New York and Countries of the World

This morning Joyce had shared the following message by Arman Akopian Quote: "Jewish fighters who hummed an Armenian love-song between their battles It is difficult to find out today how an Armenian folk-song, “Hingalla”, about a shepherd in love (lyrics below), became known to fighters of Palmach, an underground Jewish military brigade active in Palestine in 1941-1948. According to Haim Hefer (19-2012), a poet and a former member of Palmach, so popular was the melody of “Hingalla” among his comrades-in-arms that around 1945 he added Hebrew lyrics to it. And so “Finjan” (“A coffee cup”) was born, a song about soldiers who drink coffee around the camp-fire and tell each other tall stories. The song was first published in 1946 in a Palmach song-book, with the melody presented as “Russian,” but starting from 1949 all subsequent publications referred to it as “Armenian folk.” “Finjan” became very popular in Israel thanks to Yaffa Yarkoni, an Israeli singer born in 1925 into a famil...