Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.028 June 6, 1993 1) Nekhtiker tog (Arnold Kuzmack) 2) Teaching Yiddish literature (Moshe Waldoks) 3) Teaching Yiddish literature (Bob Werman) 4) Tsukershtrikl (Bob Werman) 5) For Ellen Prince (Bob Werman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Jun 5 22:32:39 1993 From: lkuzmack@sytex.com Subject: Nekhtiker tog In Mendele 3.025, Mark Pinson writes: I think the correct syntax is "toytn" is in the dative, i.e., it would help as much as "cupping" (=bankes) would help a dead man. Anyone else encountered a "frozen", archaic dative that looks like this? Why is "toytn" considered archaic or frozen? The normal, regular dative of "der toyter man" is "dem toytn man". Perhaps, the confusion is over the fact that "toytn", like other adjectives, is declined like an adjective, even when it is used as a noun. Arnold Kuzmack 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Jun 5 15:12:38 1993 From: WALDOKS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: Teaching of Yiddish literature Why Yiddish literature is rarely taught outside of Yiddish lit classes? One of the great failures of Jews in this country (especially in this age of multiculturism) is our failure to insist that it is impossible to understand the story of modernity (its triumphs and tragedies) without access to how much of the Yiddish speaking world perceived reality for over 100 years (1845-1945). This literature provides a unique striving towards particularism without parochialism, Yiddishkeyt aligned to mentshlichkeyt, and a way of understanding minority status that will be helpful to many different groups who are emerging into their own in these United States. genug gezogt. zeir mir ale gezunt un shtark. Moshe Waldoks (vos voynt in Newton) 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Jun 5 15:28:12 1993 From: RWERMAN%HUJIVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Teaching of Yiddish literature Ted Steinberg asks if anyone teaches Yiddish Literature. I am not sure what he means. There are lots of Yiddish lit courses around the USA and elsewhere, too. There is a Yiddish Dept. here at the Hebrew University where they teach Yiddish Lit [In HEBREW!] and my wife, Golda Werman, teaches Yiddish Lit in English translation. NB The Yiddish taught in Hebrew is read in Yiddish. __Bob Werman 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Jun 5 19:15:20 1993 From: RWERMAN%HUJIVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Tsukershtrikl Elkeh talks of the sugar string. For those of us old enough to remember rock candy, we made it at home by preparing a supersaturated sugar in hot water and dropped strings into the pot, leaving the free ends hanging over the edge. When the sticky stuff cooled, lo and behold, there was a gigantic crystal of sugar on the dipped end of the string, i.e., rock candy, also available for money, for the effete. Good for you for learning the language and I hope you have the necessary perseverence to read the literature. I did not make it; my wife did. __Bob Werman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Jun 5 19:15:25 1993 From: RWERMAN%HUJIVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: for Ellen Prince re: Kathryn Hellerstein. She did have an email account at Annenberg and David Stern, her husband, does have one at UPenn. __Bob Werman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.028