Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.197 December 19, 1995 1) Holy fool (Howard Gershen) 2) Holy fool (Hershel Bershady) 3) Holy fool (Dovid Braun) 4) A home page for itinerant klezmer music (Howard Gershen) 5) A home page for itinerant klezmer music (Ethan Minovitz) 6) Lekoved khanike (David Herskovic) 7) A request from the University of Warsaw (David Goldberg) 8) Der tunkeler vegn nudnikes (Peter Kluehs) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 15:39:41 -0500 From: howard@boxhill.com Subject: Holy fool Not exactly a "Holy" fool, but what about the stories of Hershel Ostropoler? Howard Gershen 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 16:28:40 -0500 (EST) From: hbershad@sas.upenn.edu Subject: Holy fool I think Hershel Ostropolier comes close to being a trikster-fool type. Holy, I'm not so sure. In any case, the NYTimes Book Review, Sunday, 12/17, briefly reviewed a book of Hershel's pranks that's just been published (presumably for ages 5-12 or somesuch, but I'm sure still readable by adults). Hershel Bershady 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 02:10:46 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Tricksters in the Yiddish folktale There is a YIVO Working Paper from the 1970s on this topic by Toby Blum-Dobkin -- perhaps her MA thesis. I read it at the University of Pennsylvania's library, so it's available in some libraries and presumably through Inter- Library Loan. As I remember, the work deals especially with the tricksters Motke Khabad and Hershele Ostropolyer. A freylekhn khaneke! Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 15:42:46 -0500 From: howard@boxhill.com Subject: A home page for itinerant klezmer music Mark Pinson asked [5.196] about a website for "klezmerphiles"... I think you should take a look at Ari Davidow's Klez Picks: http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/ Howard Gershen 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 17:30:24 EST From: clvm21a@prodigy.com Subject: A home page for itinerant klezmer music? In reply to Mark Pinson's query (and, no doubt, those of numerous other klezmerphiles): there exists an excellent set of klezmer- related WWW pages! "Ari Davidow's Klez Picks" can be found at http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez and contains articles, reviews (mostly Ari's) and "a sakh" e-mail and WWW links to klezmer artists, distributors, etc.! Ari hails from the Bay Area and is very busy these days, so he can't update his pages as often as he'd like to. He can also be e-mailed at ari@emf.net. There's not so much news of upcoming klezmer concerts, but messages of that nature can be found from time to time in the Usenet newsgroup "alt.music.jewish". Happy Khanike...whatever way you spell it! Ethan Minovitz Vancouver, British Columbia 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Dec 95 19:00:40 EST From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: Lekoved khanike A couple of songs for Chanukah that my son brought home with him from Nursery. Khanikhe oy khanike khanike, oy khanike, a yom tev a shayne a listige a fraylikher nisht do nokh a zayner ale nekht mit draydlekh shpilen mir frishe hayse latkes esen mir on a shir latkele latkele latkele, latkele, hop hop hop tants aran in man top bak dikh os zayer zayer fayn val ikh vil di zolst zan mayn The dreydel game The four letters on a draydel or dreydel are 'nun', 'gimel', 'hay', and 'shin'. It stands for Nes Gadol Haya Shom. For the game of draydel it stands for the following yidish words: Nun: Nisht The player does nothing Gimel: Gants The player takes all Hay: Halb The player takes half the 'Bank' Shin: Shtel The player has to pay into the 'bank' The game starts by everybody putting one of each of the denomination the game is being played in into the Bank. It usually is Money but I have heard it being played with Almonds or Sweets. groyse knakers nitsen hiderters. When any of the players has a 'gimel' everybody has to re-deposit. The rest is quite obvious. Vayishkokhayhi! The game of korten or kvitlekh (Blackjack) was a popular pastime for yeshive bokhurim, among others, to while away the long cold winter nights. It seems that on khanike it was particularly popular. The rebes obviously didn't take kindly to it considering it frivolous and bitel toyre. Some khsidishe rebes went as far as to say that there is a klipe in korten shpilen! As parhes vayayshev usually coincides with khanike or around khanike an acronym was made of the last word of that sedre. der rebe fleygt zogen az vayishkokhahi makht Velkhe Yid Shpilt Korten Khanike Hayst Vagabond. There are a few variants on the last Vov. Others say Vasilyu, apparently the name of some soyne yisroel. A fraylikhen khanike tsi akh ale. David Herskovic 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Dec 95 09:36:09 EST From: david.goldberg@smtpgwy.mla.org Subject: A request from the University of Warsaw A colleague in Germanic linguistics at the University of Warsaw asks if anyone has a copy of the English translation of Max Weinreich's History of the Yiddish Language to donate to the university library. Please let me know if you do. David Goldberg 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Dec 1995 13:40:00 +0200 From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de Subject: Der tunkeler vegn nudnikes [3) hemshekh fun mendele vol. 5.196 der nudnik hot keyn mol nisht zayn eygene rikhtung, vuhin er badarf geyn. shtendik darf er grod geyn in dem zelbikn veg un in der zelbiker rikhtung, vuhin *ir* darft geyn. un tomer "khapt er zikh", az ir darft geyn gor in ander veg, punkt in a farkerter rikhtung, "khapt er zikh" oykh, az er darf oykh geyn in der zelbiker farkerter rikhtung, in dem zelbukn veg vos ir. ir vet zikh fun im nisht oysdreyen. farfaln! er vet shoyn geyn mit aykh un zayn portsye nudzenish vet oyf aykh oyslodn. er filt shtendik, ven ir hot keyn tsayt nisht. un ven ir hot tsayt, kumt er oykh. er kumt shtendik, ven ir hot a shlekhte shtimung. un ven ir hot a gute shtimung - kumt er oykh un makht aykh di shtimung kalye. vorem makhn kalye di shtimung - dos iz zayn vikhtikste oyfgabe oyf der velt. hit zikh iber hoypt far di, vos geyen tsu aykh tsu: "ikh vil aykh zogn a por getseylte verter", oder "ikh badarf aykh oyf bloyz 5 getseylte sekundes". un vos nokh erger iz, az oyb ir derfilt, az ir hot far zikh a nudnik, ir derfilt az dos iz "er", un ir zayt arayngefaln in zayne netsn - kent ir ersht fun im nisht poter vern. vayl, vi gezogt, di mentshheyt iz makhtloz kegn der doziker onshikenish. eygntlekh iz di velt nisht geshlofn un gezukht farsheydene eytses un alerley mitlen. peter kluehs wehrheim, germany ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.197