Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.324 February 14, 1995 1) Nisht geshtoygn nisht gefloygn (Ronald Florence) 2) Dovid Katz (Ellen Prince) 3) A bit more re: mentsh (Louis Fridhandler) 4) L'koved khoydesh Oder (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 11:25:51 -0500 From: ron@mlfarm.com Subject: Nisht geshtoygn nisht gefloygn I'd welcome help with a literate translation into English of the Yiddish expression in the subject line -- `nisht gestoygn nisht gefloygn.' My grandmother used it to mean that something was ridiculous, roughly, `without head or tail.' Vladimir Jabotinsky, perhaps with the same intent, used the expression to describe the first British scheme for the partition of Palestine in 1937. Ronald Florence 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 13:31:54 EST From: ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Dovid Katz in the course of a long and intense phone call from marie wright at oxford yesterday, i agreed to post a statement she would send me. the following paragraph is what was faxed to me three hours later: --------- I misunderstood about the situation at Oxford. I would like to apologise to all the people concerned, the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies and in particular to Dr. Dovid Katz. I am genuinely sorry for any distress caused by my misinformed statements. --------- and below is the guardian article that my (mis)information came from: --------- The Guardian, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 1994 Oxford centre suspends Yiddish academic accused of defamation and misappropriation of funds [by] Michael Simmons Dovid Katz, director of Yiddish at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, was suspended on full pay yesterday accused by the centre's governors of misappropriating funds and defaming fellow academics. Dr. Katz, an American, has been a member of the independently-funded centre for 17 years. It has 10 Fellows on its teaching staff, and is associated with Oxford University, sharing lecturers and courses. The centre's governors have accused Dr. Katz, aged 38, of opening unauthorised bank accounts and taking expenses without approval. He said yesterday the charges were "rubbish." He said they would destroy Yiddish studies at Oxford, and would discredit an Institute for Yiddish he is setting up. "The governors are now complaining about all the things they were thrilled about for 17 years and which the centre's founder, David Patterson, once described as its crowning achievement," he said. However, officials at the centre said yesterday: "We are talking about sizable sums of money" and claimed that Dr Katz, whose salary is L30,000 a year, faced charges that were prima facie of "a serious nature". The dispute also involves Marie Wright, a non-Jew who was responsible for coordinating the centre's Yiddish programme until her resignation in October. The governors had issued a writ against her, which has subsequently been discharged, questioning the use of the centre's funds and documents. It is believed L34,000 has been "frozen" in specified bank accounts by the governors. Mrs Wright, who now runs an Oxford Yiddish publishing house -- the biggest in the world outside Israel -- described the suspension of Dr Katz yesterday as an attack by "a wealthy establishment on a fledgeling institute which has so much to offer." As well as stunning many of the Oxford colleges which include Jewish studies in the courses they offer, the dispute has rocked the Jewish community. While the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin has praised the centre as being "for all non-barbarians and for the rebuttal of barbarian tendencies wherever they exist", others have not been so sure. Teaching staff at the centre have been dismayed by the increasing influence of business personalities, who make up about a third of its ruling governors. They include the board's chairwoman Dame Shirley Porter. ---------- ellen prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Feb 95 13:35:23 EST From: 74064.1661@compuserve.com Subject: A bit more re: mentsh Thanks to Ellen Prince and Michael Steinlauf (4.321) for expanding the discussion on "mentsh." I can cite no evidence, but my hunch is that the exhortation, "Nu, zay a mentsh!" has had great survival value for Jews down the centuries. No doubt, the same idea has operated constructively for other groups. This became a foreign body to be rejected in the minds of authoritarians and their supporters. Being arrogantly supercessionary is not compatible with being a mentsh. _Human being_ can carry some of the same force as mentsh in certain contexts, but I would add an e in most contexts. _Humane being_ (more colloquially, a humane person) is more like it. When it can be said that "Fun im oder fun ir iz take oysgevaksn a mentsh" then a good deal of character building has been accomplished. We are all born human beings, but it takes time and work at building a strong and admirable character structure to be considered humane. Louis Fridhandler 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Feb 95 16:37 From: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu Subject: L'koved khoydesh Oder Many years ago my friend Hershl Bershady told me of his plans to develop a glossary of Yinglish. The general idea was that many English words took on new life if pronounced with the stress on a later syllable. Thus: farFETCHED. I think some interloper or other picked up on the idea and made a mint out of it but I hold that Hershl is the true inventor. Anyway, for close to 25 years I've been trying to come up with khotch one word to add to his list. My friends, I have it. I found it yesterday in a seed catalog. The plant is astralagus membranaceus, otherwise known as milKVETCH. How do I know that it belongs? Here's the description in part: tonifies the spleen, especially in cases of fatigue Freyg ikh aykh, tayere fraynt mayne, nisht azoy? Noyekh Miller ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.324 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