Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.211 January 30, 1994 1) Language and culture of Greek Jews (Jascha Kessler) 2) Language and culture of Greek Jews (Mikhl Herzog) 3) YUNG YIDDISH opening (Yohanan Weininger) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat Jan 29 20:11:53 1994 From: KESSLER Subject: Language and culture of Greek Jews For Kalmen Weiser: Asking about Romaniot, you might write the letter you posted as an inquiry for advice to: MARGALIT MATITYAHU: Kiron 55454, ISRAEL. Margalit is a Greek, who writes poetry in Ladino. Her family is Salonika. But she is looking into that community and perhaps she will have some leads for you . YOu might also ask if she has leads into that community via the Cairenes, man y of whom might be Romaniot connnected, and who left for Israel after 1948. Jascha Kessler 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 29 Jan 94 22:10 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: Language and culture of Greek Jews For Kalmen Weiser: If you haven't already done so, consult Paul Wexler, "Recovering the dialects of Judeo-Greek in non- Hellenic Europe," in J.A.Fishman (ed.) Readings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages (1985): 227-240; and Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, Index s.v. Yavan and Yavanic. Write directly to Professor Paul wexler, Department of Linguistics, Tel Aviv University. If you do your graduate work in NY,you can use the Yiddish Atlas as a model to design a study among Greek Jewish emigrants. By the way, is your name (Kalmen) a conscious reflection of your Greek-Jewish forebears? Best wishes. Mikhl Herzog. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Jan 30 10:08:38 1994 From: yohanan weininger Subject: YUNG YIDDISH opening YUNG YIDDISH celebrated the opening of their new house in Jerusalem on Thursday evening, 27 Jan. Mendy Cahan, the director of this new organization, has defined Yung Yiddish as a contemporary Yiddish culture center... Now in a rented Romema basement, they are collecting unused Yiddish books... This beginning follows from three years as the Israeli branch of the "National Yiddish Book Center". (Yung Yiddish received non-profit organization status in Jan. 1993.) So far they have collected about 35,000 books, according to the leading zamler, Russian oleh and Hebrew University Yiddish student Pinchas Maurer. Along one cement wall are new, compact book shelves which move on tracks. (These library shelves were designed by Bezalel Architecture Dept. lecturer Phillipe-Ami Holtzman, among the volunteers who have fixed up the place.) At the opening of the Yung Yiddish bookhouse, a cosmopolitan and bohemian gathering of 50 "Yiddishists and friends in solidarity" toasted the event with songs, recitations, and slivovitz. Among those who spoke (not in Yiddish, but in Hebrew, French, Russian...), there were: a mathematics professor from the Technion; a local Italian restauranteur (in fedora); a literature lecturer (Dr. Michal Guvrin); a library student in the National Library; and many Yung Yiddish zamlers and volunteers. Among the Yiddish offerings: - Ruth Levin sang Yosef Papiernikoff's "Zol zayn..." (melody by Sidor Bilarsky, an anthem for Israeli Yiddishists). - An undergraduate, Russian oleh declaimed a 1950s *Sovietishe Heymland* accolade to the "shaliakh tsu himmel, Grigarin, Yuri". - Mendy Cahan led the local rap version of Leivick verses, with community chorus "veiter"; which they first made known at the Yiddish Film Festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque last year. - Benyamin Zemach sang "what a Chasid would do for his rebbe". Shukling between shelves and back of a chair, it was a dramatic song by the spry, 94-year old, emeritus Tel Aviv theater professor, an associate of Stanislavsky, a co-founder of Habimah... It was near last buses, the Motsaeh Tu B'Shvat moon between clouds high overhead, when Yung Yiddish rolled the new book shelves to bed. Yung Yiddish can be reached at: Mail: P.O.B. 24193 / Mt. Scopus / Jerusalem. Fax: (03)-528-3625. Address: Rehov Yermiyahu 52 / Romema / Jerusalem. Tel: (02)-371322 (Current hours, Wed., 11:00-15:00; north of Egged central bus station, near J. Post press). -- Yohanan Weininger PS (Incidentally, apropos theater history, the early Chagall works exhibition at the Israel Museum will close on February 14th.) ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.211 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