number one song by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA)."
"In writing it, the two men reached deep into their immigrant Jewish
consciousness – framed by the pogroms of the past and the Holocaust
about to happen – and wrote an unforgettable melody set to near
prophetic words. Read the lyrics in their Jewish context and suddenly
the words are no longer about wizards and Oz, but about Jewish survival:"
