Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.023 June 14, 1995 1) Genghis Cohn (Sam Abrash) 2) Shvarts-kheynevdike (Shoshana Balaban-Wolkowicz) 3) Shvarts-kheynevdike (Michael Falk) 4) Denver Shpitol (Diane Rabson) 5) The name "Tevye" (Harvey Spiro) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 14:13:08 -0500 (EST) From: abrash@urvax.urich.edu Subject: Genghis Cohn Just by coincidence, I picked up my copy of Gary's "The Dance of Genghis Cohn" just before the two items on the book and TV version were posted. I appreciate Zellig Bach's comments on what he feels is meaningful about Judaism (and in fact I agree). I believe him when he says that the TV show gave a shallow representation of what it means to be a Jew. However, I believe that neither he nor Louis F. were being fair to Gary's work. I can't supply a full review of the book yet, as I have just started reading it. (If there is interest I will supply one when I finish it.) I can tell you that it was not Gary's idea (as LF has suggested) that for any normal person being turned into a Jew would be a punishment. The person who is being punished by being turned into a Jew is an SS officer, a committed Nazi, who was "cleansed" and has a position as a Police Chief in postwar Germany. Of course such a person would find it punishment to discover that he was turning into one of the people that he so hated that he tried to exterminate them. At one level, the response of the people around our "cleansed" Nazi to his "Jewishness" is a bitter reflection of the superficiality of German "rehabilitation" after the war. I can also report that Gary's work is not to be taken at its face value. It is a bitter bitter black comedy. Finally, when "The Dance of Genghis Cohn" came out, it got a host of favorable reviews, from commentators ranging from well known intellectuals to committed Jews to Israeli newspapers. Sam Abrash 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 17:40:51 -0700 From: shoti@eworld.com Subject: Shvarts-kheynevdike Di shvarts-kheynevdike goye (khes-nun-ayn-vov-dalet-yud-kuf-ayn) by Izi Jarik (Musterwerk, vol. 14, pp.100) A shtetele mit geslekh un mit gasn, un altz ken men adurkh far tzvelf minut, men hot shoyn do fun vaman itst tzu shpatzn: - ze nor - her nor! - kuk ir onet! - nu---? Un zi iz greyt geven di greste mise nemen zi hot aley gebetn zikh - in hek. vos tut men itst? un vos? mit vos? mit vemen? ven altz iz nokh mit vildfleysh do badekt/ hot zi aroyzgeklept a ydyshe moidohe. hot zi geshmak dos shtetele gelakht: -" ir zet? - ot di shvarts-khenevdike goye vil oyslernen kinderlekh tanakh" un ven men hot khadorim dray gefunen un eyn melamed hot men nokh bashtroft, hot zikh derfilt: s'iz epes vos antrunen un epes vos hot oyfgevakht fun shlof... Shoshana Balaban-Wolkowicz 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 Jun 95 08:39:00 EDT From: falkm@imb.lan.nrc.ca Subject: Shvarts-kheynevdike Peter Kluehs asked (5.021) for the meaning of the word "hanevdike", found in a poem fun Izi Kharik. It seems very likely from the context ("di shvarts-hanevdike goye") that the word starts with a "khes" rather than a "hey" and means "graceful". The usual spelling would be "khes-nun" (the Hebrew root meaning "grace, favour") plus an adjectival Yiddish ending. Again, in this context, the word "shvartz" may possibly echo the Song of Songs. Mit hartsike grisn, Michael Falk Halifax, Canada 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 21:16:09 -0600 From: rabson@meeker.ucar.edu Subject: Denver Shpitol (Sanitarium) The Denver Shpitol that Andrew Cassel asked about was the JCRS Sanitarium, established in the early 20th century in what is now Lakewood, a western suburb of Denver. JCRS, or the Jewish Consumptives' Relieft Society, was organized by a group of working men who were frustrated with the policies of the other tuberculosis sanitarium in Denver, National Jewish Hospital, which refused to serve kosher meals, discouraged the use of Yiddish, and for a time (because of the fear of being swamped by destitute patients) only accepted sufferers with incipient tuberculosis and those who could afford to support themselves once they left the hospital. Leyvik was a patient at JCRS in the 1930's, and I imagine your great-grandfather was there as well. The organization and success of JCRS was due in large part to the efforts of Dr. Charles Spivak, a local legend, and Yehoash (Solomon Bloomgarten), who came to Denver to "chase the cure" in 1899. Starting around 1906, Yehoash presided over the Yiddish section of the 'Sanitorium,' a JCRS publication, including his own poetry and that of "Lung-fellow" as well as using graphics designed by the Bezalel School in then-Palestine. (Spivak and Yehoash, lovers of Yiddish, are famous for their dictionary of Hebrew elements in Yiddish). I've started researching Denver's Yiddish history. So far my search has yielded the Yiddish sections of the 'Sanitorium' (which deserve to be translated), and record books of the Arbeter Ring, Branch 957, from 1941 through 1962. I also visited the Golden Hill Cemetery, also in Lakewood, to find the graves of Dr. Spivak and David Edelstadt, another Yiddish poet and an anarchist, who died of t.b. around 1892. Edelstadt's grave (a monument) was inscribed with one of his poems and a photograph of the poet. Spivak's grave was adjacent; Spivak donated his skeleton to the Hebrew University. The upper part of the cemetery contained the graves of the patients who didn't beat the "white plague;" many, unfortunately, are marked only with small metal plaques, now unreadable. The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse has several poems by Leyvik, including one entitled "Sanitorium" ("Efn Zikh, Toyer" in Yiddish). As a final note, my zeyde, suffering from t.b. circa 1918, was invited to recuperate at JCRS, which would have meant a long trek with family from Syracuse, N.Y. My bubbe nixed the idea; she didn't want to leave her own mishpokhe and "live with the cowboys." [Thanks to Jeanne Abrams, Director of the Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society, for the information about JCRS. For further information, see her article in the Summer 1992 issue of the Book-Peddler, entitled "The Magic Mountain."] Diane Rabson Boulder, Colorado 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Jun 14 09:59:31 1995 From: hjs@nrc.gov Subject: The name "Tevye" In Mendele 5.022, Bernard Greenberg asks: >> What is Tevye the Dairyman's name? For what name is >> this a diminutive, via what language? [All that follows is conjecture; I look forward to hearing from someone who "really knows."] In the Sholem Aleykhem printings that I own (all from US publishers), the name is spelled tet-vet-yod-he. A phonetic "Yiddish"spelling would use tsvey-vovim in place of vet, and would not end in a he. I assume from the use of vet, and the placement of he in the final position, that the name comes from Hebrew. [In the Maurice Schwartz movie, the local Orthodox priest refers to Tevye as Tevel. And at the end of the prologue to the Tevye stories, Tevye gives his Russian name and address to Pani Sholem Aleykhem as follows: "Peredat gospodinu Tevelyu Molotshnaha Yevrey" (all phonetically spelled in my editions). I guess that this means something like: " ??? Mr. Tevye the milkman and Jew," but I _obviously_ don't know any Russian or Ukrainian.] Hebrew versions of the Tevye stories, translated by Sholem Aleykhem's son-in-law Berkowitz in the earlier part of the century, spell the name tet-vov-vet-yod-he, or Tovyah, meaning "tov yah," or "G-d is good." Certainly some Yiddish dialects would pronounce Tovyah as Toyvya, from which Tevya is a short leap. According to my Webster's, Tobias (Late Ecclesiastic Latin from Ecclesiastic Greek) is precisely the same name as Toviya, or Tov Yah. Other Jewish reference sources cite Tovyah as a name in use among the Babylonian exiles. The name is also found in Rabbinic sources, such as Leviticus Rabba and the Talmud (Pesachim). Per the Encyclopedia Judaica, Tobias as a surname is found in the 11th century (a Karaite), and in various places in Europe and Eastern Asia during the 16th - 19th centuries. To what extent the name Tovya or Tevya was used in the shtetl among Yiddish speakers, I have no idea. Does anyone know of a reference in print that discusses origins and use of Yiddish first -- not Christian :) -- names? Harvey Spiro Vienna, Virginia ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.023 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) 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 ****Getting back issues**** 1. Anonymous ftp archives are available. ftp ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files A table of contents is also available, along with weekly updates. 2. Mendele archives can also be reached as follows: via WWW: http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mewais.html via gopher: gopher://sunsite.unc.edu/11/../.pub/academic/languages/yiddish/mendele via ftp: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/languages/yiddish/mendele