Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 30 July 15, 1992 1) Query (Berl Hoberman) 2) Klezcamp (Berl Hoberman) 3) Yivo for sale? (Yankel Steinberg) 4) Varieties of Yiddish song (Ellen Prince) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Jul 1992 14:03:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: Silvering a window There's a story that is told by the hassidic Rebbe in The Dybbuk -- at least in the 1930's Warsaw movie, I don't know whether it's in Anski's play too. It also appears in College Yiddish. Why do the rich think only of themselves? Through a transparent window one can look out into the street and see other people, but add a little silver and make the window a mirror, and one can see only oneself. Does anyone know whether Anski made this story up himself, or whether it he had a source in folklore or in tales of some hassidic magid? Berl (Bob) Hoberman rhoberman@ccmail.sunysb.edu, rhoberman@sbccmail.bitnet 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Jul 1992 14:24:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: Klezcamp A friend of mine, a singer who knows no Yiddish (and is not even Jewish), has recently discovered klezmer music and has begun learning some songs. I think she would enjoy going to Klezcamp, but I don't know when it takes place and who runs it. Are there any other programs she could attend, as a way of learning songs and singing them together with other fans? Berl (Bob) Hoberman rhoberman@ccmail.sunysb.edu 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 10:35:30 EDT From: "J. J. Steinberg" Subject: YIVO for sale? In brief, the message is: The YIVO Building is up for sale by Sotheby's. Does anyone know what is going on? Best regards, JJ (Yankel) 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 16:46:42 -0400 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.29 [Sigrid Peterson writes:] >... a conversation about the "good" >music in Yiddish, which amounted to Rozhinkes et Mandeln >[sp?] which was a lullaby, remade into a love song. One >person was holding forth that the reason was the paucity of >songs, particularly love songs, in Yiddish... re rozhinkes mit mandlen, i didn't know that it was remade into a love song--all the many renditions i've heard have been of the original lullaby. do you know of any recording of the love song version? yes, there are thousands of yiddish songs, including many many love songs. (my favorite is a very sexy one called 'in der fintster', with great lines like: 'in der fintster klapt dayn harts alts vilder, vilder.') somewhere i read that over 10,000 yiddish records were produced in america alone before world war 2! (these would have been basically singles, of course.) if you're interested, you might want to look at ruth rubin's very readable book, voices of a people. perhaps the reason why our shames feels the way he does about borscht belt stuff is that that's what most people think yiddish music/culture consists of, since that's all they've heard. (my own pet peeve is the current born-again shlock like country yossi and the shteeblehoppers. next to them i find menasha skulnik terribly witty--a regular noel coward.) one anecdote about rozhinkes mit mandlen--a local artsy-fartsy fm radio folksong show played someone's rendition of it once. afterwards, the disk jockey, in proper hushed breathy tones, informed us that the singer had 'personally collected' the song! obviously, she didn't realize that it was not a 'true' folksong but was composed for an operetta by the very well-known and definitely 'non-folk' playwright/composer, avram goldfaden. of course, the line between 'true folksongs' and 'other' is often blurred in yiddish, if the former are songs whose authorship is unknown (jews are just too scholarly--many folk poets/songwriters are known and credited, e.g. gebirtig), but rozhinkes is no more a folksong than gershwin's 'summertime' is, and the idea that someone thinks they 'collected' it still makes me howl with laughter. ellen prince ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.30 If your message is intended for MENDELE, please write to: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu If you want to discuss personal business or have a shmues with the shames, please write to: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.