Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.073 July 28, 1994 1) Introduction (Ali Lemer) 2) Recorded folksongs (Bob Poe) 3) Yiddish activities in Israel in August (Kalmen Weiser) 4) Got fun Avrom (Arn Abramson) 5) Kautabag (Arn Abramson) 6) Shlumiel the Shlemiel (Michael Shimshoni) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 28 Jul 94 13:07:18 EDT From: ali@panix.com Subject: Introduction My name is Ali (short for Alison) Lemer. I was born and raised in New York City, and am a recent graduate of Columbia University, where I took Yiddish for my language requirement (2 years). Yiddish was my father's *mameloshn*, since his parents came over from Europe, so although I've forgotten some of it by now, we still converse in Yiddish sometimes. Because I haven't had a class for two years and my Yiddish is slipping away, I want to try to get a copy of Weinreich's COLLEGE YIDDISH (I lost the textbook junior year) and try and get back into it. When I found another Yiddish mailing list on the Internet, I naturally signed up. (There was another one I belonged to, but I stopped getting stuff from them.) Anyway, sorry I didn't really write any of this in Yiddish, but I don't have enough confidence in my Yiddish anymore to try and compose a letter to everyone. Efsher di tsveyte tzeit... Zayt gezunt! Ali Lemer 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Jul 94 15:59:54 EDT From: poe@keps.com Subject: Recorded folksongs It was mentioned here recently that Theo Bikel's recordings of Yiddish folksongs have been reissued on CD. I would like to add that I recently ran across a CD entitled "Yiddish Folksongs" in a music store. It was recorded by the Orchestra of the Jewish Theatre, Bucharest, with various male and female singers (presumably also from that theater). The disc is identified as LaserLight 15 185. It contains 18 numbers, for a total of 44 minutes, and I found it for $5.99 (!). In my opinion, the recording and music are quite good. The songs are, of course, presented in a theatrical style, rather than Bikel's folksier style. My Yiddish is not good enough to understand much of these songs, except for those I am familiar with already, but that is not the fault of the recording or the diction of the performers. (The dialect is a bit unfamiliar to me, but bears a general resemblance to my family's Ukrainian pronunciation.) Bob Poe 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 18:13:32 -0400 (EDT) From: kiw2@columbia.edu Subject: Yiddish activities in Israel in August I will be travelling about Israel during the first three weeks of August, but will hopefully have some free time in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Could someone provide a list of Yiddish language activities and/or organizations which I could visit during this time. A sheynem dank in faroys, Kalmen Weiser 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Jul 94 21:54:26 EDT From: ABRAMSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Subject: Got fun Avrom To Shames Noyekh: I am grateful for the transcribed text of the version you have of Got fun Avrom. I have just learned from my local friend, Ada Nesselroth, that she remembers her grandmother's version as somewhat different. She was able to dredge up a few phrases. Mikhl Herzog did say that there are regional versions waiting to be processed for the Yiddish Atlas. To Yude Rozof: Thank you for the note about the Sim Shalom prayerbook. I will try to go to divine worship at the nearby Conservative synagoge this Sabbath to look it up. Arn Abramson 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Jul 94 22:02:53 EDT From: ABRAMSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Subject: Kautabag To S. Shapiro: I cannot find the town or village of Kautbag in any source at home. You should look it up in a book I mentioned on Mendele not long ago: Mokotoff, G. & Sack, S.A. (1991). Where once we walked. Teaneck, NJ: Avotaynu, Inc. You must go to the back of the book and use the Soundex system to encode the name, so as to allow for orthographic variants corresponding to a range of pronunciations. The price of the book is $69.50; it is well worth it. If you cannot find it in your local library, try the nearest Jewish Genealogical Society. Arn Abramson 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Jul 94 15:51:46 +0300 From: MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL Subject: Shlumiel the Shlemiel Over a month ago David Sherman wrote on the shlemiel and shlimazl discussion: >Am I missing something here? shlim+mazl=shlimazl. "shlim" could be >German or Yiddish, meaning "bad", but "mazl" is unquestionably Yiddish >(from Hebrew), not German. And shlemiel is from the Hebrew shlumi'el >(ben tsurishadday), one of the Bnai Yisroel tribal princes in the >Chumash. How could either of these gone G>Y? I confirm that in modern Hebrew we use Shlumi'el for a shlemiel, the question is, why was that prince singled out for this role. There is a (tongue in the cheek?) explanation for it. On Hanukka one reads every morning during Shaharit (shakhris) a portion from the Torah, some special ones on the first and last day, and on days two to seven from Bamidbar (Numbers) 7, each day's portion starting with "on the second (third etc.) day" resp. Now the fifth day is the sacrifice of our friend Shlumi'el. By some rules of our fixed calendar, the fifth day can *never* be on a Shabbat, thus this shlemiel Shlumi'el misses the chance to be mentioned on the day when shul is full. I recently learned that the late Habbad Rebbe made a big tzimmes of the fact that the fifth day, because of never being on Shabbat, is a day of special darkness and thus on it the Hanukka candle becomes especially important. It seems that the Rebbe rejected the above mentioned shlemiel explanation. :-) Michael Shimshoni ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.073 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. 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