Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.129 December 21, 1997 1) A word or two from Nachman Meisel (Louis Fridhandler) 2) The New YIVO (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 3) Maps in Yiddish (Neil Jacobs) 4) Yiddish influences in American culture (Ron Robboy) 5) Yiddish in Detective Fiction (Ron Robboy) 6) editorial grouping (Ron Robboy) 7) Professors of Yiddish (Morris Feller) 8) gendzl (Meyshe-yankl Sweet) 9) The other side of Bronfn (Andrew Cassel) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 12:16:28 EST From: Lfridhan Subject: A word or two from Nachman Meisel Nachman Meisel, sometimes spelled Mayzel (1887-1966) wrote a book on Peretz (Perets, zayn lebn un shafn, New York: IKUF, 1945). He also wrote many essays about Yiddish writers including both literary criticism and biographical sketches. Among experiences qualifying him for such assignments, he was editor of Yidishe Kultur from 1939 on. He remained editor until 1964. Chaim Grade (who died in 1982) was born in 1910 according to Encyclopedia Judaica, or 1912, according to Meisel. In 1945, while Chaim Grade was still a young man, Meisel, who was 23 or 25 years older than his subject, wrote an appreciative personal memoir about him which appeared in Forgeyer un Mittsaytler (Predecessors and Contemporaries), by Nachman Meisel, New York: Yidisher Kultur Farband, 1946, pp. 408-423. The essay is written in excellent Yiddish. The language is modern, clear, sophisticated and accessible without a German dictionary. A pleasure! Moreover, it adheres to YIVO orthography by and large. I plan to contribute a review of some of the highlights at a later date. Today I'll focus on a word used by Meisel not found in any source I consulted. I don't know if he invented it, or if it was in general usage in his circle. The word is spelled beyz alef yod komets-alef ayen reysh. From the context it's meaning is clear, and its pronunciation is probably ba-yo'er. That is, a yea-sayer, one who supports, cheers on, encourages; the opposite of a nay- sayer (a farneyner, according to Meisel). I have found ba- yo'er in two of Meisel's essays. Meisel describes himself as an optimistic ba-yo'er compared to Grade the pessimistic farneyner. Has anyone else encountered these terms elsewhere? Louis Fridhandler 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 14:42:30 EST From: SHirshan Subject: The New YIVO I wish we could turn back the clock to the letter from YIVO where Freudenheim's name was printed upset down - a pure, human mistake while an organization is being revamped. Today I received a letter from YIVO in an envelope that would be a graphic artist's dream, adorned with pictures of people learning, studying, in tones of mauve with a bold blue banner across, "Yiddish Has Magic - It Will Outlive History". They got my attention. I opened the envelope. The letter within started: Dear Friend, "Yiddish has magic. It will outwit history." They went on to say it was a quote from Max Weinreich. I teach my students that YIVO is our Yiddish Library of Congress, the preeminent institution for our Eastern European culture, an instituton to be revered and treasured. I think we deserve that they at least hire an adequate proof reader, worthy of the awe we feel at the name YIVO, worthy of our work for Yiddish continuity. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 15:41:38 -0500 (EST) From: njacobs@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Neil Jacobs) Subject: Maps in Yiddish Miriam Isaacs requested info on maps in Yiddish. This is an interesting issue. 1. First, there are, of course, maps in Yiddish which essentially reflect non-specifically Jewish geography, such as in Y. Kadushin (1922) *Geografisher atlas* [Yiddish version edited by H. Abramovitsh, A. Y. Goldshmidt, and Y. Zavels.] Vilne: Tsentrale yidishe shul-organizatsye. (YIVO library has a copy). The maps in this atlas are essentially identical to those found in any school atlas of that time, in the Jewish or non-Jewish world, except that these maps happen to be in Yiddish. (This in itself is not unimportant; however, it is another issue.) 2. Vilenkin's (1931) *Yidisher shprakhatles fun sovetnfarband...* contains 74 linguistic maps where place names are in Latin letters. However, there is also present a base map (map 75) in Yiddish orthography. Still, however, the question remains of the "Jewishness" of map 75 in the Max Weinreichian sense, i.e., does this map reflect--in size of lettering/prominence of given locations--*Jewish* or *general* demographics, relative cultural importance, etc. Neil Jacobs 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 14:20:47 -0800 From: rrobboy@cts.com (Ron Robboy) Subject: Yiddish influences in American culture Two examples of Yiddish influences in very different corners of the American cultural arena have come to my attention recently. 1) My wife's son has reached an age (16) where he is methodically going through my vinyl LP collection, especially the jazz. Not having listened to some of these in many years, I had completely forgotten about reed player Yusef Lateef's treatment of "Rozhinkes mit mandlen" as a free-time ballad for solo flute. Called "Raisins and Almonds," it appeared on the album _Jazz 'Round the World_ (Impulse A-56), recorded in December 1963. The liner notes, by Joel Dorn, comment that Lateef does not take a "Ziggy Elman _frielach_ [sic] approach," but rather "adapts [it] to the jazz idiom in the same manner as would . . . an Israeli." Dorn is identified by his association with a Philadelphia radio station (WHAT-FM), and was probably making his observations at the beginning of 1964. I find myself wondering what he meant. It's possible that his point is very interesting, depending on what it is! There is, of course, a glaring typo: Dorn left out the final 's.' It should be _frielachs_. Should one suppose he pronounced it "FREE lox"? (A nekhtiger tog!) 2) In "Sinatra's Song," John Lahr's long and compelling profile of the popular vocalist (_The New Yorker_, 3 November 1997), more than a little attention is paid to the character and formidable influence of Dolly Sinatra, the tough lady with "a stevedore's heart and mouth" who in 1915 gave birth to the future singer in working-class Hoboken, New Jersey. She was, writes Lahr, "a typical Italian _balabusta_." I was enchanted by the spelling, and thankful for the italics. Lahr stresses, incidentally, that the late Sammy Cahn, well-known to Mendelistn as a collaborator on the English-language swing version of _Bay mir bistu sheyn_ (Sholem Secunda-Jacob Jacobs), is regarded by those close to Frank Sinatra as that singer's definitive lyricist. Ron Robboy 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 14:26:19 -0800 From: rrobboy@cts.com (Ron Robboy) Subject: Yiddish in Detective Fiction Heynekh Sapoznik raises the issue of Yiddish usage in detective fiction [7.126]. I recently ran across a different kind of example, not in a novel, but in a film written by Raymond Chandler. The 1946 Paramount film _The Blue Dahlia_, released on video in 1996, opens as a bus marked "Hollywood" pulls to a stop. Out spill several passengers, including some GIs and two good-looking guys in suits. A third man, a little older, is with the other two, though he looks tougher in his leather bomber jacket. He is played by a fortyish William Bendix, an actor who later became indelibly (and lovably) associated with his eponymous working-class character in _Life of Riley_, the early television series (and radio before that?). In the movie, however, no sooner is Bendix out of the bus than he sees a tavern and excitedly blurts out his first line, which in fact constitutes the picture's first spoken words: "Give a look!" That expression's appearance in English is imported from Yiddish _gib a kuk_, is it not? Leo Rosten somewhere offers the opinion that it is, I believe, but I also believe he hasn't anything more to support his claim than I do, i.e., guessing. Produced by John Houseman (who was born in Rumania and whose father was Alsatian, but I don't know what they spoke at home), the film was originally released amid some fanfare, proudly touted as the first original screenplay by Chandler. A version of the screenplay has been published, edited and with an afterword by Matthew J. Bruccoli (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), but "Give a look" is not the opening line. Neither does it appear anywhere else in the published script, though it does reoccur later in the film itself, as I recall. It would be fascinating to learn how the line crept into the production. One's impression of how the Yiddish-inflected words could have originated in the mouth of Bendix, whom most viewers associate with the big-boned Irishman he later played on television, may be subject to revision once one learns that the actor himself was the son of Max Bendix, improbably enough a former Concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra and a published composer of violin concert miniatures. Other references to Yiddish in the film are more tenuous, and to elucidate them it's necessary to look a moment at the cast and story line. Bendix's two friends are played by Alan Ladd and Hugh Beaumont. Beaumont later achieved modest fame as the father on _Leave It to Beaver_; there is no Yiddish content there as far as I can see. Ladd, meanwhile, plays the hero with a romantic interest in Veronica Lake (the bad-guy night-club-owner's girl), a relationship they were busily recapitulating in a series of _noir_ films through the 1940s. His specialty was not saying much and acting hurt. I know the reader is here certain that I will be arguing that the Yiddish connection lies in Ladd's later appearance in the 1953 Western classic, _Shane_, after the novel by Jack Schaefer. That, however, seems a stretch -- even to me -- though I leave it to the ever-feisty linguists among our Mendelistn to thrash that one out. (It was, by the way, just a month ago that Saul Chaplin passed away; he was, of course, the last of the several collaborators on the English-language swing version of _Bay mir bistu sheyn_.) In the case of "The Blue Dahlia," Ladd was hurt by his no-good wife. She's been seeing Lake's good-for-nothing night-club-owner husband while he (Ladd), Bendix, and Beaumont were off fighting in the South Pacific. Ladd is coming home unannounced -- he just got off the bus, remember -- and as he approaches his apartment, we (and he) hear loud music. His two-timing wife is having a wild party. On a sound track, this is called "source music": music the characters within the narrative hear themselves. (The Music Director on the film, by the way, was Victor Young. Though born in Chicago, he was a graduate of a Warsaw conservatory and had begun his career as a concert violinist.) The song that is heard emerging from the party is an instrumental version of the Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer standard, "Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate the Positive." Arlen (originally Arluck) was the son of a khazn, a khazn who was to later unashamedly brag that he he'd interpolated his famous son's music into the liturgy -- and it will come as no surprise that the famous son's formative musical training had been as that of a _meshoyrer_ (choirboy) under his father's tutelage. I say it will come as no surprise, for what is "Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate the Positive" but an elegant gloss on Rambam's famous enumeration of the _tarya'g mitsves_ (613 commandments). ...You've gotta: Ac-cen-tchu-ate the positive, E-lim-in-ate the negative, Latch on to the affirmative, And don't mess with Mr. In-Between. A freylekhn yontev alemen. Ron Robboy 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 14:24:02 -0800 From: rrobboy@cts.com (Ron Robboy) Subject: editorial grouping I strongly disagree with Martin Horwitz's appeal [7.126] to group Mendele posts according to thematic content (originally suggested by Ellen Prince [7.122]), which he justifies in terms of a "large number of posts which are very similar and do not add mew [sic] information." I have been a little troubled by such occasional groupings lately as it is. What may not appear as new to some may hold keys to new questions for others. Horwitz is not, I emphasize, merely talking about spatial arrangements -- placing subject-related posts in sequential proximity -- but actually abridging material, for if he were not suggesting editorial deletions, how else could his plan save the downloading time he speaks of? I know that Mendele is moderated, and thus subject to a significant measure of redaction, but I would much prefer to keep the data closer to its original state. Besides, why should we impose the additional responsibility on our shames? Hasn't he enough to do? Further, I would miss headers we are accustomed to, giving not only the sender's address and subject, but the date and time. Again, what is insignificant to some may be significant to others. When certain posts were transmitted can sometimes be revealing in terms of seeing how collective ideas develop among our group. If Horwitz is not speaking of deleting even the headers, then truly, how is he intending on saving downloading time? My modem is three years old -- medieval (if not ancient) by Internet standards -- and I do not find the current download time to be a burden. Lastly, what can Horwitz possibly mean by "topics which may not be of general interest"? Can this mean Gilbert and Sullivan in Yiddish -- which I offer only for the sake of this argument -- but not the nuts and bolts of the history of the language? Or did he mean etymological issues are the ones of general interest, but words to radio commercials are not? By its very nature our list presupposes that nothing is general and everything is. Please, shames, we are individually capable at least of determining what is of interest to ourselves. On the other hand . . . if we are going to be self-regulating, perhaps this is a good place to remind Mendelistn to use not only a meaningful subject line, but to confine themselves to one subject per post (just, regrettably, as I am not doing at this moment) so that the Archives can be usefully indexed. If you have more than one thing to say, send another post. Or two more. Or three. The Internet is a big place. Ron Robboy 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 16:39:12 -1000 From: feller@indirect.com (Morris Feller) Subject: Professors of Yiddish I recently have seen reference made to the American Association of Professors of Yiddish. It would be of interest to know how many professors there are in this organiztion. Of further interest would be the names of the institutions where they are teaching. Morrie Feller Phoenix 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 20:22:44 -0600 From: "Michael J. Sweet" Subject: gendzl In reply to Heynekh Sapoznick's question about "gunsel" in Dashiel Hammet's "Maltese Falcon": the probable (but not certain) etymon of this word is the Yiddish "gendzl" "gosling. It's first attested in a 1918 dictionary of American prison slang, and refers to the *receptive* partner, usually younger, in a male-male sexual relationship. It was also well known among hobos. The older, insertive partner was known as a "jocker," "wolf," or "prushyun." Meyshe-yankl Sweet 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 19:54:02 -0500 From: "A.W.Cassel" Subject: The other side of Bronfn Following up on the recent discussion regarding "bronfn", I've wondered for some time about Yiddish words to describe drinking in general. In translating my grandfather's memoirs, I noticed that his accounts of holiday celebrations in his Lithuanian heymshtot included what we might consider a pronounced popular fondness for alcohol. (I'd be happy to provide examples on demand.) Especially given what I always heard about how Jews only drank in moderation, if at all ... In one essay I found the following terms, all referring to either the act or the state of inebration: ontrinkn zikh bgilufn bazoyfn farshikert onshikern ongeshnosket Can anyone help me define their various nuances more precisely, and/or add to the list? And does anyone agree that, just like the Eskimos' 26 (or whatever) terms for snow, this multiplicity of terms suggests a greater familiarity with the phenomenon than we've been led to believe was common? Andrew Cassel ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.129 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