______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.275 March 10, 1994 1) Klezmer (Henry Sapoznik) 2) mail.yiddish archives (David Sherman) 3) Crosslinguistic jokes (Howie Aronson) 4) Crosslinguistic jokes (Louis Fridhandler) 5) A trilingual joke (Arnold Kuzmack) 6) Gentile Yiddish (Rick Gildemeister) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 23:17:27 1994 From: sapoznik@aol.com Subject: klezmer As the term "klezmer" is a relatively new one to denote the genre of instrumental music of the Yiddish speaking Jews, it's interesting to see how it came about. I haven't been able to locate an earlier reference to it than to the first Hed-Arzi recordings (c.1975) of the Argentinian/Israeli clarinetist Giora Feidman. His definition, of course, has shifted dramatically over the years (he now claims that ALL music is "klezmer", so long as one "feels" it...) but back then it still had a vaguely "Ashkenazic" cast to it. Certainly, it was the success of the California-based ensemble "The Klezmorim" which gave the term its major frequency (c. 1976). The linking of the terms "klezmer" and "music" -- kind of like the growing popularity in New York area restaurants of advertising French toast made with "Challah bread" -- is seemingly neccessary to all those who don't know what a "klezmer" is and comically puzzling to those who do. This "Department of Redundancy Dept." terminology is similar to the way the instrumental vernacular music from New Orleans (and later, Chicago) was refered to in the early 1910s. "Jazz music", (with the upper case "J" as it was then called) has since lost the need for its "music" qualifier, even though the origins of the term "jazz" (since the late 1920s spelled with a lower case "j") has no music derivation (it's assumed to be a New Orleans vernacular for fornication). Musicians who played this music were refered to (and in some places still are) as "jazzers". Before the so-called "Klezmer Revival" began none of the old-timers I interviewed ever thought of the term "klezmer" as denoting a genre. They would refer to the music by its function or even tune types (as in: playing the "freylekhs", "freylekh music" or playing the "bulgars" or "khasene music"). Some, like Dave Tarras himself, did refer to it--in English--as "Jewish" music, but in Yiddish called it, of course, as "Yiddish" music. Perhaps the re-definition of the term "klezmer"in the 1970s from its coarse and untutored associations has something to do with the popular habit of refering to "good" things as "bad" which was common in the 1970s. This is seen mostly in the country music movement (most specifically in the Austin and Bakersfield, California scenes) with the rise of "outlaw" C/W. This glorification of the "outlaw" has allowed the klezmer to come to the fore as a one-time marginal personna, now endowed with a kind of socially-marginalized musical identity (certainly "The Klezmorim" played up the underworld associations of thier European namesakes...) I don't know if Feidman was originally trying to obfuscate the ethnic derivation of the term by trying to "de-Yiddishize" it, but it does seem take a bit of contextualization on the part of players, fans,scholars, etc. to alert those who are not clear about its origins that this is music of the Yiddish-speaking Jews and their cultural descendants. Henry Sapoznik 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 23:50:26 1994 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: mail.yiddish archives A number of people have asked me about the mail.yiddish archives, which include, inter alia, all sorts of puns, ditties and other low-class material not fit for MENDELE. (The archives also include the original discussions between myself and Noyekh that led to the formation of MENDELE by Noyekh.) I've set up the archives on news.lsuc.on.ca for anonymous ftp, in the directory "pub/mail.yiddish". In that directory are 53 files, numbers 01 to 53, one for each issue. mail.yiddish ran from October 1988 to March 1992. As far as I know, this works, but I haven't set up files for anonymous ftp before. If you download the files successfully, please let me know. David Sherman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 23:59:58 1994 From: hia5@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: Crosslinguistic jokes Ellen Prince refers to a Yiddish imitation of French "_avu tut ir a vey..." A very similar line occurs in George and Ira Gershwin's "Of thee I sing," in a song entitled "The illegitimate daughter." A chorus of French soldiers sings: Garcon s'il vous plait Encore Chevrolet coupe Papah, pooh! pooh! pooh! A vous toot dir vay a vous? (Incidentally, I suspect the "pooh! pooh! pooh!" is also from Yiddish.) Howie Aronson 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 8 00:21:13 1994 From: Louis Fridhandler <74064.1661@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Crosslinguistic jokes A note for Ellen Prince re: _avu tut ir a vey..._ I may be able to help you reconstruct it. In Montreal where I grew up, French was widely used. A Yiddish phrase was constructed (when or where I do not know) that was supposed to SOUND French, but was Yiddish. In nonsensical French, the first part might be spelled _a vous toute dire_. The VEY was added for effect. It came out _avu tut dir vey_ That is, where does it hurt you? Louis Fridhandler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 8 09:16:22 1994 From: Subject: A trilingual joke Q: What is the meaning of the Hebrew verb 'lesafsel'? A: To bentsh. Arnold Kuzmack 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 8 09:26:49 1994 From: Subject: Gentile Yiddish I liked what Leigh Lisker said about "Gentile Yiddish, a.k.a. German." I'm a Gentile that speaks both, and I just want to share an anecdote. One time I was speaking to an elderly Jewish lady, and she said, "You know, those Germans use a lot of Yiddish words." I thought she was referring to Mayrev fragments (a springboard for my next posting) or loshn-koydesh words that have found their way into German, but I suddenly realized that she meant the entire Yiddish German component! Men hot gekent platsn derfun. Rick "Henekh" Gildemeister ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.275 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. 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