Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.126 November 1, 1993 1) Fun a toes s'iz purim (Tuvye Shtern) 2) Birobidszhaner Shtern (Mottel Lakin) 3) German holem (Bob Hoberman) 4) Searching for singer (Dan Kirschner) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Oct 31 17:55:48 1993 From: Jeremy Stern Subject: fun a toes s'iz purim Shreibt Reb Iosif > Undzer balebos, Reb Noyekh beitn mir tsu farshteln zikh. S'iz purim shoyn? (Zayt moykhl, reb Iosif, ikh hob nit gekent hameven!) Tuvye Shtern 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Nov 1 11:49:23 1993 From: MLAKIN@DUKEMVS.AC.DUKE.EDU Subject: Birobidszhaner Shtern as seen by Robert Hoberman Last year I saw a copy of the Shtern; a six or eight page paper brought back to the States by a "shaliach" sent there to organize Jewish youth camps (also to Moscow and St.Petersburg).It was chiefly remarkable for its awful print, misspellings (even according to the "Freiheit" model of phonetically spelling any Hebrew terms) and its news was almost entirely about the local agriculture and animal husbandry. The only item of Jewish interest was an interview with this individual who had gone there as a shaliach. The level of Jewish life, gauged by that paper must be very limited indeed. My acquaintance estimates not more than 4-5 thousand Jews living there, although in its heyday, there could have been as many as 25-35 thousand, not all of them willing or "happy campers". He told us that the camp was eagerly attended by up to 35 % non-Jewish children whose parents were happy for the opportunity. Incidentally, I happen to have personally seen the "famous" sign in Yiddish designating the railway station in Birobidzhan, when I was traveling the trans-Siberian Railway between Khabarovsk and Tashkent during World War II, not as a tourist, but as a US soldier-airman, who became an unwilling guest of the USSR. Then, as now, the aim of many Jews whom I met was "Get me out of here!"I don't know how much faith can be placed in any revival of Yiddish culture in Russia, generally, and in Siberia and Birobidzhan in particular. Naturally, one hopes! In that I am one with Robert! Mottel Lakin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Nov 1 15:42:54 1993 From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: German Holem A couple of people have asked me to clarify my comment on German-Jewish [aw] versus [ow]. What I said was a guess, very likely a rash one, based on a few observations. Probably some Mendelnikes will have some information that can either support it or knock it down. In any case, I guess I've gotten in the habit of taking historical guesses based on slim linguistic evidence -- I hope I haven't given the impression that that's what linguists do for a living! (Well, some do, but no one thinks they're good linguists.) And I hope no one takes my guesses for gospel, nisht do gedakht. My comment was based on what I heard in the 1970's and 1980's in a German synagogue in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. Two rather elderly brothers frequently served as shliakh tsibur, and I noticed that one of them pronounced holem as [aw] and tsere as [e:] (prolonged [e]), while the other had [ow] and [ey] respectively. (Both had [o:] for kamets and had the identical pronunciation as far as I could tell.) I asked them about it, and they attributed the difference to their different educational backgrounds, with [ow], [ey] as the more old-fashioned. The brother with [ow], [ey] had studied in a yeshiva away from home. Now it's possible that the yeshiva pronunciation had some (Eastern) Yiddish influence, but they didn't seem to think so. I don't know anything about Western Yiddish pronunciation (all the Juedischdeutsch expressions that my in-laws use are fully compatible in pronunciation with their German dialect, except that the kh sound, as in Yiddish ikh, occurs in phonetic environments where it can't in German), so I can't say whether or not [ow] and [ey] existed in Western Yiddish of a few hundred years ago, but they don't in the relevant varieties of German, while [aw] and [e:] are frequent in German. Michael Shimshoni pointed out to me that Samson Raphael Hirsch transcribed Hebrew holem as "au" in his books, written in the mid-nineteenth century, and that Hirsch was very concerned about precise and correct Hebrew pronunciation. That proves that the pronunciation [au] existed in German Jewish usage at least as far back as 150 years ago. We have to remember, though, that Hirsch, was the leader of the modern trend in Orthodoxy; among other things, he chose to write some of his works in German (rather than Hebrew). That's about all I know. The rest is a guess. I guess that the two styles of pronunciation may have been in competition for as much as a couple of hundred years. The person who would know best would be Prof. Werner Weinberg of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Or maybe Mikhl Herzog has some relevant information. Bob 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Nov 1 16:40:43 1993 From: dkirsch@amy.tch.harvard.edu (Dan Kirschner) Subject: searching for singer The Boston Kleztet, an avocational yet authentic klezmer band in the West Suburban Boston area, is searching for a female vocalist, skilled in singing Yiddish and perhaps also Hebrew/Israeli songs. We average about 2 gigs/month, and occasionally we have need for a vocalist. For example, for an engagement party scheduled for January 2, 1994, the hosts wish to evoke a cabaret atmosphere and they have specifically requested that a female vocalist sing with our band, to entertain while the guests rest from what is to be expected as very spirited yiddishe dancing. Our band consists of clarinet, violin, keyboard, banjo/mandolin, and double bass. Can any of the mendeleniks and their numerous contacts out there help us? Dan Kirschner ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.126