A joyful place to sing Jewish songs in English, learn the holidays, and bring them into your classroom or choir, all free. Press play and sing along.
Every Jewish song that survived did so for a reason. One song per episode: its true story, then the song itself, reborn in English. Every episode becomes a permanent page in our growing encyclopedia of Jewish song.
However you arrived, there is a room with your name on it.
Watch the video, read the words, and sing Jewish songs in English: Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, Shavuot and more.
Open the song room →Sing-along videos, holiday quizzes, and games for all ages. Grandparents remember the songs, children learn them in English.
Come and play →Free for schools, museums, choirs and community organizations. Sign a one-page agreement online and start singing.
See how it works →Every song here comes straight from our English playlist on the RIGLI YouTube channel, in the same order. Press play and sing along.
Hanukkah▶A brand new melody for the little spinning top. Full lyrics and free downloads for your choir.
Watch and sing →
New!▶A bright klezmer-meets-Motown song for the festival of first fruits and the giving of the Torah.
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Free▶An English version of the Yiddish anthem "Ale Brider," a song of kinship across all peoples.
Watch and sing →
New!▶A gentle little anthem of courage and kindness for the hard days. Easy for the youngest singers.
Watch and sing →
Hanukkah▶The candle-lighting classic in warm new English, with the full lyrics and the song's long history.
Watch and sing →
New!▶A bouncy klezmer-pop song for the happiest, noisiest holiday of the year. Costumes and groggers ready!
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New!▶A short, glowing song for the seder table about matzah, freedom, and the light we pass on.
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New!▶The beloved call-and-response Yiddish classic, now with English verses everyone can answer back.
Watch and sing →
New!▶A joyful new Passover song for the seder table and the spring of freedom.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶A playful, theatrical birthday song with bright klezmer clarinet, ready for any simcha.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶The merry classic about Rebbe Elimelekh and his musicians, now singable in English.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶A big, theatrical new setting of the candle-lighting classic.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶A joyful, playful song about being proud of who you are. Light, kind, and easy for a whole class to sing.
Watch and sing →
New!▶A tender thank-you song to mom, simple enough for the youngest voices. Full lyrics on the song page.
Watch and sing →
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗Any non-profit organization may sing, perform and teach these songs for free: schools, colleges and universities, museums, libraries, research and cultural institutes, choirs, camps, community centers, houses of worship, and educational non-profits of any community or faith. You may also build classes and courses about these songs, using our materials and your own. No fee, no royalties, and no need to email us. Just sign our one-page free-use agreement online and start singing.
For non-commercial, non-profit use. For-profit or commercial use is handled separately.
This school has two wings. In English, a joyful new songbook for kids, families and teachers. In Russian, the catalog that started it all: Hava Nagila, Tumbalalaika, Hatikvah, Belz and more, with Russian poetry by Olga Anikina and the voice of Elechka, watched and streamed millions of times. Both wings are here, and both are free to sing.
▶The Yiddish folk song that crossed every border. A young man asks his beloved riddles - and the answers shape his understanding of love.
Read the story →
▶A light, joyful Hanukkah song - warm home in the storm, mama making latkes, the dreidl spinning, candles lit. A modern setting of Mordkhe Rivesman's 1912 classic, with new Russian lyrics by Anikina.
Read the story →
▶The classic Russian adaptation of the most beloved Jewish song in the world. Lyrics by Olga Anikina, vocals by Elechka - the recording that launched the catalog.
Read the story →
▶A bright Hanukkah song about children and the spinning dreidl. Russian lyrics make the festival accessible to families who don't speak Yiddish.
Read the story →
▶The bouncy Yiddish dance tune known across continents. The chorus everyone joins in on - even those who weren't born into Yiddish.
Read the story →
New!▶A dreamy, slow retro-chanson of the Rebbe Elimelekh story, with Russian lyrics by Olga Anikina.
Watch on YouTube ↗
▶The legendary Odessa dance returns - a new version of the Jewish wedding klezmer favorite, reimagined for a new generation.
Read the story →
▶The Yiddish nostalgia classic about a hometown left behind - given new Russian poetry. One of the most emotionally weighted songs in the catalog.
Read the story →
▶A tender meditation on the small things - a handful of happiness, carried close to the heart. One of the quiet favorites of the catalog.
Read the story →
▶A song of children carried away - a piece of Holocaust memory carried forward in Russian. Required listening for museums and educators.
Read the story →
▶A tango from the Vilna Ghetto. Music by Avrom Brudno (perished in Klooga camp), Yiddish text by Shmerke Kaczerginski. A song of spring that won't come - for the wife who was led away «такой же весною». Used in Yad Vashem and US Holocaust Museum programs.
Read the story →
New!▶An early, intimate guitar recording of Rebbe Elimelekh in Elechka's voice.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶A playful klezmer song about empty pockets and a rich heart.
Watch on YouTube ↗
▶The national anthem of Israel - in Russian. A meditation on hope across centuries. Listeners across many nationalities have written letters about this recording.
Read the story →
New!▶A Russian take on the African-American spiritual 'Go Down, Moses' (Let My People Go), a call to freedom shared by two peoples.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶The Yiddish anthem Ale Brider with Russian lyrics: we are all sisters, we are all brothers.
Watch on YouTube ↗
▶A boy from the Vilna Ghetto who sells cigarettes to survive. He whistles and sings instead of crying. Music by Misha Veksler, Yiddish text by Leib Rosenthal - both perished in the camps. Russian text by Olga Anikina, 2017.
Read the story →
▶One of the most piercing songs born in the camps. Original Polish text by 12-year-old Irka Janowski, who perished at Auschwitz. Russian poetic reconstruction by Olga Anikina, performed by Elechka.
Read the story →
▶A mother sings her son to sleep - «за рекою гром грохочет, а у нас в округе тишь да гладь». Original Russian poem by Olga Anikina (2017), inspired by Rikl Glezer's «S'iz geven a zumertog» from the Vilna Ghetto (1941). The melody - the same folk tune as in «Купите папиросы».
Read the story →
▶A song of the warm hearth and the warm home. The kind of song grandmothers used to sing when winter came.
Read the story →
▶A playful Yiddish song about trades and dreams - what would I be if I were a tailor, a baker, a shoemaker? Now in Russian.
Read the story →
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗
▶The dreidl Hanukkah song in Elechka's voice, the classic version. A modern version (Riglis Band) plays on the same page.
Read the story →
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗
New!▶New on the RIGLI channel. Words and the full story are on the way.
Watch on YouTube ↗Yiddish as a living language is fading, and that we cannot stop. But we can keep the songs alive, and give them new voices in new languages, so that a new generation can sing them.
For years we have done exactly that in Russian, thanks to the poetry of Olga Anikina and the voice of Elechka. Those songs have drawn more than 7.7 million streams across distribution platforms and approximately 4.5 million views on the RIGLI YouTube channel, with more than a thousand listeners writing to say the songs touched them.
Now we are doing it in English, as a joyful school of Jewish song for children, families, and teachers everywhere. That is what JewishSong.org is for.
JewishSong.org - Jewish songs for all.
Walter J. Kin is openly looking for collaborators to help write and grow this school of song. If this sounds like you, or someone you know, we would love to hear from you.
To write new Jewish songs in English, for the classroom, the stage, and the screen.
To shape original music for the new Jewish songbook, from first sketch to finished track.
To produce recordings that can stand beside anything in the mainstream.