Musicלייבו לוין

Leibu Levin

Leibu Levin was a Yiddish reciter, singer and composer from Bukovina who set Yiddish poetry to music and settled in Israel in 1972.

1914 to 1983Reciting Yiddish poetry and proseMelodies for Yiddish poemsTranslating Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger into Yiddish

Died: 7 February 1983, Herzliya
Occupation: poet, composer, writer, singer

Leibu Levin was born in 1914 in Câmpulung Moldovenesc

Levin was born in 1914 in Câmpulung Moldovenesc. In 1919 he moved to Czernowitz, where he sang in the choir of the city's choral synagogue.

He studied Yiddish language and literature at the teachers' seminar of the Yiddisher Shul-Farayn. At the same time he began giving recitals of Yiddish prose and poetry, often singing his own melodies.

He performed in towns across Romania and was the first to bring the songs of Zelig Bardichever to the stage. In 1939 Hersh Segal published his album of lullabies, and a song he set by M.-L. Halpern became a folksong.

In 1941 he was drafted into the Red Army and then sent to a labor camp in the Urals. In 1942 he was arrested on a charge of spying for Romania and held in prison camps until 1956. His parents and 2 sisters died in Transnistria.

After his release he performed again, partly with Nechama Lifshitz, until poor health forced him off the stage. In 1972 he immigrated to Israel with his family, set Hebrew poems to music and translated the poems of Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger into Yiddish. He died in Herzliya in 1983.