Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.151 October 25, 1995 1) Lucjan Dobroszycki (Zachary Baker) 2) Sholem Asch (Refoyl Finkel) 3) Asch's _God of Vengeance_ (Ethel R. Magal) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Oct 95 07:54:37 PDT From: bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu Subject: Lucjan Dobroszycki I am greatly saddened to report that Dr. Lucjan Dobroszycki died yesterday (October 24th), in New York. Burial will take place on Thursday, in Israel. While Dr. Dobroszycki was not usually identified with the Yiddish world, he certainly had deep ties to it. A survivor of the Lodz ghetto and Nazi concentration camps, Dr. Dobroszycki returned to Poland after World War II, where he trained as a historian, specializing in modern Polish -- and Polish-Jewish -- history, where his studies dealt primarily with the Nazi occupation of Poland. Operating under the constraining circumstances of postwar Polish politics, Dr. Dobroszycki undertook studies of the Polish press -- legal and illegal -- during the war, edited an abridged version of the chronicle of the Lodz ghetto, and conducted research on the extermination of Polish Jewry. In June 1967, Dr. Dobroszycki was in Jerusalem, where he was a visiting scholar. He returned to Poland, where he was caught up in the wave of official antisemitism of 1968 and 1969, which resulted in his decision to seek refuge in the United States. He and his family settled in New York City, and for the remainder of his life he was a member of the research staff of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He was also affiliated with Yeshiva University's Holocaust studies program. During his tenure at YIVO, Dr. Dobroszycki continued to work on several projects that he began in Poland (an English translation of portions of the Lodz ghetto chronicle was published in 1984, and "Reptile Journalism: The Official Polish-Language Press under the Nazis" was published last year), as well as a number of new ones. His best known publication is probably "Image before My Eyes," a photo album on pre-1940 Polish Jewry, which he co-authored with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and which was recently reissued by Schocken. His last published study was "Survivors of the Holocaust in Poland: A Portrait Based on Jewish Community Records, 1944- 1947," for which he was honored with a reception at the Polish consulate. Dr. Dobroszycki was also known as YIVO's "research consultant to the stars"; he compiled a history of former New York mayor Ed Koch's ancestors and was a consultant to Barbra Streisand's film production of "Yentl" (an indirect Yiddish connection). His name has appeared in numerous published acknowledgments and documentary film credits. On a personal note, I will miss Lucjan a great deal. Mi-kol melamdai hiskalti, and all who know him learned a lot from him. "What's new in the shtetl?" he used to ask. And now he is in the shtetl no longer. Koved zayn ondenk. Zachary Baker 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 14:32:28 -0400 From: raphael@cs.engr.uky.edu Subject: Sholem Asch ikh halt itst in leyenen sholem ash's "a shtetl". Dos is dos ershte roman zayner vos ikh hob amol geleyent. ikh muz zogn, az ash shraybt gor andersh vi sholem aleykhem, perets, un bashevis. ershtns, git er kmat keyn shmuesn nit. nit keyn "er hot gezogt", "entfert zi", un kedume. di mayse geyt pamelekh, in gantsn durkh bilder fun di menshn, di arumiker svive, ober nit durkh redn. tsveytns, hot er lib bashraybn di natur, mer vi ale andere vos ikh hob geleyent. a gants kapitl fun 15 zaytn vegn a zumer nakht, i in shtetl, i in vald. (in mitn derinen iz a sreyfe vos farbrent dos rov fun di hayzer fun shtetl.) di bilder vos er shraybt zaynen mole khen un oft zeyer mistish. dritns, nitst ash a sakh verter vos ikh ken nit kefinen in vaynraykhs verterbukh, un a sakh vos ikh gefin nor variantn (lemoshl, ash shraybt "parko", un vaynraykh hot "parkn"). fertns, hot ash nit keyn beyz tsu zogn vegn keynem nit. in shtetl iz do a rov; loyt ash's oysmolung, zeyer an eydle neshome. kumt arayn in shtetl oykh a khsidisher rebe. di balebotim nemen dem rovs krivde kegn dem rebe, ober der rov aleyn bagrist dem rebe gor frayntlekh un git im koved. der rebe, oyf zayn ort, iz oykh zeyer a fayner, vos ken tsapn di heyligkayt fun veltlekhe zakhn un lozn di khsidim filn vi di shkhine rut oyf zey ale. nokh a moshl: reb yekhezkl, der parnes fun shtetl, khotsh er iz zeyer a raykher, iz er fort a yid: er davnt frum (er halt fun dem rov, ober eyn mol geyt er oykh baym rebn), git a sakh tsedoke, un zayn hoyz iz alemol ofn far ale. letstns, gefint men in dem roman a sakh minhagim vos fun amol: di shviger hodevet indikes far dem eydems-vegn tsu pesakh; purim git men "purim oybs", nit nor shalekh mones; far shabes geyn di ale mansbiln in taykh zikh toyvl zayn (un fort shvimen) naketerheyt. far di mendel-layt vos hobn keyn mol nit fazukht di dozike peri, ken ikh an eytse zogn: ash iz keday tsu leyenen! Refoyl Finkel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 8:14:22 -0200 (B) From: ets@aleph.tau.ac.il Subject: Asch's _God of Vengeance_ Dan, please don't think I'm putting you down, but your plot summary is incorrect. In God of Vengeance, the owner of the brothel is a religious Jew, who intends to buy a torah and a son-in-law with his ill=gotten gain. Aside from this portrayal of a "god-fearing man" making his income from the sex trade, there is a love scene between his daughter and one of the working girls. The daughter eventually runs off with the girl and a pimp, and loses it in a more conventional sense. At the end of the play, far from sending her downstairs to the brothel, raving, he shoves her under the bridal canopy with her intended groom. I'm not sure of the exact scene here - my copy of the play is at home, and I'm e-mailing from work (shame!). Ethel R. Magal Tel Aviv, Israel ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.151 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