Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
song
"Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" (Hebrew: צאנה צאנה צאנה, "Come Out, Come Out, Come Out"), sometimes "Tzena, Tzena", is a song, written in 1941 in Hebrew. Its music is by Issachar Miron (a.k.a. Stefan Michrovsky), a Polish emigrant in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), and the lyrics are by Yechiel Chagiz.
History
Miron, born in 1919, left Poland at the age of 19 in the late 1930s, thus avoiding the Holocaust. In 1941, while serving in the Jewish Brigade of the British forces, he composed the melody for lyrics written by Chagiz. The song became popular in the British Mandate of Palestine and was played on the Kol Yisrael radio service.
Julius Grossman, who did not know who composed the song, wrote the so-called third part of "Tzena" circa November 1946. After hearing Pete Seeger performing "Tzena", with The Weavers as backing, Gordon Jenkins made an arrangement of the song for the Weavers with English lyrics. The Jenkins/Weavers version, released by Decca Records under catalog number 27077, was one side of a two-sided hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard magazine charts in 1950 while the flip side, "Goodnight, Irene", reached No.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena” is song. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tzena and song, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “song” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q338152. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1919, 1946 and 1950.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Tzena, Tzena, Tzena primary sources, Tzena, Tzena, Tzena archive and Tzena research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.