Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 175 April 15, 1993 1) Khomets-shtern (Berl Hoberman) 2) Hebrew/Yiddish fonts (A.J. Hyman) 3) Tsvey kashes vegn Mangers a lid (Seymour Axelrod) 4) Elderhostel courses (Fishl Kutner) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Apr 14 12:04:38 1993 From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: Khomets-shtern Yesterday evening, motse-peysakh, my wife recited the following jingle from her Juedischdeutsch tradition: Chometz-Stern seh' ich gern, Butterbrot dann ess' ich gern. Roughly, 'I'm happy to see the Khomets-star [the appearance of stars that defines the legal onset of nighttime and the end of Peysakh], then I'll happily eat bread and butter.' My wife doesn't know whether this was a widely known rhyme or whether her great-grandmother, who recited it, maybe even made it up herself. Anyway, it expresses my feelings precisely--I like it! I don't know any analog in Yiddish. Anybody? Berl rhoberman@ccmail.sunysb.edu 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 15 10:17:51 1993 From: AJHYMAN%UTOROISE.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Hebrew/Yiddish fonts My father, a retired linguist (do they ever really retire?), has created a Hebrew and a Yiddish font for the Macintosh. He created it for a few reasons: 1] So that there would be better correspondence between the sounds of the English keyboard and the Hebrew letters than the conventional fonts 2] When used with PalPhon (a phonetic font system created at the University of Toronto Linguistics Dept.) - all the subtilties of the language can be written. 3] He is writing an advanced Etymological Yiddish dictionary (we haven't found a good one that was ever written), and decided that transliteration alone was not good enough and wanted to included the lexography of the word If you are curious about any of this, ask I will tell... AJHYMAN@UTorOISE.bitnet 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 15 12:43:34 1993 From: Seymour Axelrod Subject: Tsvey kashes vegn Mangers a lid A moving sonnet by Itsik Manger, "Di `oyeve yisroel' baym toytnlager belzhets" (included in the Howe-Wisse-Shmeruk Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse), has three Hasidic rabbis surveying piles of ash at the Belzhets death camp. One of them invites God to "take a good look" (Leonard Wolf's translation): --Na, nem un ze, akh gotenyu *ti nash*. The poem ends as the third calls upon the others to join him in striking God's name from the list of true Lovers of Israel: R'meyerl fun premishlan oyf zayn altn shtekn ongeshpart Shteyt un vart, fiberndik un *tsart*[?]: "Raboysay, lomir zogn ale oyf a kol: Bashefer fun di veltn ... ... mir di galitsianer mekn dikh oyf eybik oys Fun der eyde emese `oyeve yisroel'." Can someone help me with the expressions enclosed in asterisks? 1. What does *ti nash* mean? It sounds Slavic to me. 2. I've transcribed as *tsart* the word written tsadek-ayin-reysh-tes. What part of speech is it? Verb? Adjective? Related to "tsar", grief? Wolf translates the three lines as Trembling and feverish, Reb Meirl of Przemyslan Waits, leaning on his old stick. "Gentlemen," He says, "Let us in unison call etc. A dank. --Shleyme 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 15 13:48:37 1993 From: Philip Kutner Subject: Elderhostel Courses A central clearinghouse for the compilation of current Yiddish data is non-existent. The obvious place, YIVO, is unable to act in this role. Mendele can be the vehicle to collect and disseminate these data. One area of interest is the location of Yiddish courses. Since this tends to be so fluid, the location of Yiddish teachers was under- taken. This list is available and is constantly being updated by quarterly mailings. A possible Yiddish course classification: Formal Schools - Year around Universities High Schools Elementary shules, Summer Institutes Universities Others (NYBC, Charlotte, Workmen's Circle, Chicago JCC , etc.) Adult Education Jewish Community Centers Temples/Synagogues Private Homes Elderhostels The last listing Elderhostels is the newest, and may be an area of great growth in the future. Its low cost, camaraderie, and publicity make it available to seniors who utilize them as vacations. Some are beginning to offer Grandparent/Grandchildren programs. Since the Elderhostel programs are published seasonally, listings of Yiddish courses is merely a matter of scanning these catalogs. Unfortunately, their national office does not have a search service availability to scan by subject area. The Spring and Summer issues show 25 locations with substantial Jewish-interest programs. Of these, the following have substantial Yiddish content. U of Arizona U of Arizona - Mountains Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins U Berkshire Community College/Lenox Hills Western New England College Midrasha/Fresh Air Society College Misericordia B'nai B'rith Beber Camp Corrections or additions would be appreciated. If you are interested in assisting "der bay" with compilation of lists of Yiddish teachers, Yiddish clubs, Klezmer bands, Yiddish radio programs, Yiddish Ham Radio Operators or acting as a contact for The Yiddish Network (now located in 112 cities) please let us know. fishl ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.175