Yiddish Mailing List, Issue #37 April 22, 1991 174 lines =============================== Vitzen (Ali Lemer, Yosef Hochberg) Fraye forshers/Fraye forshung (Dovid-Noyekh Miller) Reply to request re books for 13-year-old (Frank Silbermann) ------------------------ Digest-Message: 37/1 Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1991 02:07:01 -0400 From: Ali Lemer Subject: Vitz NOKH A POR ---------- A yid hot getrogn oyf der gas a Khelemer [a mentsh fun Khelem, an oysgetrakht shtetl in Poyln]. Zet er, as der Khelemer trogt eyn shukh a shvartzn un eyn a broynem. Fregt er baym Khelemer: "Vos is mit aykh, Reb Yid? Ir geyt arum in eyn shukh a shvartzn un eynem a broynem!" "Ir vet mistome lakhn," zogt im der Khelemer, " ober in der heym hob ikh nokh aza por shikh!" Zay gesunt! -- Ali. Ali Lemer | "Humour is an affirmation of dignity, a Columbia University | declaration of man's superiority to all ali@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu | that befalls him." -- Romain Gary ------------------------ Digest-Message: 37/2 Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1991 04:41:44 -0400 From: Yosef Hochberg Subject: a vitz, etc. Dear Everybody: For a long time I have enjoyed your communications. My name is Yosef Hochberg, Israely, prof of statistics and an idish speaker. ir kent zicher dem vitz vegn a id daneintachz tzi 3 yiden in a park. aina krechtzt "oy", der andera "vey", un der dritte, "iz mir". Zugt der kimidika yid: az ir hert nisht oif reden politik, red ich nisht mit eich!! Nu, lomir kimen tzim punct. Vus machen yiden heintike tzeitn in golus?? plaplen a tzibrocxhene idish?? Yosel. ------------------------ Digest-Message: 37/3 Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1991 00:16:57 -0400 From: David Neal Miller Subject: fraye forshers/fraye forshung If I might reply to my friend-through-email and sometime antagonist Noyekh Miller in a personal/anecdotal, rather than strictly academic, manner: I've not been privileged to have seen the Yiddish literary world in full flower; indeed, 1971/1972 (when I first strayed from German to Yiddish literature in grad school) were marked more by closures than by openings--perhaps the last public appearance by Yankev Glatshteyn at the Uriel Weinreich Summer Program; the closing of the Tog-Morgn-zhurnal and the ill-conceived flight of the Forverts and Arbeter-ring to central Manhattan; the last summers of Camp Hemshekh (the Bundist summer camp); the fading of so much of importance in what was to become my world. I did, however, get to meet a number of individuals, wonderful souls who had forgone the opportunity of university positions in German, Slavic, or comparative literature to conduct research and write on (and _in_) their beloved Yiddish. Dr. Elias Shulman, z"l, immediately springs to mind, though there were certainly others. Let us be honest: their distance from the academy made of them less well trained scholars than those of us moving laterally at the master's or doctoral level in other fields. Let us be more honest: that training made of us superior scholars. But we had not known the authors or the society about whom and which we were about to write; we had read immeasurably less than the preceding generation of unaffiliated scholars; we were not, in short, of the world which produced modern(ist) Yiddish literature, nor were we addressing the remaining scholars of that world in our own scholarly writings. The passing generation wrote for the general public and not for the academy for a cluster of reasons: few if any could have been accommodated in the academy _as Yiddishists_; the consumers of Yiddish literature were not academics; and--why ignore careerist factors?--what income they received was not generated by the academy, but by the Yiddish press and cultural institutions. My generation writes for tenure, for promotion, for other academics--just as do our colleagues in the other languages and literatures. The serious study of literature has, in all events, moved into the academy, both for better (higher level of discourse) and for worse (so few fellow-colloquants). As such, Khaver Noyekh is the happy and sad anachronism: a non-specialist (better: a non-paid specialist) who takes literature and serious discourse about literature passionately. May his tribe increase. I suggest that neither Noyekh's proposed list (nor, perhaps, Donyel's mail.yiddish) is the most appropriate forum for such discussion. Literary criticism belongs in the academic journals and intellectual press; there is even a newly founded journal devoted to Yiddish linguistics, literature, and folklore published (in Yiddish!) at Oxford University and edited by Dr. Dovid Katz, viz. Oksforder yidish (45 St. Giles', Oxford, England). And the facts of academic life make it unlikely that professional Yiddishists will elect to publish in mail.yiddish. That said, I would be entirely delighted to be proven mistaken, and/or to be shown that there is a world out there anxious to engage in serious colloquy. I yearn for and dream of the Yiddish Writers' Club in Warsaw that I shall never see, and of the Cafe Royal on Second Avenue that I shall also never see--and for the engaged and engaging intellects who peopled such places. But the younger and no- longer-so-young generations of academic Yiddishists face one another in the pages of the journals, or at meetings such as the MLA, the LSA, and the Oxford Winter Symposia. Why not come join us there? Mit frayndshaft un derekh-erets, ayer Dovid-Noyekh Miller ------------------------ Digest-Message: 37/4 From: Frank Silbermann Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1991 10:25:47 -0400 > Suggestions for books for a 13-year-old to learn > Yiddish? (Yankl Falk) > > Ikh darf fregn: mayn eltster zun Simkhe iz mit > zeks khadoshim tsurik bar-mitzve gevorn, un itst > vil er g-tzedank lernen mame-loshn. > ... Tsi kent ir andere bikher oder lern-materialn > vos zaynen laytish far a ben-draytsn? > Ikh hub gekoift an interesantes buch, dos hayss _Gut Yuntif, Gut Yahr_. Es hot Americanishe folklore, (dos heiss gedichter un lieder) ibersets tzu Yiddish. Di aleph-beis is fun English, nisht die aleph-beis fun Loshen Koydesh. Solch an alte buch, vayss nit vu es is noch tzu koifen. Ober a maven fun "used books" soll kennen finden es. (Apologies, ob mein Yiddish is halb-Deitsh.) Frank Silbermann Tulane University New Orleans, Louisiana USA [Ikh hob geshribn vegn Gut Yuntif, Gut Yohr in Digest-Message 10/1. Zen dortn farn iberzetzung fun Hiawatha. ("Bei dem breg fun Gitchee-Goomee..." - DS] ------------------------ SOF FUN NUMER 37 ------------------------ David (Daniel Moishe) Sherman, Toronto Moderator, mail.yiddish dave@lsuc.on.ca attcan!lsuc!dave@uunet.uu.net uunet!attcan!lsuc!dave {AT&T sites}!att!lsuc!dave