Yiddish Curiosities: a library of wonderful but forgotten Yiddish songs from the late 1920s and after (includes Polish Jewish Cabaret). Have a listen!

My favorite of the four ultra-rare booklets I wheedled out of the National Library in Jerusalem was composed by (I.) Itskhok or Yitschok Zhelanek or Zhelonek of Warsaw Poland. (See how hard it is to spell these names?)

He says "you can get the cheapest songs from me" and he says "if you don't know the melodies, come by Yitzok's place and he'll teach them to you." I bet he did this cover painting himself. I wonder if he made any more books like this one?

There are three songs in Polish - but written in Yiddish - in this book: he describes them as being hits by the Polish revue star Norska-Novitsa. I want to know who she was, too...

In somebody else's book, he advertises that he buys and sells Polish and Yiddish books, and that young Jewish poets who want their work published can come to Zielonek every Sunday from 9-12 and 5-9. Maybe he was holding an "open mic."