Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.204 January 20, 1994 1) Universities and Yiddish (Hal Berman) 2) Gade and Singer (Dvosye Bilik) 3) Yiddish programs in Israel (Bob Berk) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Jan 18 14:17:03 1994 From: Hal Berman Subject: Universities and Yiddish. The University of Toronto offers 3 Yiddish courses, Beginner, intermediate and a literature course. McGill in Montreal offers several undergrad courses and may offer graduate programmes. I think Yiddish there is still more elaborate than UofT. Of course Oxford has Yiddish, in fact there is a young woman who received a Rhodes Scholarship who will be studying Yiddish Literature there. Hal Berman 2---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jan 19 20:05:45 1994 From: Dorothy_BILIK@umail.umd.edu (db28) Subject: Grade and Singer To Mark Flumerfelt and others: I rarely engage in Mendele's linguistic and related makhloykes since I am no linguist. I do enjoy the contributions of Ellen Prince, Zachary Baker,Mikhl Herzog and other lamdim. Ikh shep nakhes oykh fun di ale yunge mentshn vos bamien zikh mit lernen zikh Yiddish aleyn un mit lerers. I teach Yiddish and have used Weinreich quite contentedly and Zuckerman for beginners, Schaechter's new edition for advanced and look forward to Sheva's forthcoming book. "Ober dos bin ikh nit oysn." Through the years I have heard people compare Grade and Singer, usually to the denigration of Singer. Perhaps it began with Cynthia Ozick's brilliant but too thinly disguised "Envy, or Yiddish in America" which long predates the Nobel Prize for Bashevis. Some of those critics of Bashevis who prefer Grade are Yiddish readers who are offended by Bashevis' emphasis on sex. Those who have never read Bashevis' extraordinary prose in the original are sciolists whose opinions can be discounted. No English version can convey the dense texture and the remarkable aural effect of i.e. the monologue "Di Nodl" which can be found in Chava Turniansky's college anthology of Y.lit. Grade was a gifted poet and more of an ideological writer of fiction than Bashevis. In my opinion his most outstanding work is Mayn krig mit Hersh Rasseyner which is longer and even more compelling in the original. If you remember it is a dialogue not dramatic although the ideological issues are,of course, horrendous. Bashevis was an outstanding writer of short stories-- a wonderful story teller. His most successful novel was his earliest,1935, "Satan in Goray" ably translated by Jacob Sloan into English. I cannot believe that the awarding of the Nobel prize to Bashevis was any more "political" than usual. Was Grade under consideration? How do we know?The awarding of the prize was great for Yiddish. He deserved it and so does Yiddish. If Grade had been as well known as Singer, he might have gotten it. See Ozick's story. There is an anecdote about Bialik who was asked by his Jerusalem grocer, "Nu Bialik, how come you didn't get the Nobel Prize?" Bialik replied "And if I had won it you would have said 'How come Bialik got the Nobel Prize?' " Zay gezunt, Dvosye Bilik 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jan 20 14:08:16 1994 From: BERK%ZODIAC.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Yiddish programs in Israel re doyre halperin biasca's inquiry about yiddish programs at israeli universities: avrom novershtern teaches yiddish at hebrew university [jerusalem] and also has been teaching in the yivo summer program at columbia university. i don't know if he'll be doing that again this summer. i also do not know the exact name of his department at hu. perhaps someone at yivo can provide more information. i also think there is some sort of yiddish program at bar ilan university in ramat gan. i'm sorry i can't give you any names to contact. i'm sure avrom can tell you about everything going on in that vein in israel. if you like, i can contact folks in israel who can provide more information. let me know. bob berk/berk@zodiac[.rutgers.edu] ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.204 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files