Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.216 December 5, 1994 1) Introduction (Gershon Margolis) 2) Hunt for Chicago's elusive YIVO (Meyer David) 3) On Some German-Jewish Words (Michael Shimshoni) 4) Mieshtshanske felder (Michael Steinlauf) 5) Maoz tsur (Stephen Schneiderman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 02:07:56 -0800 From: garrym@netcom.com Subject: Introduction Re: Tsugetschepet Does this bring back memories! My parents told me: "Tschepe nisht!" every time my fingers went near my adolescent acne. I'm officially de-lurking, so I should introduce myself. My parents and I were born in Canada, and their parents came from Byelorus. Although my first language was Yiddish, I can no longer speak or write it because of years of neglect, but I am enjoying decoding the Romanized Yiddish I find here. I teethed on Yiddish music (my mother sang Yiddish songs semi-professionally), and I greatly enjoy the current klezmer revival -- it's my soul music. My father did English translations of some Peretz stories, collected under the title "As Once We Were", which was much admired by the relatively few people who read the private publication of them in the early '50's. As a young teenager, I was a member of the Yiddishe Kinder Theater, a Los Angeles group which performed exclusively in Yiddish, under the direction of Than Wyenn and, later, Benjamin Zemach. Despite my parents' zeal in attempting to preserve the Yiddish language, however, I lost contact with Yiddish for a number of years, and I am delighted to see the resurgence of interest in its rich heritage. Ver vays? Maybe I'll be able to start speaking it again! My parents do not have Net access, so I am forwarding copies of Mendele mail to them on computer disk, and I hope I will be posting contributions from them on their behalf. Gershon Margolis 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 21:14:50 -0800 From: mhd@crl.com Subject: Hunt for Chicago's elusive YIVO Meyshe-Yankl Sweet: How about trying the Spertus Museum on Michigan Avenue? As for the Chicago YIVO, the current _Forverts_ does have a small article about them and their activities, but doesn't print any information about how to reach anyone there. ---------------- _forverts_, 28 Nov. 1994, page 13: ---------------- fun yivo-komitet in shikago di shikago yivo gezelshaft, der shikago arb. ring, und der mitl-ayrev yidish-rat hobn beshutfes presentirt a lektsye un muzikalishe program dem 6tn november, vos hot baert dem ondenk fun rivtshe goldfarb, aleho hasholem. der lektor iz geven profesor moyshe volf, vos hot geredt af der teme: "stalin's letste milkhome kegn di yidn".... nokh profesor volf's zeyer gerotener lektsye, zaynen di muziker arnold un sime miler ufgetrotn mit a program fun lider in yidish un hebreish, vos hobn batont dem matsev fun rushishe yidn. ---------------- dos heyst: s'darf zayn say a yivo say an arbeter ring in shikago. nishto in artikl ken nomen oder telefon numer far vayterdike informatsye. efsher ken uns fraynt mlotek, vos iz ersht ongekumen af mendele, ibergebn di informatsye? Meyer David 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 05 Dec 94 09:49:56 +0200 From: mash@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il Subject: On Some German-Jewish Words Rick Gildemeister interesting post about some phrases the Jews in Germany used moves me to ask a question. Although I left Germany quite early in my life, I was exposed to the language used by my parents and our yekkish family and friends in Israel (Palestine) for much longer. One word used, and which I do not think exists in Yiddish was "ohser" (I spell it like that as the "o" sound was long, and the "s" was a hard one). This word was used to express strong disbelief in some story told. Does anyone else know this word? As I am with yekkish usages, we, who lived in Berlin (but perhaps influenced by my father's Alsace/Bavarian origin), called the shabbes khalle something like barshes. I was told that in other parts of Germany it was called tatshir (tatsher?), and that both words originated from the biblical verse BIRKAT hashem hi TA'ASHIR. This verse was engraved on my parents' khalle knife, supporting this conjecture. I wonder how far east "ohser", "barshes" (or barkhes) and "tathsher" have travelled. Michael Shimshoni 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 05 Dec 1994 10:55:43 -0500 (EST) From: m_steinlauf@acad.fandm.edu Subject: mieshtshanske felder On Judith Binder's query (nr. 205), the question of Tzipyorek is certainly disposed of; the others, though, still remain. Let me take on the last one, which no one has yet touched. The word is almost certainly from the Polish mieszczanskie, which usually means bourgeois. But here the context forces some refinement ("di shmole pasn fun di mieshtshanske felder"). The reference here, I would suspect, is to fields owned by town-dwellers, i.e, burghers, another older meaning of mieszczanskie. These fields would certainly be more modest than the typical vast possessions of the Polish landowning aristocracy,the szlachta magnates. And therefore the "shmole pasn." All this is only an educated guess, of course, and needs verification through considerably more context, ideally, the entire story. But one of the things I want to suggest here is the importance of historical in addition to language knowledge when one goes to translate Yiddish (or, of course, any language). Michael Steinlauf 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Dec 94 09:46:10 EST From: steve@logos-usa.com Subject: Maoz Tzur I know of no Yiddish tranlation, but I do remember the first line of a German parody that my (Jekke) grandfather used to sing: Moysche, du die Schuh' auszieh' Does anyone know the rest? As I remember, it was wonderful. Stephen Schneiderman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.216 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. 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