Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.094 August 26, 1995 1) Two Yiddish stalwarts (Zachary Baker) 2) O.J. and klal shprakh (Harvey Spiro) 3) Chicken-footed demons (David Herskovic) 4) Chicken-footed demons (Sarah Kozodoy) 5) Zapilierin (David Sherman) 6) Pocket books (Berel Leiser) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Aug 95 12:48:28 PDT From: bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu Subject: Two Yiddish stalwarts There is sad news to report about two stalwart figures of the Yiddish-speaking world. Last week, Leyzer Ran, author of the photo album "Yerusholayim de- Lita" and other books about his native Vilna, died at the age of 83. His was the odyssey of a 20th-century Jew: Born in Vilna, studied in Yiddish secular schools there, survived World War II in prison in the Soviet Union (where he went to study in 1936), emigrated to Cuba after the war, and finally (1953) to New York, wherre he worked at YIVO and then as a typesetter, until retiring. His entire life was bound up with his attachment to his native city, and he managed to amass an impressive personal library and archive on the personalities and institutions that made Vilna's Jewish community so special. This past Wednesday, Chaim (Bolek) Ellenbogen died, after a long illness. He was in his early 80s. Bolek was not a writer; he was nevertheless more than just a folksmentsh. From a working-class family in Warsaw, he was active since childhood in the Jewish Labor Bund. He survived the Holocaust, first by working at the Medem Sanatorium, outside of Warsaw (which continued to function during the first years of the Nazi occupation), and then on the "Aryan side," in Warsaw, where he played a role in the Jewish and Polish undergrounds. After the war he emigrated to Sweden and then the United States, where he worked as a floor-layer and then as the superintendent of the YIVO building at 1048 5th Avenue. He was a thoughtful and well-read man, an autodidact of a type that is seldom seen these days. Bolek's funeral took place on Friday morning. funeral took place on Friday morning. Zachary Baker 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed Aug 23 12:17:15 1995 From: hjs@nrc.gov Subject: O.J. and klal shprakh Finally, something of value has come out of the OJ media circus. David Herskovic provided an interesting Associated Press tidbit citing the misuse by Jewish lawyers in the Simpson case of the word "mishuganer" to mean the adjective "crazy." It's gratifying to see in print an acknowledgement of an issue close to the hearts of many Mendelyaner -- namely, derekh erets for Yiddish, as a language like all others, with rules and grammar. Just one small "tayne" with the article. It says: meshuge is the adjective for crazy or mad -- no matter what city you're from. Some of us do pronounce it "meshige." Might it be my southern accent? ;-) Harvey Spiro Vienna Virginia 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Aug 95 18:53:24 EDT From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: Chicken Legs I do not know the origins of it but there is a myth that ghosts or shaydim have chicken legs. Still today you can hear some gullible tmimim relating that Hitler was not human but a shin daled, the proof being that he never took his shoes off which would have shown the state of his feet. I wonder if it was Eva Braun that passed on this valuable information but it does seem noteworthy that it only reached some privileged khsidishe yiden. David Herskovic 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 15:27:59 -0400 (EDT) From: sk295@columbia.edu Subject: Chicken-footed demons I don't know how this may be related to other sources in folklore, but the Gemara (Berakhos 6a) describes demons (mazikin) as swarming invisibly by the thousands all around us. If someone wants to see evidence of them, it is suggested, he should sprinkle sand around his bed and in the morning, he will see "[markings] like chicken feet." ("ki kar'ei d'tarnegola.") Sarah Kozodoy 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Aug 95 19:53:25 EDT From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca Subject: Zapilierin Daniel Soyer asks if Zlate di zafilierin/zapilierin could be a person who made matches (as in shvebelekh). Seems likely. The word we use for matches is zaplkes, which I believe comes from Polish. (We never say shvebelekh.) David Sherman Toronto 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Aug 95 10:59:19 EDT From: leiser@pacevm.dac.pace.edu Subject: Pocket books "Pocket book" is definitely not an East Coast phenomenon. My grandmother came to North American from London at the turn of the century, settling in Calgary, Alberta, in a sod house of all things. After she married my grandfather, the f amily moved to Utah (during WW I). My mother was born in Ogden, and moved to Denver after meeting my father and marrying him in 1929. And all of the women in the family refer to their purses as pocket books. Where they got the expres sion is beyond me, but with this history, it can hardly have been been from NY Yiddish. Burton (Berel) Leiser ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.094