Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.265 January 6, 1995 1) Searching for electronic text (Howard Gershen) 2) The old Forverts (Abe Bloom) 3) Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen (Henry Mullish) 4) Gedabrt (Garry Margolis) 5) Grodne (Zachary Baker) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 09:53:59 -0500 From: howard@boxhill.com Subject: Searching for electronic text Does anyone know if any of Sholem Aleichem's works are available on-line in an electronic text repository? It seems to me that, like Twain, most of the U.S. copyrights on the original works have run their course and these works are eligible to be scanned in and made available to all. Unfortunately, the texts would have to be English translations (due to the limited support for non-Roman alphabets in most computers. Howard Gershen 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 12:30:31 -0500 From: abebloom@aol.com Subject: The old Forverts My father worked for the Yiddish Forverts for many years, until he passed away in 1954. As a result of his interest in Yiddish for all of his life (as an immigrant in 1905, ;he went to night school and then translated some of the English language books and they were published in the newspapers of the time, like the Tsayt), us four children all went to the Sholem Aleichem Folkshulen. One of our neighbors in the Bronx (during the late 20s) was Avrum Reisen, the well known poet. He was as I recalled a gentle soul and very easy to talk to and enjoy. One of the stories I heard from Pop was about the 'zetzers' (linotypists) and their ideas as to how Yiddish should be written and its correct form. He told me that some of them had the chutzpah to make changes to the copy submitted and revise it to conform to what they believed would be correct and better to read. It seems that one of their favorite targets was ---- Sholem Asch. Vey! Just to add another thought. In as much as I have a strong attachment to the memory of the Forverts that used to be, I felt it to be important to subscribe to the English language Forward. For those that have not seen it, I strongly recommend it. Abe Bloom 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 05 Jan 1995 13:03:58 -0400 (EDT) From: mullish@acfcluster.nyu.edu Subject: The Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen (AJEX) Having just returned from a month's stay in Israel, I would like to bring the attention of the list to the fact that in Israel is a branch of the British Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen (AJEX). This branch is run by an ex-Manchester man named Harold Greene now living at 33 Dov Hoz Street, Tel Aviv 63416 (tel:03-524-6412). The branch caters to ex-members of the British forces and the Commonwealth nations, many of whom are regular speakers of Yiddish. They are scattered throughout the state of Israel and are kept informed of the latest information via a regular newsletter sent out by Mr Greene. The Israeli branch is anxious to hear from any of the former members of AJEX so that they can be added to their list. While walking along Dizengoff Street I caught the sound of two men in a horse and cart repeatedly calling out "Alte zachen, alte zachen!" This was the first time I had heard the phrase since leaving the East End of London many years ago. This was a method many of us East Enders were forced to use in order to get a few pennies for discarded clothing. The only thing I wanted to mention here was that the two men in the cart were Arabs! Henry Mullish 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 14:24:33 -0800 From: garrym@netcom.com Subject: Gedabrt Not that I have any personal interest in learning the answer to this discussion, but couldn't someone contact the primary source, Theodore Bikel, and ask him? But that's not nearly as much fun as speculation ... ;>) Garry Margolis 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 5 Jan 95 15:31:46 PST From: bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu Subject: Grodne Grodno: Since you asked a librarian, here's a librarian's response. (This, in reference to Dovid Braun's posting on "Fershtot" [Mendele 4.260].) Since Grodno (Yiddish: Grodne) was the seat of a pre-1918 guberniia, it was much more than a shtetl, and the Jewish population was substantial (close to 35,000 at its peak, in 1912, or 60% of the city's total population). It was also one of the oldest Jewish settlements in historical Lithuania. See the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia, and the Encyclopaedia Judaica for background, in English and Russian. Yiddish sources include the post-Holocaust memorial book, "Grodnah - Grodne," edited by Dov Rabin (1973). See also "Grodne zaml-heft," published by the Farband fun Grodner yidn in Yisroel (no. 1- Dec. 1958- ); "Grodne," by Eliyahu Gozhanski (Tel Aviv, 1945); "Grodner opklangen," published in Buenos Aires from 1949-1981; and a curious pamphlet listed in the YIVO Library's subject catalog, "A shreklikhe geshikhte fun R' Eliezer hakodesh vos iz gegangen oyf kidesh hashem in Grodno in yohr 1770" (Horodno: Farlag A. L. Miller, 1913). Other titles are also noted in the YIVO Library subject catalog, and YIVO has a number of newspapers published in Grodno. As the imprint for the last-cited title implies, another form of the place name is Horodno (and its variants). A history of the community, in Hebrew, was published in Vilna in 1880: "Sefer 'ir giborim: yekalkel korot 'ir Horodno mi-reshit yeme hivsadah," by Shim'on Eliezer Fridenshtein. That's just for starters. Zachary Baker ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.265 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) 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 Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele nomail b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu