Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.310 February 2, 1995 1) Introduction (Adi Drori) 2) Introduction (Dana Keren) 3) Why study Yiddish? (Louis Fridhandler) 4) Less Commonly taught languages Gopher (Louis Janus) 5) Blinde nakht/al di blinde/shvarts time (Bob Rothstein) 6) Lamed Vov and the term "reb" (Hershl Bershady) 7) Curses; female double names (Dov Ber Leiser) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 02 Feb 95 14:32:00 PST From: drori@hum.huji.ac.il Subject: Introduction Dos is dos ershte mol vos ikh shrayb af der mendele-liste. Kh'heys Adi Drori un ikh bin a student in yidish-opteyl in hebreishn universitet in yerusholaim. Ikh hob ongehoybm lernen di shprakh hayor. Kh'bin farinteresirt krign informatsye vegn yidishe vorterers (word processors), vos eksistirn af der velt (DOS oder WINDOWS). Kh'vel aykh zeyer danken far der hilf. Adi Drori 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 11:54:40 EST5EDT From: kerend@roba7.library.utoronto.ca Subject: Introduction; a tchaynik hakn Hi, My name is Dana Keren. Like many others I heard Yiddish at home, in Poland. My parents didn't want us kids to understand what they were saying, so we quickly learned. I also learned German, Russian and Hebrew so understanding Yiddish was easy. When I try to speak it, it comes out in German. Like at least one other person, I was drawn to the list by the command: to unsubscribe "kholile" ... I was in stitches! Well, the list certainly brightens my days. Some people are known to me from other lists (Rick Gildemeister - Autocat). I am a librarian at the University of Toronto Library. I took a two year Yiddish course in Montreal and enjoyed it immensely, although my parents' Yiddish is galitsyaner, so it differs from the so-called "received pronounciation". And now for my question. I often say to my young child: hak mir nisht ka tchaynik. I know what it means and when to use it (having heard it often enough from my mother), but my son demands a translation. I only know how to translate it into Polish (nie zawracaj gitary) but not into English - not without stretching it into a mini-lecture. Can I get some help from you, learned Yiddishists? Thanks in advance, Dana Keren 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 01 Feb 95 19:36:06 EST From: 74064.1661@compuserve.com Subject: Why study Yiddish? In reference to Joseph Sherman's question re: marketing a Yiddish course. May I second Kathryn Hellerstein's comments to Joseph Sherman as justifications for studying Yiddish. She counters two false statements about Yiddish: 1) that it is a dead language (it still is full of life); and 2) that it is a ghetto language (laughably false). Both misconceptions persist. It is hard to understand that. The Nazi war against Jews and natural assimilationist tendencies are the main causes of the rarity of Yiddish speakers, readers, etc. Mendele is (among other things) a tool for successfully averting a coup de grace. The coup de grace threatens to come from those misconceptions so destructive to Jewish (not only Yiddish) continuity. Another asinine and offensive misconception noised around about Yiddish is that it _should_ be forgotten because it was spoken by those who "went like sheep to the slaughter." That is an insult not deserved by the helpless, disarmed, diseased, starving men, women and children herded by heavily armed automatons. I suggest that those who parrot such insults consider this: it was the German soldiers and civilians who were sheeplike in following orders. They obeyed like sheep to go and slaughter, to commit unspeakably inhumane atrocities. Each one who obeyed such orders sheepishly abandoned all hope to ever be a mentsh. (Only Yiddish has such a word.) We should consider ourselves fortunate beyond our most miraculous expectations that we are in a position to remember and advance the Yiddish culture so viciously interrupted. To deliberately forget Yiddish (language and culture and history) is equivalent to pronouncing the horrible curse of yemakh shemoym vezikharom on those who sustained that culture. With Yiddish we enjoy and educate ourselves while we reach back to take what they would have given us had they had the chance. And we follow Emil Fackenheim's 614th commandment: do not grant Hitler a posthumous victory. The study of Yiddish puts us in a position to do all that and more. Louis Fridhandler 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Feb 95 10:54:48 -0500 From: janus005@maroon.tc.umn.edu Subject: Less Commonly taught languages GOPHER LESS COMMONLY TAUGHT LANGUAGE GOPHER ================================================================ A new gopher has been established that you or your colleagues might be interested in. Its aim is to present informatin on where where all Less Commonly Taught Languages (all except English, French, German, and Spanish) are taught at North American 2 and 4 year colleges, and universities. Included is information on contact people at each institution (addresses, phone and fax numbers). At present we have about 250 languages (from Afrikaans to Zulu, with entries for Cherokee, Evenki, Lao, Early Welsh, Middle Turkic, Japanese, and Old Norse, to name a few). We ask your cooperation in finding and bringing to our attention mistakes and gaps in our coverage. We continually update the information in the gopher. In the future, we will expand to include community education, and list details of LCTL offerings at the secondary and elementary levels. Please send information if know of any resources we do not list. The Less Commonly Taught Languages Project is part of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition at the University of Minnesota. We are a National Language Resource Center, funded through the Center for International Education, U.S. Department of Education. The gopher is available at URL gopher://lctl.acad.umn.edu or by following the path described below: +--> University of Minnesota | +--> All the University of Minnesota Gopher Servers | +--> Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition ================================================================== Louis Janus 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Feb 1995 22:51:15 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Blinde nakht/al di blinde/shvarts time Mikhl Herzog (4.300) asked about a possible Slavic origin for the Ukrainian Yiddish use of _blinde nakht_ for Christmas eve. In Ukrainian Christmas eve is called _sviatyi vechir_, lit. 'holy/sacred evening', whence perhaps the same kind of distortion suggested by Eli Katz (4.298) into _slipyi vechir_ 'blind evening'. Khaver Katz's example was of the Vilna church called (in Belorussian-- or [the now politically preferred] Belorusian) _usikh sviatykh_ '[The Church] of all Saints', with its distortion to _usikh sliapykh_ 'of all the blind'. He also mentioned the Ukrainian town called in Yiddish _shvarts time_. It's usually known in English by its Russian name (the fate of most geographical names from the former Russian empire or former Soviet Union), which is Belaia Tserkov', lit. 'White [Orthodox] Church'. The Ukrainian name is Bila Tserkva. Bob Rothstein Amherst, Mass. 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 18:17:28 -0500 (EST) From: hbershad@sas.upenn.edu Subject: Lamed Vov and the term "reb" My eyes seem to have improved for unknown reasons and I hasten to add these bits to wonderful Mendele. First, there was a novel published in France shortly after World War II and translated into English in the late 50s called "The last of the Just," by Andre Schwartz-Bart. The title should be self-explanatory to those who have inquired about the lamed vov. It is a painful and, as I recall, beautiful book. I don't know much about the author, but I gather that his personal life runs or ran somewhat parallel to that of Moses Hess. If any Mendelniks know much about him or his other work this might provide good material for discussion. Second, on the form of address, "reb." My father told me that _all_ adult Jewish males were called reb. This term does not simply mean "mister," he explained. Reb was a spinoff from Moshe Rabenu, Moses the lawgiver and teacher, which is what all adult Jewish males are expected to be for their children. To teach children the ten commandments, and to enforce them, is a common duty. This is to be distinguished from a learned man, a rebbe, who knows his way about the commentaries and, on the basis of this knowledge, can settle disputes between members of the community. I don't think there's any debasing of the term "reb" when used in the above sense. So, another 2 cents worth. Hershl Bershady 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Feb 95 14:31:05 EST From: leiser@pacevm.dac.pace.edu Subject: Curses and female double names We have already received a fine response to the question about "kharomes" as a curse: i.e., that it's derived from "kherem"--ostracism or excommunication. I f anyone doubts that this is a mighty curse, I suggest that you take a look at the vivid account of Boruch Spinoza's kherem by the Jews of Amsterdam in Will D urant's "Story of Philosophy." It's horrifying! A couple of female double names come to mind that have escaped notice in earlier postings: Khane Zlateh and Golde D'vorah (one of the few in which the Yiddish name precedes the Hebrew name). Dov Ber Leiser ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.310 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