Yiddish Theatre Songs
In Europe many of the songs of the Yiddish theatre companies were composed as incidental music to musical theatre, or at least plays with strong musical content, whereas others are "hit" individual arias and numbers culled from Yiddish operetta. In America, aside from America's own Yiddish theatres, songwriters and composers employed Yiddish folk and theatre songs, along with synagogue modes and melodies, as material for the music of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and Hollywood. Irving Berlin was one of the popular composers to move from Yiddish song to English songs. Bei Mir Bistu Shein is an example of a Yiddish song which was later recast as an English hit.
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