Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 99 November 17, 1992 1) Queries (Shelomoh Zieniuk) 2) Etymological question (Hershel Bershady) 3) For Sarah Stein (Alice Nakhimovsky) 4) Ostjuden (Martin Davis) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Yom Shishi, 17 Cheshvan '753 = Thu, 12 Nov 92 21:14:56 CET From: "shelomoh slawomir ZIENIUK (DEGEL_HATORAH, secretary)" Subject: Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies: scholarship wanted Ma'ariv, Erev Shabbos, 17 cheshvan, '753; Varshe, poiln. Sholem Aleikhem Ale MENDELnikes| my name is Shelomoh S. ZIENIUK. i'm a 5th-year student at the Institute of Applied Linguistics (English & Russian), Univ. of Warsaw, WARsaw in poLAND, & a 1st-yr student at the Oriental Institute (Hebrew & Arabic), the same. Now going to apply for the One Year Programme in Jewish Studies '93/'94 at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies run by Dr David PATTERSON. This would help me tremendously to complete my M.A. thesis (whose formula is ISRAEL'S LANGUAGES AT THE DAWN OF JERUSALEM'S QUADRIMILLENNIUM /'96/) at the U of Warsaw. Here in this par excellence strange country they've got hardly any sources related to the topic. my major foci during the Programme -- provided i'd been accepted -- gonna be the following diad (subject to slight modifications): (1) the intensive studying of Yiddish, & (2) digging thru the library to get anything related to Jewish languages (in their broadest possible definition, & favourably from a sociolinguistic prospective). Could any1 of U Nice-Folks-Over-There- Upon-The-River-Mendele be so kind as to provide me with: (i) the E-mail add of Dr David PATTERSON (Centre's Pres.) & Dr Dovid KATZ the Yiddishist (at the same place), or any1 else of the staff, &/or (ii) practical hints on how to get a sponsor for that pleasure worth 9,000 pounds sterling, &/or (iii) any other pragmatics about the OCPHS & its socio-linguo-mercantile environs, &/or (iiii) any info on any other scholarship opportunities for my M.A. in the U.S. or Israel, right now in advance i'm pronouncing: A SHAYNEM DANK| slawomir ZIENIUK, student, c/o Dept. of Hebrew (Hebraistyka), Oriental Institute, University of Warsaw (U.W.), ul. Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28, PL-00-927 WARSZAWA, poland 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 22:10:09 EST From: hbershad@sas.upenn.edu Subject: etymological question I recently read a commentary that stated "goy" was used in the old testament to refer to Israel's ancient near eastern neighbors. The implication was that "goy" referred to a national -- a member of a nation. My family always used the word to refer to Christian, but I think the sense of belonging to a nation and thus to a "land" was implicit in designating Christians as goyim. Who else belonged to a land (at least in their experience)? Similar meaning was implicit, I think, even in Paul Goodman's EMPIRE CITY, when one of the characters refers to war as "goyim nakhis." (WHo else but nations go to war?) In any case, finally, the questions are 1) Does any Mendelnik know whether there is an etymology in English that traces the historical usages of the word "goy"? and 2) if "goy" was indeed once used to refer to a member of a nation, do any contemporary Israelis now refer to themselves as goyim? I'd appreciate a few simple leads. I stress SIMPLE. A dank in advance, as they say. Hershel Bershady 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Nov 1992 08:46:22 -0400 (EDT) From: ANAKHIMOVSKY%COLGATEU.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: For Sarah Stein Once again, you are raising interesting questions. I would hold my breath before proceeeding too far with Orientalism, though. Remember that Orientalism refers to the "other," while these shtetl Jews were very deeply "self." Sometimes, the knowledge that they were "self" led assimilated Jews to flee with all their might, and sometimes it resulted in a pang of conscience and a tug homeward. The sense that the Jewish community was in peril - remember the year - also played a role. I would guess (just a hunch, but I'm sure the evidence is out there) that some Jews in the Russian populist movement ended up themselves feeling alien. Not only were there definite strains of antisemitism in Russian populism, but the very situation (a shtetl Jew telling the Russian farmer how to live) is fraught with irony. Some of those "narodnik" (populist) Jews, sensing the gap, converted to Russian Orthodoxy in order to merge with the peasants. Perhaps An-sky took the other route. Anyhow, I would seek the source in more traditional places: in Russian populism (after all, a concern with the folk, A. just replaced which folk he meant) and in the nationalism that was overtaking all the ethnic groups of Europe at the time. As for the combination of scepticism and love - surely the scepticism is a gift from the Haskalah, and from a European education - love is the other side, prompted once again by a sense of peril. Rather than look to Orientalism, look at the political movements of the day - not only Zionism, but also movements concerned with diaspora Jews who were expected to remain. Good luck. Alice Nakhimovsky. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 11:03:43 -0500 From: davism@turing.cs.nyu.edu Subject: "Ostjuden" Two personal remarks on Sarah Stein's query about Ostjuden. 1. My father who lived in Leipzig during the early 1920s as an immigrant from Poland told me that the attitude of many of the established German Jews regarding the burgeoning antisemitism from the right was: "Sie meinen doch die Ostjuden." 2. A few years ago at a Jewish film festival, I saw Molly Picon's first, a silent film originally entitled "Ost und West" made in Vienna, and which was very much a reaction to the migration of Galician Jewish refugees to Vienna during WWI. The Chasidm from the East were portrayed as naive but charming in their religious practices. Do see it if you get a chance. Martin Davis ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.99