Sholom Secunda

Sholom Secunda (, 4 September 1894, Alexandria, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire13 June 1974, New York) was an American composer of Ukrainian-Jewish descent, best known for the tunes of “Bei Mir Bistu Shein” and “Donna Donna”. Biography He was born in 1894 as Shloyme Abramovich Sekunda () in Aleksandria city, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) to the family of Abram Secunda and Anna Nedobeika. In 1897, the family moved to the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv, where they opened an iron bed factory. In 1919-1920, he earned his first solo composer’s credits with S. H. Kon’s The Rabbi’s Daughter and Free Slaves. He worked in Philadelphia’s Metropolitan Opera House with director Boris Thomashevsky; in 1921-22 he was director and composer at Clara Young’s Liberty Theater. He composed for the musical Di Yidishe Shikse by Anshel Schorr (1927) and A nakht fun libe (A Night of Love) by Israel Rosenberg. An exhaustive list of his many works can be found in the Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater. Together with Aaron Zeitlin, he wrote the famous Yiddish song “Dos kelbl (The Calf)” (also known as “Donna Donna”) which was covered by many musicians, including Donovan and Joan Baez. Al