Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.143 February 3, 1998 [Moderator's note: Mendele circulation reached today 1,500. Up from 1,000 in May 1996. Up from 500 in June 1994. Up from ... here I will quote: | Mendele: Yiddish literature and language | _______________________________________________________ | Contents of Vol. 1 no. 1 | May 15, 1991 | | Date: Wed, 15 May 91 | From: Noyekh Miller (nmiller@trincc.bitnet) | Subject: Oyfn rekhtn fus | | At last Mendele is ready to go public. We have as of today a total of 22 | subscribers (list on demand) and a very good roster it is. And while we're | neither in Czernowitz or Vilna we may in at the start of something that none | of us might have thought possible 10 years ago. Let us hope so. | | Noyekh Miller It worked so far, Noyekh. Thank you. Where is trincc.bitnet? But Mendele is here. Thank you, Victor Bers, for all your work behind the scene. Thank you to all Mendele subscribers and contributors. You made this possible. And useful. Let us hope so. -Iosif Vaisman] 1) p'tsha (Ellen Prince) 2) p'tsha (Pinyeh Weichsel) 3) Cholent (Hardy (Meinhard) Mayer) 4) The possible origin of "cholent" (Dan Leeson) 5) Jack the Ripper (Leonard Prager) 6) memories (Mel Poretz) 7) "Bay undz yidn" by Pinkhes Graubard (Shirley Kumove) 8) Tsvi Kanar (Gershon Freidlin) 9) yiddish CD (Refoyl Finkel) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 00:37:23 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: p'tsha Mikhoyel Basherives asked about "gegliverte fis". Well, I don't recall that term -- but I do know that I never ever heard _fisnoge_ at home and very rarely ptsha. (Is it possible they pronounced it /ptshe/? If they used that word at all, it was with that vowel, I'm almost positve.) Anyway, we really called it _fisl_ or _fargliverts_. And, yes, it was cold, an aspic (tho I didn't know that word then), very garlicky and peppery (white pepper, to be sure), and there were hard-boiled eggs in it -- and other less easily identifiable objects. And I must confess -- I hated it. Everyone but me thought it was a delicacy from heaven, tho. ;) Ellen Prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 10:03:37 -0600 From: weichsel@math.uiuc.edu (Paul Weichsel) Subject: p'tsha I knew it, in my mothers kitchen, as "farglivertz". In addition to bits of meat from the calves feet and much garlic and hard boiled eggs my mother added a liberal dose of black pepper. Pinyeh Weichsel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 22:30:01 -0800 From: "Hardy (Meinhard E.) MAYER" Subject: Cholent Rita Falbel asks about the origin of "cholent" (tshulnt, in our southern pronunciation). As far as I remember if comes from the Rhineland-French "chaud lent" (slow heat). Hardy (Meinhard) Mayer Irvine, CA 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 05:48:17 EST From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@admin.fhda.edu" Subject: The possible origin of "cholent" Rita Falbel asks "where does the word 'tcholent' come from and how is it spelled?" There are several sources suggested for the word, but the one that always struck me as the most rational was from the words "shul ende." The relationship is, of course, the fact that the dish would be consumed following services on Saturday that ended the shabbat. Thus following "shul ende" one ate a "shul ende" food which corrupted itself into "cholent." The spelling is something that has always evaded me and I am afraid that I can be of little help in this respect. Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 23:06:46 +0200 From: Leonard Prager Subject: Jack the Ripper In _Yiddish Culture in Britain_ (1990) I wrote the following, which differs a bit from Richard Lacey's account (_Mendele_ 7:142). Perhaps someone could check on the original wording of the graffito, which I may have miscopied: Chaim Bermant wrote, "The East End has been the home of many great men, saints, sages, scholars, explorers, trade union leaders, statesmen, but the one name which still lingers in the public mind and is known to every schoolboy is Jack the Ripper" (_Point of Arrival / A Study of London's East End_, p. 121). In October 1987 the _Daily Telegraph_ reported that the identity of this famous criminal had been established and that he was a Polish Jew named Kosminski (as reported in _Yediot acharonot_ of 20 October 1987, p. 4). The revelation was based on the ms. of the memoirs of Sir Robert Anderson, now in the possession of his nephew, James Swanson. Anderson investigated the famous crime in 1888. Arthur Conan Doyle (= Sherlock Holmes) treated the theme; films and novels have covered the material -- murder and mutilation of five East End prostitutes. Kosminski's guilt has been contested. A Yiddish linguistic dimension attaches to the celebrated murder case owing to a message scrawled on the wall near the scene of the crime: "The Juewes shall not be blamed for nothing." The lettering of the word _Juewes_ seemed to some people to look like Hebrew. Bermant cites the letter from Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler to Sir Charles Warren dealing with this issue: "I was deeply pained by the statements that appeared in several papers today, the 'Standard', 'Daily News', etc., that in the Yiddish dialect the word Jews is spelled 'Juewes'. This is not a fact. The equivalent in the Judao-German (Yiddish) jargon [sic--L.P.] is 'Yidden' [read _yidn_--L.P.]. I do not know of any dialect or language in which 'Jews' is spelled 'Juewes' (cited by Bermant, above, p. 117). Ref: Chaim Bermant. _Point of Arrival / A Study of London's East End_, London: Eyre Methuen, 1975, pp. 111-121. Leonard Prager 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 10:45:35 EST From: EMPE@aol.com Subject: memories Since signing on with Mendele, I've been flooded with memories of words and expressions I learned, mostly over my mother's and father's knees. I list them below fully aware that they might be way off the mark, orthographically as they are what I've been able to dredge up after many years of not hearing them. I'd be interested in variants based on location (my folks came from Eishyshok, a shtetl 35 miles from Vilna), and any other aspect of locution that might turn up. I've always had difficulty in identifying much of their vocabulary as to whether it was Yiddish, Lithuanian, Polish or Russian. I think they limited their use of Hebrew to more sacred, less profane matters. German was the main province of my father from his days in the Czar's Frontier Army, and then it was probably 100% cursewords. Thanks. 1. My father called my mother his "panendra" (or "panendreh") which I've always thought was one of his rare expressions of affection. Which is it? 2. Yenta Dvusha. I know how it was used. What, literally, might the second word mean? 3. My uncle Max of blessed memory called me his "chishik" which someone once told me meant "squirrel." 4. When there was a terrible rain or snow storm, my mother referred to these as a "khurum" or an "avalitsya." These sound Russian. 5. The bogeyman we were terrified by was one called "Kondrashe" who would snare us in our beds and transport us to some sweatshop where we would never be found again. Was anyone else held in fearful thrall by Mr. K? 6. I know the expression: "Ayn tukhus awf tsvay yuridden" and would be interested in variants of this sage advice I was regularly accused of ignoring. Still do! 7. I understand the meaning of "Ikh'l vissen fuhn tsuris" but would like to know how it turned the corner into irony from what might have been, with slight alteration, one hell of a good klula. 8. Relatives constantly pinched my chin, commenting about what a cute "morditchka" I possessed. Sounds Russian. No one ever used a foreign language, however, to compliment me on my deep dimples. 9. My father played this game with every grandson (eight with nary a girl) and I'm curious as to whether anyone else recalls it. He would feign spitting into the open palm of the child and then, with a steadily upward movement of his forefinger on the forearm in the direction of the baby's neck and underarm, he would recite this doggerel, finishing up with the greatest of deliberation by poking his finger into the tickle area. The child was helpless to do anymore than say "more!" It went like this: "Surrokeh, varoneh, kotchkeh, varilleh, etu medallah, etu medallah, malenka moonishkalla, kootchy-de- kootchkehleh....." 10.I've been told that when I awoke laughing, I'd soon " lokh mit yakhtchikes." Anyone? 11. Has Mendele printed any klulas in Yiddish or English? I'll submit them in the future if appropriate, including the best one I ever heard in English courtesy of Wallace Markfield in his classic book "To An Early Grave." MEL PORETZ 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 14:09:44 -0500 From: comact@interlog.com (Leon Kumove) Subject: "Bay undz yidn" by Pinkhes Graubard Khoshever mendelyaner, I am presently working on a third book of Yiddish folk sayings (Book 2, More Words, More Arrows, will shortly be available from Wayne State University Press.) I would like to access a Yiddish book called, BAY UNDZ YIDN: zamlung far folklor un filologye by Pinkhes Graubard, published by M. Vanvild, Warsaw, 1923. I've already made inquiries from the National Yiddish Book Centre but its a rare book and they don't have it. If anyone can help me locate a copy I would be most grateful. I'm prepared to purchase it, loan it, photocopy it, whatever is legal. Ikh hof az emetser vet zikh onrufn oyf mayn bakoshe un ikh dank aykh foroys. A gutn shabes aykh alemen. Shirley Kumove 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 21:39:51 -0500 From: Olivia Hibel Subject: Tsvi Kanar Someone recently suggested that Tszi Kanar's adult, child-in-the-Holocaust narrator is Sholem Aleichem's Motl transmigrated to 1940. This is a fruitful thought. Having translated both "Motl" and Kanar's "Opgegebn broyt" (Bread for Bread)--Olivia Hibel (my wife) translated sections of "Ikh un lemekh" for Tsvi and hopes to complete the book--I find Motl is a cynic and Kanar's character is not. Motl is only two shouts away from Holden Caulfield. By way of introduction, my name is Rabbi Gershon Freidlin. Olivia Hibel and I run Jacob's Dream, a research and consulting firm dealing with Judaica and the arts. By way of information, if you've not seen Kanar's mime work, make sure to catch the act. Olivia and I took our eldest son, Benjamin, then aged four, to see Kanar, and at age eight, to see Marcel Mceau. I cannot say who's better, but Ben laughed a lot harder at the Kanar performance. Gershon Freidlin 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 16:10:03 -0500 (EST) From: Raphael Finkel Subject: yiddish CD letstns hob ikh gekoyft a vilde mitsiye: far an $18 hob ikh gekoyft a CD vos af im shteyt iber 150 sho (!) fun yidish, geredt fun poylishe yidish-redners, velkhe hobn mistome geredt yidish in der heym. vi shtupt men arayn azoy fil rederay af an eyntsikn CD? mit kompyuter-nisem. dem CD ken men bloyz nitsn in a kompyuter; di 150 sho zaynen in oys|her-trayshaft [fidelity] nit azoy ay-ay-ay, ober se lozt zikh farshteyn. vos far a CD ken dos zayn? er iz a talmed (shas) CD, bazunders tsu masekhes shabes, vos der daf yoymi halt itst bay dem. mit dem CD ken men zen di 150+ dapem fun der masekhes (yder amed iz a bild fun vilner shas). men ken drikn dem mayzl af di royte verter un teykef hert men dem shiyer dervegn. di shiyurem haltn etlekhe zeyer bakovedike rebeyem. zey redn fayl-fun-boygem di gikh, amol mit a poylishn aksent, amol mit a mer dorem|dikn aksent. es doyert a bisl gevoynt tsu vern tsu dem ("hoysoyes fin rshis lirshis ..."). zey nemen on az der tsuherer ken shoyn lernen a blat gemore; zey taytshn nit vort-bay-vort oys, nor sugye-bay-sugye. trots dem vos ikh hob shoyn dermont, farmogt der CD dem gantsn tanakh, mit Rashi, dem gantsn shas, mit Rashi, dem shulkhen-oyrekh, un dem Rambam. yene tekstn zaynen bloyz b|tsifer [digital], ober zey vayzn zikh mit a nit-shlekhtn loshn-koydesh shrift [font]. koyfn hob ikh gekoyft dem CD fun a bikher krom in nyu-york mit telefon. di firme vos makht dem CD heyst Makhon L'Tul. der CD kumt in etlekhe formen: band 1 (berokhos) / band 2 (shabes); english/hebreish/yidish; MS/Mac. ikh hob gekoyft dem tseveytn band (shabes), af yidish, far MS (i fenster 95 i NT, nit af keyn yidn gedakht). dem adres fun Makhon L'Tul iz 4522 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11219. English summary: You can hear over 150 hours of lightning-fast Yiddish spoken by native speakers by getting the CD from the above address. It covers all of Talmud tractate Shabbos, with pictures of each page and a point-and-click interface to hear a discussion of each section. The speaker assumes you understand how to study Talmud and are familiar with Hebrew and Aramaic. The CD also contains in digital format the entire Tanakh and Talmud with Rashi and standard law codes, all visible with a Hebrew font. I got my copy from a bookstore in NY (over the phone! Goldman's Judaica Outlet, 125 Ditmas Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11218, 800-972-6201, Judoutlet@aol.com). It cost $18, not counting shipping and handling. Refoyl Finkel ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.143 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