Any idea what "Chalujnik!" means?

Cafe Society
1

I’m in a community theater production of Young Frankenstein and there’s a line when the Transylvanian villagers serenade the title character:

“Welcome to Transylvania
We’re very happy that you’re here
Welcome to Transylvania
We greet you with a might cheer… Chalujnik!”

Does anybody know if “Chalujnik” is an actual word, and if so what language it is in? Googling just brings up Young Frankenstein references, but its similarity to “salus” makes me think there might be some kind of relationship to a real word, perhaps with a more common spelling. I know not to look for cultural accuracy in a Mel Brooks farce that has a Romanian inspector counting in German and speaking Yiddish (he mentions “kvelling and kvetching”) but just curious.

2

I’m in the same boat, music directing Young Frankenstein for community theatre. I presumed it was Yiddish, but haven’t found it anywhere. The “-nik” at the end made me think of Ukrainian. It turns out “chalujnik” is “prankster” in Ukrainian. I don’t know that that makes a lot of sense in the context of the show, but there you go. Let me know if you ever find anything else.