Itzik Vitnberg, Never Say/Zog nit keyn mal

Itzik Vitnberg by Shmerke Kaczerginski Never Say/Zog nit keyn mol by Hirsh Glick Also known as Partizaner Hymn (Hymn of the Partizans) Arranged by Sheridan Seyfried; adapted by Ramon Tasat Perhaps the best-known Yiddish song of the Jewish resistance during the Shoah (holocaust) is "Zog nit keyn mol," also known as the "Partizaner hymn." Sung for memorial services around the world, the piece is a moving union of Jewish and Russian musical traditions. The music was composed by the Russian-Jewish Pokrass brothers, who originally wrote it for a 1935 Soviet propaganda movie, "Sons of the Working People." The protagonists of the song are Red Army Cossacks who are marching to defend Soviet Russia. That this Soviet song, glorifying the very perpetrators of bloody pogroms against Jews, would have been written by Jews and eventually transform itself into an anthem of Jewish resistance against the Nazis is a testament to the ability of music to transcend its cultural origins.