Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 7.075 October 10, 1997 1) Food in song (Ellen Prince) 2) Food in Song (David Robboy) 3) maydeney-meylekh (Percy Mett) 4) Yidishe bikher (Henny Lewin / Aaron Lansky) 5) Stalin's applied linguistics and Bund (Stan Nadel) 6) Dovid Edelshtat (Iosif Vaisman) 7) Yiddish Theatre in Montreal (Phyllis Unger) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 01:21:42 EDT From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Food in song In reply to Marvin Engel's reminiscence, I can donate the following transcription of the song as recorded in the 1940s by Sarah Gorby (Melotone 293). In my notes I have the writer/composer as Zaslavsky/Gelbart & Goykhberg -- but I have no idea how accurate that is or who did what. I also have no idea how traditional these lyrics were -- Gorby was not above changing lyrics to suit her purposes. DRAY YINGELEKH di mame hot dray yingelekh, dray yingelekh gehat. mit beyde royte bekelekh, di tsarte [?]. hot eyns geheysn berele, dos tsveyte khayim shmerele, dos drite hot geheysn 'men zol im koyfn shikh'. ikh hob aykh opgenart, ikh hob gevust ir vart, dos drite kleyne yingele, dos drite, dos bin ikh, bin ikh. dos drite kleyne yingele, dos drite, dos bin ikh, bin ikh. di mame hot dray niselekh, fun dem yarid gebrakht. dray gute fete niselekh, dray niselekh, a trakht. iz eyns geven far berele, un eyns far khayim shmerele, un gor dos beste nisele, hot zi gelozt far zikh. ir vundert zikh a bisl far vos nit mir a nisl, vayl nisl, nisl, nisele, dos drite, dos bin ikh, bin ikh. vayl nisl, nisl, nisele, dos drite, dos bin ikh, bin ikh. di mame hot aheymgebrakht tsvey niselekh [...] mikh, tsvey nislekh far di briderlekh, un mir tsvey naye shikh. Ellen Prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 23:16:18 -0700 (PDT) From: David Robboy Subject: Food in Song I can't resist mentioning an Argentine Yiddish tango sent to me on a tape by Abraham Lichtenbaum of Buenos Aires, called "Mano a Mano" in Spanish and "My Love" in English, by Max Perelman, who according to Abraham was a famous Jewish actor who wrote a lot of parodies of popular tangos. This is the only song I know that mentions both papas fritas and mameliges. My transcription is awful as I don't speak Yiddish and am far from fluent in Spanish, but here's how I hear the last stanza: Ir gelibter oter de Rodriguez Kor metsi mit mameliges In fartsit ir di pastriges Shik tsu ir zayn amigos In farshidn er religyes In mir platst mayn corazon Would anyone venture a translation of this into English? David Robboy 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:08:32 +0100 From: Percy Mett Subject: maydeney-meylekh The line from The Mendele Review Vol. 01.020: "vilde mentshn, gehodevet a khoydesh nokhanand mit maydeney-meylekh, un a" It took me a while to figure this out. Does anyone really *say* maydeney-meylekh. I would say; madAny mylekh; ignoring my pronunciation I've never heard the stress on the first syllable. perets mett 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:10:56 -0500 From: Henny Lewin Subject: Yidishe bikher Aaron Lansky asked me to please post this on Mendele. A groysn dank un a gmar khasime toyve aykh ale, Henny Lewin National Yiddish Book Center "I understand there has been some discussion in recent months of the need for on-line ordering of out-of-print Yiddish books. The answer is ot ot -- the Yiddish Book Center is hard at work on a comprehensive web site that will not only place our entire catalog on-line, but also provide the possibility for direct, on-line ordering. Eventually the catalog will include entries in the original Yiddish (Hebrew) alphabet as well as romanization. And within a year we hope to be able to provide acid-free reprints on demand of every title in our collection. So in short, we may have been a bit slow in making our cyber debut, but we're definitely working on the challenge and intend to make a real difference to Yiddish readers everywhere once we get there. In the meantime, if you're looking for specific Yiddish titles, feel free to contact us by e-mail (BIKHER.ORG), or to phone us the old fashioned way at 1-888-4BIKHER." Aaron Lansky 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 14:58:56 -0500 From: Stan Nadel Subject: Stalin's applied linguistics and Bund I humbly stand corrected by Iosif Vaisman's scholarly posting "Stalin's applied linguistics and Bund," having relied on my ever more failable memory to date Stalin's early work on the National Question. My main point was that it had been written long before Stalin's rise to power and the establishment of the Birobidjan colony. Iosif is of course correct in pointing out that Stalin wrote this as part of the ideological struggle by the Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks and the Bund, a context which has to be kept in mind in interpreting its meaning. I might add one other point, Stalin wrote this under Lenin's close supervision and the ideas here represent Lenin's thinking at the time--with Stalin acting more as amanuensis than as theoretician. Stan Nadel 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 00:13:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Iosif Vaisman Subject: Dovid Edelshtat John Patten asked about collections of Dovid Edelshtat's songs [7.074]. There are many of them, including: Shriften / London: Arbeyter fraynd, 1909. 405 p. (and several editions later) Edelshtadt's shriften : a zamlung fun ale zayne poetishe shriften in poezye un proza / Nyu-York: Hibru Poblishing Kompani, 1923. 334 p. Geklibene werk / Moskve: Emes, 1935. 2 v. Edelshtat's folks-gedikhte : naye folshtendige oysgabe fun alle zayne lieder / Nyu-York: Hibru Poblishing Kompani, 1939. 213 p. There are many books about Edelshtat as well. The latest one just published: Kritz, Ori. The poetics of anarchy: David Edelshtat's revolutionary poetry / New York : P. Lang, 1997 (Europaische Hochschulschriften. Reihe XVIII, Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaften ; Bd. 88. ISBN 0820435341) Other selected titles include: Marmor, Kalmon. David Edelshtat / Nyu York: Ikuf Farlag, 1950. 410 p. Jeshurin, Ephim. David Edelshtat bibliografie. Nyu York: Ofdrok, 1953. 23 p. Dovid Edelshtat gedenk-bukh : tsum zekhtsikstn yortsayt 1892-1952 / Nyu York: Dovid Edelshtat komitetn, 1953. 624 p. Zacusky, Aaron Joel. Dovid Edelshtat un etlekhe zayne forgeyer / Buenos Aires: Farlag "Dovid Edelshtat", 1955. 111 p. Iosif Vaisman Chapel Hill 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 11:58:56 -0400 From: Phyllis Unger Subject: Yiddish Theatre in Montreal The Yiddish Theatre of the Saidye Bronfman center for the arts in Montreal has recently put up a web page. It is accessible through the CJA page at http://www.federationcja.org/montreal/program/orgs/mo_sbc.htm Can you help me get this page known to people who are interested in Yiddish acticities. Thanks, Phyllis Unger ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 7.075 Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html