Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.107 November 25, 1997 1) The Spinoza of Market Street (Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska) 2) shlack (Jon Levitow) 3) Eugene Debs (Ron Robboy) 4) Joe and Paul (Ron Robboy) 5) Radio jingles (Marvin Meyer Engel) 6) Radio Jingles (Heynekh Sapoznik) 7) Manaster Ramer and d'avinan (Meyer Wolf) 8) Ahavo Rabo (David Herskovic) 9) crowns and jesters? (Yaacov Dovid Shulman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 00:36:20 +0000 From: "Monika Garbowska" Subject: The Spinoza of Market Street The original title of the story known in English as "The Spinoza of Market Street" is "Der shpinozist". It can be found in the collection "Gimpl tam un andere dertseylungen" published by Central Yiddish Culture Organization "CYCO" in New York 1963, pp. 62-82. If I am not mistaken, it was originally published in 1944. It is interesting to note that in the original version the protagonist, Doctor Fishelsohn, lives in Krochmalna Street. And the Market Street (Rynkowa in Polish) was known as (Gnoyna; Polish: Gnojna) at the time the story takes place. A title like e.g. "The Spinoza of Krochmalna Street" would be much more meaningful and dramatic for Yiddish or Polish readers but, I guess, like in many similar cases (e.g. "Mayse tishevitz" versus "The Last Demon"), Market Street was a concession made with the English reader in mind. Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 17:59:43 -0500 (EST) From: JLevitow@aol.com Subject: shlack Tayere Mendelyaners, I'm excited to be making my first contribution to Mendele today. I won't try to do it in Yiddish since that would take me some time. However, I did want to offer an example of the word "shlack" that I came across recently. It was in the latest Yivo "Bletter," No. 1 of Vol. 3, which contains among other things the diary of Zelig Kalmanovich from the Vilna Ghetto, in the original Hebrew and in a Yiddish translation. Describing the news of the outside world available in the ghetto, Kalmanovich writes (excuse errors in my transliteration): "Klangen oyf klangen fun alle zeiten: a shalom-farshlag, a mapalah fun soyneh, a farlornkeit, shlacken, vidershpenigkeit, simanim fun oyfshtand?" The Hebrew is: "Shmuos al shmuos mikal ha'averim: hatza'at shalom, mapalat ha'oyev, m'humah um'vusah, pega'im, ve'i-tziot, simanei meridah." So here the word corresponding to "shlacken" seems to be "pega'im" (pe - gimel - ayin - yud - mem), meaning I guess, "accidents" in a bad sense or we might say "evils" or "disasters." I'm no great Hebrew scholar -- is that right? Interestingly, the plural form used here, "shlakEN," is not the one given in Weinreich, who says it should be "shleck." (His translation: stroke, evil). I don't know what that proves, but I thought having the Hebrew equivalent was interesting. By the way, the Kalmanovich diary is fascinating (although grim) stuff, and not too difficult to read, for those who are interested. On an unrelated point, I think Meyer Wolf makes a very relevant point about "our fathers" in Aramaic being "avahasonon" and not "avanan." I am sure I have seen it that way many times. That's it. I hope those offerings weren't too annoying. Now, I have to ask: did we ever come up with an answer to the question of where to find Yiddish classic novels and stories in print? A sheynem dank to all. Jon Levitow 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 16:07:36 -0800 From: rrobboy@cts.com (Ron Robboy) Subject: Eugene Debs Regarding the Yiddish-language constituency enjoyed by Eugene Victor Debs [7.089, 7.099, 7.103], I've been given to understand that the Yiddish radio station WEVD (New York City) took its call letters from the initials of the famous socialist's name. The evidence certainly looks compelling enough. Is there confirmation out there from our radio scholars? Ron Robboy 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 16:09:25 -0800 From: rrobboy@cts.com (Ron Robboy) Subject: Joe and Paul Regarding the "Joe and Paul" commercial and its parody by the Barton Brothers [7.104, 7.105], "Joe & Paul" (Parts 1 and 2), the parody, was included on the LP album _(Joe and Paul) meet Cockeye Jenny_ [Barton Records LP 475]. The Apollo release of which Heynekh Sapoznik writes [7.105.8] was presumably a 78-rpm disc, which would account for the two short parts, i.e., two three-minute sides. The bibliographic record for a tape-cassette release of the _Cockeye Jenny_ album in the collection at the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College(!) offers the speculative date of publication as "198-?", but I know that I bought a copy of the LP in the mid-to-late 1970s. In any event, it seems to me that I've seen an advertisement recently for a CD release of the album, possibly (??) in an Arbeter Ring Book Service catalog. In giving the title of the album above, I put the Joe-and-Paul phrase in parentheses as a way of transcribing the graphics of the album cover, on which that phrase is in much smaller type in the upper left-hand corner, while the large title _Cockeye Jenny_ (and an even larger caricature drawing of "Jenny") dominates the cover. As the LP was issued by Barton Records, one can only wonder if the artists regarded that routine as the more definitive accomplishment. Like the original commercial, the "Joe and Paul" routine uses a bulgar chorus by Secunda, as Heynekh confirmed for us. I myself have never heard any of the actual commercial spots, but the Barton Brothers interpolate verses in the form of parodistic ad copy, spoken mostly in Yiddish, over a background melody of pseudo-Hasidic ba-ba-ba syllables which as often as not veer off into English: "Oh, boy oh boy . . ." I recognize the melody itself as the chorus to "In mayne oygn bistu sheyn" (In my eyes you're beautiful), by Yosef Rumshinsky -- or at least copyrighted by Rumshinsky. With words by Molly Picon and N. Stutchkoff [Nokhem Stutshkof], the original song appeared in the musical _Ganef fun libe_ (Thief of love), according to Irene Heskes' notes to the Library of Congress volume, _Yiddish American Popular Songs_, and was copyright 1931. Stutshkof's close association with WEVD may provide a partial explanation for its inclusion in "Joe and Paul." Perhaps Heynekh has an opinion in this regard. The Barton Brothers humor was often tasteless, stereotypically engaging the Yiddish language at a crude level. Much of the comedy is bilingual (Yiddish-English), with off-color punch lines in Yiddish, if the exposition is in English; or English, if the exposition is in Yiddish. I would imagine that sociolinguists can offer some theoretical framework for this phenomenon of switching language for the naughty moment. Whatever the explanation, the Barton Brothers present a case study of what was happening to Yiddish in the United States in the years following the Second World War. The taboo subjects range from adolescent masturbation to the ubiquitous topic of sex with gentiles. The material, in short, is HILARIOUS! If the lyrics are very direct, the musical parodies are somewhat complex, often working on several levels. In the case of the Rumshinsky/Hasidic verses in "Joe and Paul," there are antiphonal "choral" responses in degrees of English, from "Oy, Sammy's sister" in quasi-dialect, to "Hey bop-a-rebop," taken from African-American scat and hipster jive (this came before Little Richard and Jewish Cleveland disc jockeys, remember). Cut from the same cloth -- a nice gabardine, no doubt -- the "Cut Speech" routine on the album appears to have been created, point for point, on the "Joe and Paul" template. The chorus this time is the melody to Abraham Ellstein's "Der nayer sher." (This song is known in English as "The Wedding Samba," though Heskes points out that it was also published as "The Wedding Rumba.") The verses are no longer Hasidic parody, but done in what I would call high _khazones_, a dramatic cantorial delivery, only lamenting sex with gentiles, rather than the typically more existential post-Edenic catastrophes. The choral responses are "It's going to be a whi-i-i-te Christmas" and "Please don't fence me in," with subdominant minor chords, amen-style, on "whi-i-i-te" and "fence me." Both these lines, of course refer to American popular songs, and in doing so, to a panoply of issues addressing race, sensuality, and transgression, which more or less constitute the history of American popular song, but the ironies are ratcheted up a notch as Black/White cultural dialectics and Yiddish-English bilingualism provide mutually recursive commentaries on one another. In the song "Arriba," trumpet riffs in the _misheberakh_ mode (so-called altered Dorian mode, i.e., "Rumanian" raised fourth) are interrupted by a half-tempo quote of the famous theme to Rossini's Overture to _William Tell_, in a straight minor key, over a slow bulgar rhythm set to a Latin meter (congas, claves, and castanets on even eighth notes). Each style, of course, provides a commentary against all the others; and style aside, the Rossini citation refers not only to the chaste world of opera and concert hall, but promiscuously to that of mass media and popular culture, at a minimum calling attention to itself as the theme to the _Lone Ranger_ radio show (and from there to Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, Masked Men and Superheroes and every other genre you can think of). All this musical miscegenation creates a rich bath of metaphor for the sexual transgressions the lyrics describe, and all *that* in a naughty bilingual conjugality. Among the most amazing displays of cross-cultural referentiality which I noticed in the album is in the song "Cockeye Jenny." Aside from the last four lines, which are in English and entirely tasteless, the entire song is Yiddish, with the exception, about a third of the way through, of one couplet sung in English: "I tell you, people, it's no use talking." This is a line whose _yikhes_ would be worth exploring. I know it from the great song by Alexander Olshanetsky and Jacob Jacobs, "Oy, I Like She," itself a bilingual (and musically promiscuous) tour de force from the 1927 musical _A nakht in kalifornye_ (A night in California) and recorded more than once by Aaron Lebedeff. The question that occurs to me is, was the entire expression a catchphrase that pre-dated its appearance in Jacobs' lyric? Or was it entirely of Jacobs' invention? (And did Lebedeff contribute?) Whether the line had a life previous to _A nakht in kalifornye_ or not, it was certainly Lebedeff's hit -- which had to have been studied, at least in America, by every Catskill burlesquer and vaudevillian of the Barton Brothers' generation (I am guessing they were born in the early 1910s) -- that propelled it into its appearance in "Cockeye Jenny," where for the present generation, it has become a superb example of Yiddish taken from the English taken from the Yiddish taken from the English. I'm telling you, people, it's no use talking! Ron Robboy 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 10:05:27 -0500 From: marvin engel Subject: Radio jingles Bernard Katz (7.106) is looking for DAVE TARRAS, Yiddish-American Klezmer Music - 1925-1956, Yazoo records #7001. There are several jingles and other commercials on this CD. Also, I recently asked whether anyone could decypher the lyrics to one of the songs on this CD for me, and got no takers. I've tried and get about half of it. The song is -- A Vaibele A Tsneien, The Bagelman (Barry) Sisters with Abe Ellstein Orchestra, 1942, track 13. Any takers out there? (I am at maengel@erols.com) The song is interesting in terms of its stereotyping of women. The sisters are also a wonderful musical treat. The lyrics lay it on with a trowel, but I'm not certain whether this is satire or straight normative stuff of that or an earlier time, or maybe a bit of both. I do remember that cleanliness was a very highly regarded virtue in our house. 'ze iz a shlokh' (She's a slob.) was a devastating indictment. Marvin Meyer Engel Rockville, MD 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 12:25:37 -0500 (EST) From: Sapoznik@aol.com Subject: Radio Jingles Fraynt Katz mentions the Dave Tarras CD which contains a radio ad for several stores including the Stanton Street Clothiers (sung by Moyshe Oysher and Florence Weiss accompanied by Dave Tarras) and a charming Pepsi Cola commercial on the "Yiddish Melodies in Swing Program". Aynshildig mir, but I should have mentioned this myelf as I produced the CD. It's called "Dave Tarras: Yiddish-American Klezmer Music" (Yazoo 7001) and is available from Living Traditions (livetrads@aol.com). I would like to ask again, if there are any Mendelyaner who have any recordings, ephemera, or experience in Yiddish radio, my documentary project on the history of Yiddish radio continues. I would be grateful for any help you can offer. Heynekh Sapoznik 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 11:02:40 -0800 From: Meyer Wolf Subject: Manaster Ramer and d'avinan According to A. Manaster Ramer, M. Weinreich in his Geshikhte, v. 2 p. 313 writes that d'avinan means 'fun di oves'. What Weinreich wrote is: "Tsvishn di fenomenen fun ufshmeltsung darf men oykh araynrekhenen a hipshe tsol folks-etimologyes. A mol erntst gemeynte kmoy-etimologyes (davnen nemt zikh fun davinen 'fun di oves')..." Weinreich is here citing what he explicitly calls a pseudo-etymology; there is no reason to think that either the word "davinan" or its gloss is Weinreich's. But if he did believe that there was such a word, that had such a meaning, what does it prove other than that he, like Manaster Ramer, did not take the trouble to look it up in a dictionary. In volume III, on pages 85-87, he writes at length of a number of etymologies of davnen sent to him by A. Landau in the 1920's. He mentions in passing an Aramaic one "dav hinun", apparently an alternate spelling of "davinen", whose sense is not clear, but whose ungrammaticality is (av is singular, hinun means 'those', according to the dictionary). Nonetheless, Weinreich did not provide a gloss. Meyer Wolf 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 19:31:33 +0000 From: David Herskovic Subject: Ahavo Rabo Inem gayst finem gemore osshprekh 'ayde deose leyodon nayme bay milse' kloymer vibald es iz shoyn gekimn in di hent aran lomir es abisl arim tapn, in deym gayst vil ikh epes tsilaygn tsim ahavo rabo shmis. Bay khasidim zogt men 'az men is marikh (tsit os) bay ahavo rabo farspeytigt men krishme'. Di vort hot a dopeltn badaytung. Poshet pshat is az vibald ahavo rabo is di brokhe far krishme az men farpenyet zikh tsi lang iber der brokhe farshpeytigt men vos es kime dernokh, dehayne krishme. Der tiferer pshat iz ober gants andersh. Krishme ken men nor laynn in der fri biz a gevisn tsat. Nu, in az ahavo rabo gedort tsi lang farpoft men tsi morgens in men farshpeytigt krishme. David Herskovic 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 22:35:21 -0500 (EST) From: Yacovdavid@aol.com Subject: crowns and jesters? I was recently reading a Hasidic tale told by Rabbi Israel of Rizhin, in a Hebrew text, with a few Yiddish phrases, some of which I did not understand well. If anyone could help me with the following, I would be appreciative: "A yid vert nisht ferfalen, nar biderech nisayon, laz er adurch gein." A person is addressed as "yid kroyn." "A 'kamanderish' garment, which in the gentile tongue is called a 'teyvil' and in the holy tongue a 'malach'; 'un ein hitel mit rerlech oyf licht, a zelche vos men tzint zei ohn leichten zei zehr asterlish az ein melech hat oych cheshek tzu azoy ein lichtikeit'" (a type of jester's outfit and clown's hat?). Thank you very much. Yaacov Dovid Shulman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.107 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html