Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.125 February 3, 1999 1) YIVO's new address (Zachary M. Baker) 2) neo-shtetlism (Michael Meckler) 3) farfast (Avreml Walters) 4) "Mayn krig mit Hersh Rasseyner" (Sam Guncler) 5) words for relatives (Selwyn Selikowitz) 6) Rozhinkes mit Mandlen (Mikhl Herzog) 7) Nokhamol Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 8) treife (Avrum-Yankev Amkraut) 9) tkhoyr (Hugh Denman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 07:38:06 -0500 (EST) From: Zachary Baker Subject: YIVO's new address The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is moving to its new home at the Center for Jewish History. Our new mailing address is: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011 USA Our telephone and fax numbers will remain the same: 1-212-246-6080 voice; 1-212-292-1892 fax The Archives and Library will reopen to the public in the Spring of 1999. Please watch for future announcements regarding the exact date. Note: Until further notice the street entrance to the Center for Jewish History and YIVO is at 20 West 17th Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues). Zachary M. Baker, Head Librarian YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 07:48:10 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Meckler Subject: neo-shtetlism On the word "shtetlizing" (Iosif Vaisman in Mendele Vol 08.120), I note the repeated use of the noun "neo-shtetlism" (and its adjective, "neo-stetlist") by J. Hoberman in his essay "Diasporama!" in the April 18, 1995 VILLAGE VOICE, as in: "Postmodern Jewish expression has two poles: Diasporism and Neo-shtetlism." and "Not all neo-shtetlism is derived from texts. The most abstract and popular instance is surely Seinfeld--a sitcom set on an imaginary Upper West Side whose four major characters are recognizably Jewish although, as in Kafka, the J-word is never mentioned." Michael Meckler 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 14:14:49 -0500 (EST) From: "Andrew Walters" Subject: farfast English Below ikh hob gelozen a kinders bukh in yidish, an letzn ein vort az iz omzinik in zein kontekast. do iz der zatz. der vort mit der problim iz in groys-hantik. "di tanoyim zeynen geveyn di gedoylei yisroyel, vos hobn FARFAST di mishnoh" ikh hob gelozen FARFAST in der verterbukh Uriel Weinreich, and es hot gezogt "the last seuda (meal) before a fast" ober, do iz omzinik in zein kontekast, es oysen zeyn beerekh, "the sages are the greatest of Israel, that **** the Oral Law". keiner helfn? I have been looking through a children's book in yiddish, and have read one word that does not make sense in its context. This is the sentence - the problematic word is capitalised. "di tanoyim zeynen geveyn di gedoylei yisroyel, vos hobn FARFAST di mishnoh" I looked up FARFAST in Uriel Weinreich, and it said "the last seuda (meal) before a fast" however, this obviously does not make sense in the context, which means approximatly, "the sages are the greatest of Israel, that **** the Oral Law". Any help? Avreml Walters 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 00:19:12 -0500 (EST) From: gunclers@juno.com Subject: "Mayn krig mit Hersh Rasseyner" I'm reading the English translation of Khayem Grade's "Mayn krig mit Hersh Rasseyner" in preparation for performing in a play based on the movie "The Quarrel," which was based on the story. I don't have the story in Yiddish (and I might not be able to figure this out even if I did). Seven paragraphs into the translated story, Grade has the character of Hersh Rasseyner cry out: "You know the saying among us: Whoever has learned Mussar can have no enjoyment in his life. You will always be deformed, Chaim Vilner. You will remain a cripple the rest of your life." Is this an accurate representation of the Yiddish? I understand that Mussar teaches that enjoyment is undesirable, but from what does it follow that Chaim is deformed and crippled? Because he now has (or thinks he has) enjoyment from his worldly activities? I'm just looking for a more complete understanding of the line in case I have it wrong. The production, by the way, will be mid-February to early March, at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. A groysen dank un zayt mir ale gezunt-- Sam Guncler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 06:13:28 -0500 (EST) From: "Selwyn Selikowitz" Subject: words for relatives While sitting and watching cricket (I bet there's no yiddish word for that game) a few days ago (South Africa versus West Indies - we won) a group of us considered (cricket being like Baseball on Valium - we have much time to chat) whether there was an English word to describe my relationship to my son's wife's parents. Mechuten/Mechutoinim is, we decided, the Yiddish word. Having failed to come up with an English equivalent for Mechuten, one of the party recalled that Yiddish had a word/phrase to describe my wife's family who were, in fact, not related to me. For example, my wife's sister's husband's brother - my brother-in-law's brother. Alternatively my own sister's husband's family. The phrase suggested was something like "verd vuss pot(z)kever". We would be pleased to know whether we are on the right track and to have the correct phrase as well as its literal meaning and "whom" it covers. Why it is used?. Any other information regarding the subject would be appreciated. Just to record, I started by searching Rosten's "Joy of Yiddish" - then I searched under "Yiddish" on the Net and that is where I found you. I look forward to being enlightened. Selwyn Selikowitz Cape Town, South Africa 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 15:45:59 -0500 (EST) From: "Mikhl Herzog" Subject: Rozhinkes mit Mandlen Jeff Veidlinger (08.122) relates the Shulamis story, the source of Goldfadn's "Rozhinkes mit Mandlen". One detail is entirely new to me: the "weasel". Whence this character, and what's it called in the Yiddish text? The reason for my curiosity may be of peripheral interest to someone out there. So . . . please be patient while I get to the point. Some 54-55 years ago, I (ani hakotn) played/sang the part of Avsholem in a production of Shulamis performed at the annual concert of the _Yidishe folkshuln_ in Toronto (believe it or not). _Vos tut der reboyne-shel-oylem_? On the Sunday morning of the concert, I awake with severe case of laryngitis. There follows a hysterical day in which two lovely ladies--one, a _lererin_ at the _shule, Leah Langer, _oleho hasholem_, the other, a singer, Masha Benye (spelling?), a solo performer at the same concert whom I had the pleasure of seeing in NYC only a couple of months ago--take it upon themselves to restore my voice with honey-laden teas and _gogl-mogls_ (now there's one for you). Come evening, I go on to do my bit with Avsholem's famous song in which he calls to witness i) _der brunem_ 'the well' and ii) _di kats_ 'the cat' (NOT the weasel). He sings: "O der brunem, o der, u-un di kats, ze-e nor ze" (you hear it?) In any event, my voice cracked at the crucial moment, as it began to rise after _kats_ and, as if on signal, Harry, the stage hand, meowed (extemporaneously, I might add) into an open back-stage mike. Needless to say, the audience cracked up, too, and put=20 the finishing touch on my concert career. In view of this, I ask again, "Whence the weasel?" Mikhl Herzog 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 15:50:58 -0500 (EST) From: SHirshan@aol.com Subject: Nokhamol Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen My thanks to Jeffrey Veidlinger for his comments about rooting the script of Goldfaden's "Shulamis" in the Talmud's Weasel and the Well, and for the synopsis. A shayle for some pilpul: Why would Avishalom, a heroic warrior, sing to Shulamis, a young shepherdess who has fallen into a well, the words about an _almone in beys-hamikdesh_ who is lulling her baby to sleep with tales of a _vays tsigele_ who is a tradesman. And this bestows on the infant the promise of success and wealth.... It has been said that the tsigele stands for _dos yidishe folk_. It has been said that if we knew what the song really meant we would not use it for a lullabye. It has been said that it is the most beloved lullabye in Yiddish folksongdom. So - what is the _intershte shire_ in this dichotomy of interpretation of this most popular of songs? Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 14:40:27 -0500 (EST) From: Amkal@aol.com Subject: treife In my galizianer yiddish the word is treife (with a broad ei-don't know how to transliterate that). I heard treyf first when I came to this country, litvish usage? Avrum-Yankev Amkraut 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 07:53:59 -0500 (EST) From: Hugh Denman Subject: tkhoyr With reference to khaver Engelhardt's communication [08.122:9] re the derivation of the Yiddish word for 'polecat', and at the risk of boring attentive readers of this list, may I once again ask why it is that medelyaner persist in positing Russian etymologies for Yiddish words? Of course, after the partitions of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century, Yiddish and Russian became for the first time coterritorial and many Russian terms were indeed adopted (cf. poyezd 'train', a modern innovation and moreover one that was administered from St. Petersburg), but, if we can put aside the fallacious view that Jews were so busy studying Toyre that it was only at the time of the Haskole that they became aware of their natural environment, it is highly improbable the Jews had to wait till the beginning of the nineteenth century to notice the existence of polecats. And why in any case should Yiddish speakers do anything so bizarre as adding an addition consonant at the beginning of a loan word? No, we can safely reject Russian 'khor'' or (pace fraynd Engelhardt) 'khoryok' as sources of the Yiddish word and look at the Slav languages with which Yiddish was really in contact at an early date. Ukrainian 'tkhir' already provides an initial t, but the vocalism is wrong. So what about Polish 'tchorz' (with 'acute' accent on the o)? The modern pronunciation is, of course, [txush], but if we go back to the sixteenth century or earlier the pronunciation must have been something like [txo:r] and we know that Proto-Yiddish 42-43 long o regularly produces NEY [ej] and CY (as well as Standard Yiddish) [oj], i.e. tkhoyr. Need we look further? The moral of the story: don't derive Yiddish from Russian without compelling reason for doing so. Hugh Denman London, England ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 08.125 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://metalab.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html