Jordan Wax, outside his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico<\/span> Photo by Annie Quick<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Zach Golden<\/a> Jordan Wax, a Santa Fe-based performer and composer of Yiddish and New Mexican regional music, has just released a record of original secular Yiddish children\u2019s songs. When asked why, he didn\u2019t skip a beat: \u201cMy day job is doing kids\u2019 music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It started eight years ago when Wax, who\u2019s a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, took a job singing bilingual Spanish-English songs for toddlers across the three branches of the Santa Fe public library. The repertoire included traditional songs from New Mexico and Mexico, as well as his own adaptations of traditional songs to make them bilingual and participatory.<\/p>\n Now, he\u2019s a regular feature at the local Jewish preschool, in Temple Beth Shalom. The songs are still bilingual \u2014 but this time, they\u2019re in Yiddish and English.<\/p>\n In his new album Pantakozak and Other New Yiddish Songs for Kids<\/em><\/a>, some of the songs were actually written in collaboration with these very preschoolers. \u201cThe Polar Bear song came from one of them who was kind of grumpy that day, and just wanted to roar and be ferocious and express rage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The album was released by the Yiddish specialist label Borscht Beat in late November of this year.<\/p>\n Wax\u2019s background with children\u2019s music might seem surprising if you\u2019ve heard his other album, the recently-released Taytsh [The Heart Deciphers]<\/em><\/a>, which features heavy subject matter like the bloodlust of power, the loss of culture, perpetual war and the fallout of late-stage capitalism, all sung in Yiddish.<\/p>\n At the same time, he\u2019s very comfortable with being silly, and wants people to know that Yiddish culture is, too. \u201cYiddish music does have a lot of seriousness. It does have a lot of political commentary. It has a lot of spiritual commentary. But it also has fun and goofiness.\u201d For example, \u201cBulbes,\u201d a nonsense song about eating potatoes everyday, is part of the traditional Yiddish canon.<\/p>\n Along with light humor, Pantakozak<\/em> is deeply infused with stories and musical references to prewar Jewish Eastern Europe \u2014 material that Wax started recording in earnest during a visit to Moldova in 2023. He took a special interest in the traditional Romani L\u0103utari music of the Bessarabian region, which was once closely entwined with local klezmer music, and befriended the L\u0103utari band Taraf de Chi\u0219in\u0103u. They feature on several tracks, including the Hanukkah song Khanike iz Freylekh \/ Spin Around Like a Dreydl, where Vladislav Tanas\u2019 cimbalom drives the pulsating rhythm.<\/p>\n The album reflects a deep Jewish connection to the Old World. Wax\u2019s late friend, Misha Limanovitch, was a storyteller who grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home in Olechnowicze, formerly Poland, now part of Belarus. Limanovitch made the old world that felt nearly mythical to Wax feel close at hand until he passed away in 2023.<\/p>\n Limanovitch described a resident of the village called Itshke the Klezmer, a recording of which later became the introductory part of Wax\u2019s song, \u201cItshke the Klezmer.\u201d \u201cHe remembered this character in his village who would come around, who was a kind of itinerant musician, a klezmer,\u201d Wax said. \u201cThat made a big impression on me after studying klezmer music.\u201d Wax had heard a lot about the village musicians in Eastern Europe, and before hearing about Itshke the klezmer, it all felt \u201clike a million light years away.\u201d<\/p>\n Limanovich also told Wax the story of Pantakozak, the Cossack-like figure who threatened children that he would go into their cradles if they didn\u2019t lay quiet \u2014 a story which his sister used to tell him before going to bed. Wax wasn\u2019t sure if this young girl made up the story or not, since he couldn\u2019t find any reference to this creature anywhere.<\/p>\n Wax also looked through the Yiddish Book Center\u2019s OCR (optical character recognition) for phrases that Limanovich had told him about Pantakozak, like \u201cikh hob dray lange nezer, ikh trink fun draytsn glezer,\u201d (I have three long noses, I drink from 13 glasses) and other absurd rhymes. He found the phrases in the 1917 Antologye, 500 yor yidishe poezye, an anthology of 500 years of Yiddish poetry, in a verse written by the compiler himself, Morris Bassin. Bassin called Pantakozak, the Cossack-monster, by a different name: Gonte Kozak.<\/p>\n Wax was enthused to see that his preschoolers enjoyed the resulting song he composed from the story. One of the preschool teachers sent him a phone video showing a group of four-year-olds sitting around a table during snack time, reciting lines from his song about Pantakozak: \u201cMy name is Panta Kozak! I blow up like a blozak! I put on stripey pants, I do my Panta dance!\u201d<\/p>\n The structure of the album is designed not only for kids, but also for their parents and caretakers. The album begins with music aimed at motivating kids to move their bodies and wiggle. One is a Yiddish counting song, \u201cDi hent af di fis un di fis af di hent<\/em>\u201d (\u201cYour hands on your feet and your feet on your hands\u201d). While it resembles the contemporary English children\u2019s song \u201cHead, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,\u201d it contains references to a traditional Jewish \u201cpatsh-tants<\/em>,\u201d a hand-clapping dance.<\/p>\n Afterwards, the album settles into storytime legends old and new, featuring\u00a0 Limanovich\u2019s tales and a ballad dedicated to Argentinian soccer star Leo Messi. (\u201cThere was a kid who wouldn\u2019t sing about anything if it wasn\u2019t Leo Messi,\u201d Wax explained.) The songs then adopt a slower pace until they lead into the peaceful, moving lullaby, \u201cKhayeles Viglid\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 (Little Chaya\u2019s lullaby).<\/p>\n But when the kids are asleep, the album isn\u2019t over. A more somber adult-oriented piece appears: \u201cYugnt-Himen\u201d<\/em> (\u201cAnthem of the Young,\u201d<\/em> written in 1943 by Shmerke Kaczerginski, the Vilna Ghetto cultural organizer and member of the \u201cPaper Brigade<\/a>,\u201d the group that smuggled important cultural materials into the ghetto. The melody was composed by Basye Rubin, a contemporary of Kaczerginski\u2019s.<\/p>\n In an archival recording excerpted at the beginning of the track, Kaczerginski recalls the need to give courage to the younger generation through song. \u201cThose times demanded, more than any other time, courage and spirit in the face of despair; I taught this song in the ghetto to children,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Wax sings the original along with adaptations of his own in English. Its stirring message is meant for everyone: \u201cYung iz yeder, yeder, yeder ver es vil nor<\/em>,\u201d anyone who wants to be young is indeed young.<\/p>\n Pantakozak\u2019s lyrics, its embrace of intergenerational bonding and its meaningful historical references \u2014 as well as its high quality production and performances \u2014 are unusual in children\u2019s music. The care that Wax put into this record comes from his idea that we should respect our children\u2019s intelligence, just as Kaczeginski implied in his introduction to the song.<\/p>\n \u201cThey deserve to be given something that has the same integrity as what I would want to be given,\u201d Wax said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Zach](\"https:\/\/images.forwardcdn.com\/image\/center\/author\/cropped\/pic-1640287078.JPG\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDecember 10, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n