Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 214 April 13, 1992 1) Molly Picon (Hershel Bershady) 2) Query (Bob Werman) 3) Aron Vergelis (Sholem Ruveyn Benjamin) 4) YIVO transcription (Zachary M. Baker) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Apr 92 14:44:41 EST From: "Dr. Harold Bershady" Subject: MOLLY PICON My Dad took me to see Molly Picon at a father-son night at Temple Emanuel in Buflo. This was in the middle of WWII and I was about 14. The first thing I noticed about her was her clear, strong, lilting soprano voice which drew us immediately to her. Of all her skits, I remember only one which was somewhat risque for the time. She played the part of a mother writing a letter to the sergeant of her son's company. "And sergeant," she said, "give mine Eedeleh only the breast of the chicken -- he always liked the breast." Corny now, but I recall the combination of modesty, motherly concern and womanly/motherly pride in her endowments that she conveyed. She was sensational, a treasure. I can imagine her tanzing and singing as a child --her parents certainly must have loved her! I don't know of anybody who saw her who didn't. Hershel Bershady@Pennsas.upenn.edu 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 18:27 +0300 From: RWERMAN@HUJIVMS.HUJI.AC.IL Subject: eppes What is the origin of eppes? And the difference between eppes and etvas? __Bob Werman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 22:05:44 EDT From: sbenj@Athena.MIT.EDU Subject: Aron Vergelis I would like to echo Bob Werman's comments about Vergelis and add that during the Brezhnev years one of the many antisemitic publications distributed by the Soviet Novosti Press Agency was Vergelis's scandalous book, "On the Jewish Street," an antisemitic diatribe against American Jewry written by a Jew, no less. Admittedly Vergelis was involved in "keeping Yiddish alive" in the USSR, but it was a Yiddish completely stripped of any traces of Yiddishkeit, sanitized carefully to pass inspection. One could argue that he simply did what he had to do to survive and publish under each regime, but what survived was simply the letters... I cannot excuse his capitulation to the regime because he allowed himself to be used by the government as a propaganda tool apparently with full knowledge (or he wouldn't have written the books he did). When we would protest to the Soviets about the lack of Jewish publications in the USSR or the persecution of Jews attempting to start their own Hebrew courses they would always point to Sovyetish Heimland to show us that we were mistaken and that Jewish publications were alive and well and there was no need for competition. If there truly is to be any resurgence of Yiddish in the CIS, then perhaps Vergelis should move aside and let a Jew more worthy of our trust take the lead. Vergelis is a sad case indeed....... Sholem Ruveyn Benjamin (sbenj@athena.mit.edu) 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Monday, April 13, 1992 From: BM.YIB@RLG.BITNET Subject: YIVO transcription of Yiddish There are three handy tables for the YIVO transcription of Yiddish: (1) College Yiddish, by Uriel Weinreich (p. 26); (2) Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary, also by Uriel Weinreich (English preface, p. xxi); and (3) Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 1 (Index vol.), p. 91. In the latter source, please ignore "ch" as an alternative trans- cription for "tes-shin." "Ch" should NEVER be used in ANY transcription or transliteration scheme aimed at English speakers. As an example of the confusion that this causes, see p. 15 of Chester G. Cohen's "Shtetl Finder" (Los Angeles: Perivale, 1980), where there are the following adjacent entries: Chmiliv (Chmielow, SW of Lublin) [pronounced KHMILIV]; Chmilov, Chemilov (Cmielow, SW of Lublin) [prounounced TSHMILOV or TSHMILEV] There is one other YIVO-based transcription/transliteration scheme for Yiddish, called ALA/LC (American Library Association/Library of Congress), which is used in virtually all card and online library catalogs in the U.S. The most visible difference between the YIVO and ALA/LC schemes is in their respective handling of "zayin-shin" = "zh" according to YIVO, and "zsh" according to ALA/LC. Thus, ALA/LC is closer than YIVO to a pure transliteration system. On the other hand, both systems transcribe, rather than trans- literate loshn-koydesh elements in Yiddish, although here, too, there are differences between YIVO and ALA/LC. For more information on ALA/LC romanization, see "Hebraica Cataloging: A Guide to ALA/LC Romanization and Descriptive Cataloging," prepared by Paul Maher (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Service, 1987). Zachary M. Baker, YIVO Library ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.214 Submissions: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu Business: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.