American Yiddish Penny Songs by Morris Rund and others: The Hebrew Union College collection of Yiddish broadsides, 1895-1922

Songbook: Yiddish Penny Songs from the Lower East Side

Morris Rund is a shadowy figure who wrote many Yiddish lyrics and melodies and copyrighted a staggering number of them. He was a baker and a street singer. This book is facsimiles of about 200 songs that were peddled on the streets of New York around the turn of the 20th century: their texts, and the advertisements on them, tell a delicious story of the culture of the time. The book is entirely in Yiddish.

Click for the American Penny Songs table of contents

Companion cds:

Songs of the Lower East Side in the gaslight eraDer East Side fun amol (click to preview the songs)

Songs of the Lower East Side in the gaslight eraVos hot men tsu mir? (click to preview the songs)


Here is a sample song.

The digital version of American Penny Songs costs $7. I will email you the 382-page book as a pdf file within a day. You can punch holes in the copies you make and put them in a loose-leaf binder, or you can take the pdf file to a local copy shop on a thumb drive and they can make you a back-to-back copy.

Click here to purchase the download edition ($7).
(you can change your mind at any point in the process.)

If you are ordering from within the United States I can sell the paperback edition to you directly at a discount: I order the book for you from Createspace (print-on-demand, they make them one at a time) and it will be mailed directly to you in a week or two.

Click here to purchase the paperback (US domestic only) for $12.00 plus $4.00 shipping (if I find I'm losing money at this rate I will adjust it.)
(you can change your mind at any point in the process.)

If you live outside the United States, or if you prefer to deal with Amazon directly:

Click here to purchase Yiddish Songs from Warsaw directly from Amazon's CreateSpace for $15 plus shipping.
(you can change your mind at any point in the process.)
purchase Yiddish Songs from Warsaw directly from Amazon's CreateSpace.)


About me

Jane PepplerI am a Yiddish enthusiast living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and have been writing books and recording cds since the 1980s. In the last few years I have translated three novels by the once-famous Yiddish novelist Jacob Dineson as well as many articles and, of course, songs. I gave a lecture/concert on my research at the Library of Congress in 2014 and at the American Jewish Library Jubilee in 2015. I won the grand prize in the second annual Der Yidisher Idol Yiddish song writing and performance competition in Mexico City.

I perform with the world music ensemble Mappamundi at concerts, workshops, festivals, and weddings. We're always looking for new places to present this wonderful music. See Cabaret Warsaw for information on our Yiddish (and Polish-Jewish) theater music performances.

To bring things back from the brink of extinction is my vocation. I have two donkeys, a flock of chickens, two children, one grandson, and a grand-dog.

What else would you like to know? email me at jane@mappamundi.com Jane Peppler

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For more information contact Jane Peppler at jane@mappamundi.com 919-606-2122