Chad Gadya

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"Chad Gadya" (Aramaic: חַד גַדְיָה) is a playful cumulative song, written in Aramaic with Hebrew words interspersed. The song's titled translates literally as "one young female goat [kid]". It is the last song sung before "L'shana Ha'ba'ah Birushalayim" (Next Year in Jerusalem) at the Passover Seder. It is believed to have developed from Medieval German folk music. The song is popular with children and similar to other cumulative songs such as "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly". ("Echad Mi Yodea", another cumulative song, is also in the Passover Haggadah.)

Symbolism of "Chad Gadya"

Many explanations have been written attempting to explain the song's lyrics. A popular explanation is that Chad Gadya shows the different nations that have inhabited the Land of Israel with the child goat being the Jewish people, then the cat being Assyria, the dog Babylon, the stick Persia, the fire Macedonia, the water Rome, the ox Saracens; the slaughterer the Crusaders, the Angel of Death, the Turks. At the end, God returns to send the Jews back to Israel.[citation needed]

In other media

  • A version of "Had Gadia" performed by Chava Alberstein bookends the Natalie Portman film Free Zone, with a slightly different translation of the lyrics used for the English subtitles than what is found above (the animal is a lamb, not a kid), and with an additional verse relating to the "hellish circle" of violence in the Middle East.[1]


See also

References

  1. ^ "Free Zone electronic press kit" (PDF) (Press release). BAC Films. 2005-05-09. Retrieved 2006-12-10.