Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.373 March 21, 1995 1) Introduction; Singer in Gaelic (Roberta Saltzman) 2) Isaac Bashevis Singer's story (Morrie Feller) 3) The Russian medal (Berel Leiser) 4) The Russian medal (Paul Pascal) 5) HaKotev software (Andrew Cassel) 6) The Future of Yiddish (Walter Zimmerman) 7) Marc Kaminsky's Paper on Mentsh (Louis Fridhandler) 8) Yiddish seminar in London (Roger Harris) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 21 10:32:10 EST 1995 From: rsaltzma@nyplgate.nypl.org Subject: Introduction; Singer in Gaelic My name is Roberta Saltzman, and I'm a librarian in the Jewish Division of The New York Public Library. I catalog books in Hebrew and Yiddish and I also work at the reference desk. I've completed a bibliography of I.B. Singer's Yiddish works from 1960-1991, which will (I hope) be published this year. And this brings me to my main reason for writing, which was a query in Mendele Vol. 4.372. Jonathan Dembling asks about the origin of a Gaelic translation of a Singer story "the title of which translates into English as 'Jealousy' ... The title could also mean 'Zeal.' I've only just started to read the story, but so far there is a Zalman and a Rabbi Meir in the village of Radoszyce." I know of no Singer story that has "jealousy" or "zeal" in the title, but I believe Mr. Dembling has a translation of one of the stories that involve Zalman the glazier (who always tells about his village, Radoszyce) and Meir the eunuch. I know of five stories in which these characters appear: 1. "Dray mayses" appears in Yiddish in book form in "Der shpigl" (Jerusalem, 1975). It was translated into English as "Three tales" in "Short Friday, and other stories" (NY, 1964) 2. "Mayses fun hintern oyvn" appears in book form in the collection of the same name (Tel Aviv, 1971) and in "Der shpigl". It was translated into English as "Stories from behind the stove" in "A friend of Kafka" (NY, 1970) 3. "Tayves" appeared in the journal "Goldene keyt", no. 87 (1975), pp. 16-26. It was translated into English as "Passions" in the collection of the same name (NY, 1975) 4. "Tsvey hasenes un eyn get" appeared in the "Forverts" on April 24, 1977 (pp. C1, C2 and C19). It was translated into English as "Two weddings and one divorce" in "Old love" (NY, 1979) 5. "Moon and madness" in "The collected stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer" (NY, 1982). I haven't been able to identify the original Yiddish of this story. Of course, you need more plot details to determine which of these stories was translated into Gaelic, but this is a start. Roberta Saltzman New York, NY 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 17:36:27 -0700 (MST) From: feller@pcef.pc.maricopa.edu Subject: Isaac Bashevis Singer's story Response to Jonathan Dembling. The story appears in "The Collected Stories" of Isaac Bashevis Singer under the title: Passions. Published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux - 1982, p.485. I may have the Yiddish version, but it may take a while to locate it. Morrie Feller 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Mar 95 19:02:48 EST From: leiser@pacevm.dac.pace.edu Subject: The Russian medal [Larry Rosenwald:] The "accent" marks you referred to in your posting concerning the medal you are trying to decipher are commonly used to indicate abbreviations and numbers. I 'm at a loss to explain the first set of characters (non vov lamed resh vov), but the rest is fairly straightforward: The second word is certainly Cheshvan. This leads me to wonder: Could the first word be alef lamed resh ches? This would stand for "Or lerosh chodesh," the day before Rosh Chodesh. Or if the first letter could be ayin, it would be "Erev Rosh Chodesh," the day or evening before Rosh Chodesh of the month of Cheshvan. The next "word" is easy: It's a date, using the numerical equivalents of the letters: tav (400), resh (200), kaf (20) zayyin (7) = 627. The millennium is customarily omitted, since it hasn't changed in a sakh yoren. So the year is 5627, or 1866-67 in the common calendar. And the last word is Slutsk (Pol. Sluck), a town in the area of Minsk in Belorus. It was occasionally part of Lithuania, at other times part of Russia, and during some periods under the Radziwills. Among its more notable figures were Yosef Baer Soloveichik, a renowned rabbi, and many Hebrew and Yiddish writers and prominent members of the haskalah and Khibat Tzion movements. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica (vol. 14, pp. 1682-83), there was a Jewish settlement there from about 1583. Its ghetto was completely liquidated by the Nazis in 1942, and in 1970, very few Jews lived there and there was "no semblance of Jewish life." In any event, the medal evidently commemorates something that occurred in Slutsk in Cheshvan, 1866-67. Berel Leiser 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Mar 95 23:07:10 EST From: 75332.2735@compuserve.com Subject: The Russian medal The town inscribed in the Russian medal is definitely Slutsk, which is my mother's birth place and which I visited last summer. It is 101 km south of Minsk, with co-ordinates of 53 degrees 01' N./ 27 degrees 33' east. The Yizkor book of Slutsk makes one mention of a Liberman, but only in the index of the (small) English section only--a Bluma Liberman--but for some reason the name does not appear on the page referred to. Paul Pascal Toronto 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 19:36:12 -0500 From: cassel@libertynet.org Subject: HaKotev software A friend demonstrated for me some Hebrew-Roman bilingual word-processing software called HaKotev, for Windows. While not supporting Yiddish specifically (no tsvey-vovn, pasekh-tsvey-yudn, etc.), it was quite versatile, allowing the creation of side-by-side columns and switching back and forth between left-to-right and right-to-left. Anyway, I decided to buy a copy. But the company's listed number (in Provo, Utah) was disconnected. Does anyone know if they are in still in business, or whether the software is still available? Andrew Cassel Elkins Park, PA 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 14:17:22 -0500 (EST) From: zimmerma@lib.uwo.ca Subject: The Future of Yiddish -- Statistics and Opinions Needed I am a university reference librarian trying to help out a student interested in the future of Yiddish. In particular, she wants statistics on the numbers of speakers/writers of Yiddish and is also interested in your opinions on the future of the language. People can either post (with the shames' permission) to this group and/or may e-mail me at zimmerma@lib.uwo.ca with their (1) personal opinions or (2) citations to not-too-obscure journal references or other bibliographic citations she might want to use. Walter Zimmerman 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Mar 95 16:16:24 EST From: 74064.1661@compuserve.com Subject: Marc Kaminsky's Paper on Mentsh A dank Zachary Baker far der dermonung vegn dem referat fun Marc Kaminsky: Discourse and Self-Formation: The Concept of *Mentsh* in Modern Yiddish Culture (4.371). Ikh leyen es yetst. Araynzapn di bagrifn iz a bisl shverlekh ober der mekhaber makht klor etlekhe protim fun mayne eygene iberlebungen. Louis Fridhandler Irvine, CA 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 23:39:08 +0000 (GMT) From: rwsh@dircon.co.uk Subject: Yiddish seminar, London, England, August 1995 The Spiro Institute presents A Yiddish Summer Experience --------------------------- The first Spiro Institute Yiddish Summer Experience will take place between Monday 14th August and Friday 25th August 1995. The Spiro Institute's Yiddish "Ulpan" is the first of its kind in this country. It involves not only the teaching of the Yiddish language, but also lectures on the Bible, Yiddish film and music as well as lectures on Yiddish folklore in English. The eminent lecturers will include: Ofra Elyagon - writer and journalist, Professor Dov Noy - Professor of Jewish Folklore at Hebrew University, Moshe Shidletski - musicologist with particular expertise in Yiddish music and folk songs who has produced music programmes for Kol Yisrael, Lea Szlanger - actress, singer and broadcaster, Dr. Kobi Wietzner - lecturer at Bar Ilan and Tel Aviv University who specialises in the works of Sholem Aleichem, as well as Yiddish theatre and films. The cost of the Yiddish Summer Experience is #125 (GBP125). The evening programme which will include concerts and theatrical performances will be open to those not participating in the day programme. For further information please telephone +44 (0)171 431 0345. The Spiro Institute, The Old House, c/o King's College London, Kidderpore Avenue, London NW3 7SZ. Roger Harris ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.373 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. 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