Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.336 April 28, 1994 1) Ethnicities (Jascha Kessler) 2) Non-Slavic Languages Conference (Howard Aronson) 3) Medical texts (Moyshe Taube) 4) Choop/czuprina (Moshe Waldoks) 5) Lecture on Dutch Jewry (Dovid Braun) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Apr 27 19:09:19 1994 From: IME9JFK@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU Subject: re ethnicities I always wonder why the discussion of the population origins of the Ashkenazis goes from pickled herrings back to the time of the Zealots, with a brief nod in the direction of something called Medieval Europe, which begins, when? 9th Cen tury? 8th Century? There is a great big void in between, it seems. As one Isr aeli paleographer once showed me: there are several centuries of texts altogeth er missing, between about 200 and 450-500 CE. Not a jot or tittle is to be fou nd. And yet the later texts correspond withe earlier ones. Point of interest: my son, a Chinese archaeologist, who has mounted the great s how at present in LA, which goes to NY Mus of NHistory in September, was taken to a great site in Inner MOngolial last summer among about the 100+ new city si tes recently discovered. This one had a wall 10m high, wiht a base of pounded earth 10m wide! and...seven miles around. The Black City. City of 100 Temple s. What had they just dug up there in Inner Mongolia, among other things? The cornerstone or foundation stone of a 4th Century Nestorian temple! I suppose e ventually a synagogue will turn up too, or the floor of one, or a cornerstone. Item: the other year I read about the underwater explorations in Caesarea, the search for the foundation of the mole and breakwater that must have been there for it to have been a port of Herod's at all, and what did the scuba men come u p with? tons of shards: Chinese pottery! Think of the size of the trade overla nd and by sea that it required for so much pottery to have been available only to be used for fill to make a mole! J Levin talks about Poles and such ethnics. Those folks show up in history muc h later. Casimir the first invites Rhineland Jewry to his kingdom because he n eeds artisans, literates, craftsmen, burgers, etc. That is rather late in Medi eval times too. And then, we all have friends and relatives who could pass for Tatars without m akeup or hair work or epicanthal tucks. Jews as far back as they remember. Ch inese? Kazaks? etc. As for that character at UCLA, wait till I get my hands around his...gradesheet ! Protocols. These guys get scholarships and have to earn Brownie points. We have seen it for decades now. Also some profs, just to stay on Arafat's safe side, I guess. Jascha Kessler [The time has come--to put it mildly--for this thread or theme to be put to bed. There is simply not enough in most of the posts that deals with Yiddish; in any case we seem to be going over old ground. Unless there is an overwhelming cry of dismay from our readers, Mendele will not accept any more mail on this subject. Noyekh] 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 28 00:19:34 1994 From: hia5@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: Non-Slavic Languages Conference, May 1995 The University of Chicago will be sponsoring the 9th International conference on the Non-Slavic languages of the former USSR Wednesday to Saturday, 3-6 May 1995. (We shall try to schedule all papers for Thursday, 4 May through Saturday noon, 6 May 1995. Only if the number of papers accepted requires it, will presentations be scheduled for Wednesday, 3 May 1995.) Yiddish clearly falls within the purview of this conference and we would be very happy to consider any linguistic papers dealing with Yiddish, particularly papers dealing with the relations between Yiddish and co-territorial languages, Slavic or non-Slavic. If you are interested in receiving information about participating in the conference, please send a message to: hia5@midway.uchicago.edu and we will send you full details. Howard Aronson 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 28 07:34:01 1994 From: taube@HUM.HUJI.AC.IL Subject: medical texts For Mikhl: If I'm not mistaken there is a chapter or section on such texts in Jean Baumgarten's Introduction a la litterature yiddish ancienne. In any case, I know that he has been working on such texts. Moyshe Taube 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 28 09:00:09 1994 From: WALDOKS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: Re: Steinlauf's "choop/czupryna" Getrofn. Ikh gedenkt eyn Rebbe vos hot moyre gehat az di "choop" vet zayn a "hatziziah" far di tefilin shel rosh ober ikh meyn az di kval fun zayn oyfgerechte tsugang tsu di "choop" hot gehtamt fun zayn eygene "glatte" kop, vos hot geglantzt mit shvays unter zayne groyse kopulush. zayt mir ale sthark un gedenkt nor mit kovid amolige tsaytn ven mir ale hobn gehat vos tsu "choopn." Moshe Waldoks 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Apr 28 12:39:20 1994 From: dovid@MIT.EDU Subject: Harvard Lecture on Dutch Jewry by Marion Aptroot Harvard University Center for European Studies and Center for Jewish Studies present Dr. Marion Aptroot, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations "Patriots, Parnassim and Polemics: Dutch-Yiddish Pamphlets on Emancipation, 1797-1798" Thursday, 28 April, 4:15-6:00pm Cabot Seminar Room, Center for European Studies, 27 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA Reception will follow. Dovid Braun ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.336 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu