Lebn zol Franz Josef un Wilhelm - a Yiddish chorus song of World War I 

The pro-Central Powers feeling among many Jews could go further. A private in the British Army of Russian Jewish origin defected to the Germans shortly before the Battle of the Somme started in 1916 and told them what he knew. It wasn't much but he knew roughly when the attack would start, though the Germans had other indications. The German file describing what he told them was only found well after WW2.

Asoy a schein lidl. Long lebn zoln zi. A groysn dank meyn fraynd

Yiddish prayer for the Czar: "May G-d protect and keep the Czar far far away!"

What a valuable testament to the cruelty of history. As one example,Ann Frank's father had loyally fought for Germany in the First World War,and he pointed this out when arrested.

Ironic that all three empires together with their emperors were history after the war.

"American Jews in general loathed Nicholas II so much that they threw in with the other side - the Germans and the Austrians." Honestly, fair enough! lmao.

It sounds like the people who wrote the song might have been from Ukraine, presumably from Galicia (which used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian empire). "Katsap" is, to my knowledge, a Ukrainian slur for Russians. And yes, given the extreme antisemitism promoted by the Tsarists (most notably the publication of the fake "Protocols of the Learned Elders"), it made sense for the Eastern European Jewish community to root against the Romanov dynasty.

The Russian Tsars used their armies to commit extremely violent progroms against Eastern European Jews. On top of this, Russian monarchs had restricted Jewish movement to the Pale of Settlement for centuries at that point. This led to many Eastern Europeans Jews fleeing to America to escape said violence and persecution. Seeing to as how this song was made by said American Jews, it's clear why it contained so much vitriol. Imagine one man and his family has been oppressing and killing your community for centuries, you wouldn't have anything good to say about him. Also, compared to Imperial Russia, Western European countries like Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary were anti-semitic, but far less violent to Jewish people and Jewish citizens of Western European countries had more rights than they did in Imperial Russia. There is a saying that if you ask someone in the 19th and early 20th century where a genocide of a country's Jewish/the Holocaust would take place, they would have said Imperial Russia in a heartbeat and no one would have believed you if you said Germany which was, for the shaky standards of the time, tolerant.

Ironical that the same people who wrote this song, also killed Czar Nikolai later.

Nice singing!

“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.” Proverbs 24

Cool song. I will be checking out more of this channel

Saint Nicholas II of Russia as he is known in the Orthodox Church

That awkward moment youre an Orthodox Chrisitan with a Jewish ancestor (and Jewish Orthodox Christian convert friends ☦️) and Tsar Nicholas II is a canonized martyr saint with his family.:I The Tsar was not his corrupt government...

Sheds some light on the deep roots of Jewish-Russian relations. In particular, it's soooo sweeeet to see Ukrainian ethnic slur "Katsap" when referring to Russians while Jewish pogroms were actually committed mostly by Ukrainians

Irony is that Wilhelm II expressed anti-Semitic views

Thumbnail depicts something different. Over there, over there...

Чудово ❤

Lebn zol Kolombus with different lyrics

Such a peace loving composer!

Hail Victory.

🥴🤤😵‍💫🤢🤮