Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.343 May 6, 1994 1) Introduction (Lester Vogel) 2) Introduction (Peter Stark) 3) Introduction; Courland (Avrom Yitzkhok Blair) 4) Translation help needed (Dvorah Halperin Biasca) 5) Oyve butl (Dan Kirschner) 6) Galicia -- Etymology (Zachary Baker) 7) Blondheim (Paul Ritterband) 8) Hebraisms in Yiddish (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 5 15:25:22 1994 From: vogel@mail.loc.gov Subject: Introduction Having just become aware of Mendele, and being impressed by the quality of its exchanges, I thought I'd subscribe. Presently I catalog fine art materials here but earlier I also did some Hebrew and Yiddish cataloging. My interests are broad, generally historical, and they include Eastern European--especially Galician and Lithuanian--Jewish life and culture. (Another interest is the American relationship with the Holy Land. Plug: see my book TO SEE A PROMISED LAND published in 1993 by Penn State Press). That's about it. Lester I. Vogel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 5 19:55:36 1994 From: pstark@lynx.dac.neu.edu Subject: Introduction I'm Peter Stark, and I'm currently principal of the Kadimah / Worcester Community Hebrew High School. My field of scholarship (ABD) isn't Yiddish, but rather Hebrew Bible and ancient Semitic languages. However, I grew up in a bilingual home (English and Litvishe Yiddish) and have made it a point of introducing the teaching of Yiddish in educational institutions I've headed, including the International Summer Leadership Training Programs for B'nai B'rith Youth. Vos nokh? B'nai B'rith sent me to the Soviet Union a number of times to run camps for Jewish kids, in cities ranging from Vilna and Riga to Ufa to Birobidzhan. Without Yiddish, this work would have been much more difficult, since my Russian is fairly rudimentary (though strong enough to get by on the street or in shopping, but not in teaching). It quickly became clear that when one let it be known that one spoke Yiddish, one met a whole different population from those met by Hebrew speakers with no Yiddish, so that impressions of the community in a given city might vary wildly. Israeli representatives (official and unofficial) and American Jews who spoke Hebrew but no Yiddish tended to meet the same folks, an activist, Zionist population, but not always a representative population. I had the wonderful experience in Ufa, a city closed to foreigners for many years, of speaking in Yiddish to a group of elderly folks at a public meeting, when the Russian translator was called away. A snowy-haired woman in the front row listened to me say a few sentences in Russian and asked, "Ir redt Yiddish?" When I said that I did, she told me to speak in Yiddish. I described the Soviet Jewry movement in the US to this group, which was pretty much unaware of the movement, and she began weeping about 5 minutes into my talk. Afterward, I approached her, and she said that she had been very interested, but that she wept because she hadn't heard Yiddish spoken in a public meeting "in 60 years." I started a program as principal of Kadimah / Worcester to continue working with Jews in Vilna. Our high school students may take a training course during which they plan a Jewish-cultural camp for Jewish kids in Vilna, and each December, a group of our students goes and runs the camp. We are the only counselors; we are the organizers. In Vilna one still finds some Yiddish-speaking children - though not many, sadly. Final note: I speak Litvishe Yiddish because my dad is a native of Tartu in Estonia, and my mom's folks were from Yanovich near Vitebsk. My mom grew up speaking Yiddish and attended a Sholem Aleikhem Shule in Sioux City, Iowa. Peter Stark 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 5 23:55:19 1994 From: ablair@beauty.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: Introduction; Courland I've been on the network for about a year in silence. So here I am: I am a retired Professor of Physiology in the College of Medicine, and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the College of Dentistry at The Ohio State University. I have also retired from my private practice. What do I do with all that time on my hands, now? I'll tell you. I am now a non-degree track graduate student in the Dept of Yiddish at Ohio State. Never had so much fun in my life! Nu, vos nukh, ir fregt. Ikh vil aykh zogn: My mother's family came to the U.S. from Riga, Latvia (then part of Tsarist Russian Empire). They decribed themselves as "Courlanders" and spoke "Courlandishe Yiddish" and "Courlandishe Deutch" as well as some Letish. Does anyone know the origin of "Courland"? Does anyone have ANY information about a shetl or market-town called VOROZHILOVKA? There is a place called Vorozhilovgrad which is anondern plotz. Avrom Yitzkhok Blair 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 5 12:08:56 1994 From: biasca@horton.Colorado.EDU Subject: help w/ translation, H. Leivick I am puzzled by a word in an article of H. Leivick's, reprinted, in Di Yidishe Gas (Ivriskaya Ulitsa) published in Moscow, 1993, Vol. 1 The article is called "Tsi hot di yidishe literatur a tsentrale ideye?" The word I can't translate is spelled 'shin vov lamed lamed' and occurs in the following phrase: ver es iz 'sh-v-l-l' di lebedike role fun undzer literatur un fun undzer yidish, iz 'sh-v-l-l' undzer koym-ideye umetum. How would you translate this phrase? Thanks Dvorah Halperin Biasca 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 5 15:50:55 1994 From: dkirsch@amy.tch.harvard.edu Subject: Re: oyve butl I suppose that it is not coincidental that the retail store "Ava Botelle Fashions" is located in Newton, Massachusetts? Dan Kirschner 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 5 16:33:17 1994 From: BM.YIB@RLG.Stanford.EDU Subject: Galicia -- Etymology >From vol. 3, p. 16 of the Slownik geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego (Warszawa: 1882), the authoritative historical gazetteer of Poland: "Halicz (zepewne od halka 'kawka'), niegdys stolica ziemi ruskiej i siedziba ksiazat halickich, od ktorego dzisiejsza Galicya (Halicya) otrzymala swa nazwe." Iz der taytsh: "Halicz (certainly from [Ukrainian] halka = 'jackdaw'), [was] for- merly the capital of the Russian [Rusyn] land and the seat of the Halicz duchy, from which today's Galicia (Halicia) received its name." Zachary Baker, YIVO Library 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu May 5 23:55:21 1994 From: uap@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu Subject: Blondheim Blondheim was an important Jewish / Judaica scholar, specializing in Romance philology with a particular interest in the French glosses in Rashi. He was seriously considered for appointment to the Miller chair at Columbia, a postion which ultimately went to Salo W. Baron. Blondheim taught at Hopkins and the University of Illinois. Blondheim's personal life took strange and tragic twists. His affair with Eleanor Dulles, the sister of John Foster Dulles, ultimately led to his taking his own life when Eleanor became pregnant with his child. This is but a brief note. For more, see Jewish Learning in American Universities: The First Century, Indiana, forthcoming by Harold S. Wechlser and the undersigned. Paul Ritterband 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri May 6 13:44:01 1994 From: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu Subject: Hebraisms in Yiddish From the Forverts (May 6, 19947): Fun Alaska iz di teg ongekumen a bikhl fun 130 zaytn, vos vet shtark tsunuts kumen a sakh fun undszre leyeners, bazunders yene naye leyeners fun geveyzenem Sovetn-Farband un oykh ondere vos hobn shverikaytn baym leyenen un shraybn di Hebrayishe verter. Der nomen fun dem verterbikhl iz: A Guide to more Common Hebraic Words in Yiddish un der tsunoyfshteler iz Steven Jacobson, velkher iz a Professor fun Lingvistik in Alaska Universitet, velkher iz a shtendiker abonant fun "Forverts". [Oykh fun Mendele. nm] Dos bikhl bashteyt fun tsvey teyln: eyner vos brengt tsuersht dem traditsioneler oysleg fun di Hebraizmen un nokh dem vi me shraybt zey fonetish -- un tsum sof mit an Englishn taytsh. In'm tsveytn teyl vern a tsol Hebreyishe verter tsuersht gedrukt fonetish, nokh dem in Hebreyishn oysleyg un shpeter di Englishe iberzetsung. Mir veln zen, az der Arbeter Ring Bikher-Tsenter zol bashtel dos bukh baym mekhaber un farintersierte leyeners veln es kenen koyfn, ven mir veln moydiye zayn, az es iz ongekumen. ******* Yasher koyekh, Mendelnik Jacobson! Noyekh ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.343 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