Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.142 January 28, 1998 1) Homage to Dorothy Bilik (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) Homage to Dorothy Bilik (Merril Leffler) 2) Help with Yiddish cataloging (Carolyn Ellis Gonzalez) 3) p'tsha (Mikhoyel Basherives) 4) Yiddish in South Philadelphia (Andrew Cassel) 5) An Italian (Philip Fishl Kutner) 6) italaynerkes (Marvin Engel) 7) kibitz, cholent, and endearments (Rita Falbel) 8) yiddish film actor max bozyk (Chaim Pevner, c/o Norma Brewer) 9) Jack the Ripper case (Richard Lacey) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:02:42 EST From: SHirshan Subject: Homage to Dorothy Bilik Ikh hob bakumen azoy fil tayere, hartsike brivelekh, zikhroynes fun Dvosyen, alts tsulib dos vos ikh hob geshribn di por verter vegn ir do, oyf Mendele. When I received this poem from/by Merril Leffler, his imagination and artistry invoked all the Muses for me, and finally released my tears for her. He wrote it four years ago for her retirement from the University of Maryland where he still teaches. He gladly allowed me to share it with all of you. It is an enriching gift to us all. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida .......................................................................... Homage To Dorothy Bilik, known in Yiddish circles as Dvosye When I think of Dorothy I think of Brooklyn. I think Of Flatbush, of Pitkin Avenue, of Eastern Parkway And the Botanical Gardens, of the Egyptian mummies That inhabit the Brooklyn Museum. When I think Of Dorothy, I think Yiddish. I think of tayerinke, of ich hob dir in drerd And nisht haynt gedakht and gezinterheyt. When I think of Dorothy I think of Brooklyn College, of Samuel Gompers And the CIO and the International. The New Deal and Whittaker Chambers And Alger Hiss. I think of Proust Stepping, tentatively, off the IRT At Church Avenue, looking both ways, puzzled, It is the heat of summer and he is perspiring terribly. Dorothy takes him by the hand and climbing into the light of her room Proust falls upon the couch exhausted. "Dvosye," he can barely whisper, "a bisl tea, cherie, Avec limon. Deux sucre, and the rugelakh. A Sheynem dank. Yes. Yes. I can taste The memories. They come like the heart's flood Drowning me exquisitely." Ah! When I think of Dorothy, I think of Wordsworth and Coleridge sitting in Grasmere Over a plate of steaming matzo bray. Coleridge Can hardly contain himself. He is fevered And in love, once more. "Dvosye," he says, "Ikh hob a poeme far dir." Halt oyf zelbst-umtsutroy Un gib mir a bisl mithilf. Du bist a bafligelte Nimfe, Mayn tsoyber. Mayn likht. "What means this Yiddish," asks Wordsworth, puzzled Looking as always to Coleridge for explication: Suspend your disbelief And give me some relief You are a winged sprite - My Ariel. My light When I think of Dorothy, I think Of Mendele and Peretz and Sholem Aleichem, Of Moyshe Kulbak and Itzik Manger Sitting and shouting at each other, eating blintzes And sour cream and carp and herring, black bread And olives and cheeses. They agree only on Dvosye. At the next table Saul and Isaac Rosenfeld, Malamud and Roth cannot make up their minds. Kashe varnishkes or kishke? Latkes or brisket? Egg beaters, they settle for. Oy gevalt, says Roth In New Jersey Jewish, is there a life without cholesterol - Is this now where vee may perhaps to begin - or end? Bashevis comes shuffling from the kitchen with a bowl Of steamed carrots and peas - a cheer goes up He bows and winks at his Dvosye dear Who is sitting now with GIYckel And Kafka reading the Jewish Encyclopedia >From the beginning. When I think of Dorothy, I think of the Klezmorim Playing far into the night, the music slow at first, And then the clarinet kicks in and faster now And faster. Dorothy, her skirts whirling, wildly Beyond time, as though there were no air to resist her As though you truly could not tell the dancer >From the dance, as though Dorothy took dominion Here and there, as though she was rising now Into my heart, her wings opening like Ariels Aloft in flight. 0 brave new world. How bright. How bright. Merril Leffler leffler@umbi.umd.edu 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:17:28 +0900 From: Carolyn Ellis Gonzalez Subject: Help with Yiddish cataloging [forwarded by Nobukatsu Minoura ] Here at the University of Texas at San Antonio's John Peace Library, we perform cataloging for the Institute of Texas Cultures (ITC). The ITC has a large collection of books in Yiddish which have not been cataloged because we lack the linguistic expertise to properly process the materials. A kind volunteer transliterated some of the titles and authors into roman script years ago before his death, but most titles remain untransliterated. We do know from this gentleman's work that many of these materials will require original cataloging. I was wondering: 1) Might there by any librarians lurking on this list who would know of an agency we might outsource the cataloging of these materials to other than OCLC? 2) Are there any individuals from this list in the San Antonio area possessing Yiddish language skills who might be interested in helping us with these materials? Carolyn Ellis Gonzalez San Antonio, TX 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 19:46:48 -0800 From: Mikhoyel Basherives Subject: p'tsha So does no one know it as I do by the name "gegliverte fis"? also as I knew it VERY garlicky & delicious but no bones... just gel with hard boiled egg halves floating in it... Mikhoyel Basherives 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:43:36 -0500 From: "A.W.Cassel" Subject: Yiddish in South Philadelphia Mendele readers might be interested in a recent review by Katheryn Hellerstein, of Rakhmiel Peltz' new book about Yiddish in South Philadelphia. The review may be read on the Web at: http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/98/Jan/25/books/SOUTH25.htm Andrew Cassel 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 05:41:31 -0800 From: "Philip \"Fishl\" Kutner" Subject: An Italian It seems we have almost all comnbinations of vowels in the childhood memories of the word/s for an Italian. Mom was a Bialystoker, actually a little town nearby known as Tiktin. She referred to an Italian male as a TALYENER and for a woman she dropped the /r/. I do not recall her using it in any manner as a derogatory term. As was mentioned previously, when there were many of a certain nationality in the area, the term for the nationality was used. In referring to the general non-Jewish population, mom used the term goy in the connotation of a non-believer. Philip Fishl Kutner 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:33:50 -0500 From: marvin engel Subject: italaynerkes My mother was a New York dressmaker (ILGWU) for many years. She worked mostly with Jewish and Italian women in many different shops between the early 1920's and the mid 1950's. Her term of art was 'italaynerke' with an 's' added to form the plural. It was not, in and of itself, a pejorative. Marvin Engel Rockville, MD 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 18:09:47 -0500 From: Rita Falbel Subject: kibitz, cholent, and endearments I so enjoyed the post of the Editor, I assume Iosif Vaisman, on correct Yiddish endearment endings (-enyu, -ele, etc.). What about -inko. I have a feeling it's from what was once Bohemia or Moravia. I also have been searching for the derivation of kibitz, and the Weinreich dictionary gave me only kibitz. Webster's New World Dictionary tells me that kibbitzer is Yiddish, derived from the colloquial German kiebitz, originally a plover of echoic origin, but currently used in describing someone who's meddlesome, onlooker at a card game, etc. Finally, where does the word tcholent come from (that shabes dish) and how is it spelled? A hartstigen dank! Rita Falbel 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 98 01:57:33 GMT From: Norma Brewer Subject: yiddish film actor max bozyk I am trying to get biographical and general information on the American career of Polish-Yiddish film actor Max Bozyk. Bozyk (Bozhyk) was in many Yiddish films made in Poland from Yidl mitn fidl (1936) on, until the outbreak of the war. How did he get to America after the war, and what was his acting career like after he got there? -- New York -- elswhere? Family -- offspring. Death -- where - when? Eyber ez zonen nokh faran eltere mentshn velekhe hobn Maz Bozykn perzeynlikh gekent, iz volt ikh avode gevolt kimen in kontakt mit zey. Zey kenen shraybn tsu mir af hant geshribenem Idish -- vezey es zol nisht zayn -- un af English oder af Poylish iz eykh meglekh -- Maynetwegn, iz Max geven der bester Idisher shoyshpiler fin ale di tzolraykhe talanten velekhe zonen dershienen afn idish ekran in di goldene yoren fin idishn film -- ikh halt yetzt baym shraybn iber zayne film, ober fin zayn perzeynlikhn lebn, un vos iz mit ihm nakher gevoren in Amerike, hob ikh k'mat gurnisht -- kayne informatziye -- Iz loz ikh aroys ot-dos vort, un eyber, mit a bissl helf fin'm eybershten, zol ez araynfaln in di hent fin kroyvem, tsi amolike fraynt fin Maxn -- iz lommir zekh derkh-shraybn -- un zol zayn -- vi Max flig aleyn amul zugn in zayne piktchers - -" zol zayn in a giter un in a mazldikker shu "-- Chaim Pevner c/o Norma Brewer, London 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:44:13 +0000 From: "richard lacey" Subject: Jack the Ripper case I wonder whether I may request your assistance in a matter concerning Yiddish. I am doing some research on one aspect of the East End murders of 1888, also known as the Jack the Ripper murders. As you are no doubt aware, the population of the East End at that time was made up mainly by foreign immigrants. A large proportion of these were Eastern European Jews. As a result, Jews featured among the suspects, the witnesses and the concerned citizens - though not among the victims - in the Ripper case. One of the victims was actually found lying outside a socialist club which published a Yiddish-language newspaper. Books of interest include Chaim Bermant's East End and William Fishman's East End 1888. As is known, the Ripper was never caught. Moreover, he never left any clues as to who he was. Students of the case, however, have grasped at anything resembling a clue. Such is the case of a grafito found in an entranceway, which many assumed had been left by the killer. The grafito read: The Juwes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing. The grafito was erased by order of the Commissioner of Police, who feared antisemitic feelings. This action was welcomed by the Jewish community, in particular by Chief Rabbi Dr Hermann Adler. Although there is no evidence that the killer actually wrote it, the grafito has been the subject of speculation ever since. The purpose of my research is to determine whether the words, which are not correct English, make grammatical and syntactic sense in any other language if translated literally into it. Up to now, I have gathered translations of the sentence into French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish and Spanish without finding among them the 'original' language. Frankly, I am not sure I shall find it, but of itself this will prove something or, at least, provide some material for an article. After such a long introduction, you may have guessed that my request is for a literal translation of the above sentence into Yiddish. Could you kindly oblige? If at all possible, I would appreciate it if you could use both Hebrew characters and a transliteration into Roman characters, since I don't have Hebrew. I hope this is not much of an imposition. I would be grateful indeed for your assistance. Richard Lacey ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.142 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