Lemeshke

A little boy in the Pale of Settlement thinks his name is lemeshke—“good-for-nothing”—until a song at the Shabbos table proves otherwise. From there, his voice will carry him through pogroms, across an ocean, and onto the stages and synagogues of New York, on the way to becoming composer Sholom Secunda. In this debut episode, we meet Secunda long before fame and “Bei Mir Bist Du Sheyn.” Guided by a wry, ghostly Sholom himself, we follow his journey from Nicholayev cheder to child cantor, through the terror of the 1905 pogroms and a near-fatal illness, to Ellis Island reunions, Lower East Side tenements, and the pulpits and playhouses that make him a star. Along the way, he discovers nusach, learns to turn trauma into song, and falls under the spell of Enrico Caruso and composer Ernest Bloch, who challenges him to write music that is not just about Jews, but deeply, unmistakably Jewish. By the end of the episode, the “lemeshke” who once faded into corners has become a young composer caught between the Yiddish stage and serious Jewish art music. The hit song that will change his life hasn’t been written yet—but every note of it is already hiding in his story. For full show notes, sources, Spotify playlist, and discussion, visit: https://jewishsongshow.substack.com/ Support the show Thanks for listening to The Jewish Song Show, from The Jewish Song Project, Inc. (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit). Full episode notes, sources, and our Spotify playlist: https://jewishsongshow.org • To support this work, visit https://jewishsongshow.org/donate.