Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.218 January 17, 1996 1) Tracking article (Marvin Friedman) 2) A poeme (Bert Steinberg) 3) Seeking Yiddish poem (Sylvan Zavi Beer) 4) Haredi Yiddish (Henekh Coleman) 5) Pluperfect (Dovid Braun) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 15:38:37 -0500 From: marvinf629@aol.com Subject: Tracking article In response to Louis Fridhandler's query in 5.214 re Yiddish and secularism, I do not know if this is the article he is seeking, but there is an essay entitled Nationalism, Secularism and Religion in the Jewish Labor Movement by C. Belazel Sherman in the anthology Voices from the Yiddish (Schocken, 1975) ed. by Howe and Greenberg. This essay contains "...the era of the Yom Kippur Ball and the atheistic Haggadah..." I hope that this helps. Marvin Friedman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 15:45:31 -0500 From: mate1920@aol.com Subject: A poeme Mir zenen a kleyne grupe fun draytsen vos kumen tsuzamen yede tsvey vokhen un mir pruven tsu redn yidish far a stunde oder tzvey. Mir zenen nit yidishe gelernte ober mir tuen dos mit benkshaft vegn mamaloshen. Mir gedenken az undsere elteren hobn geredt yidish -- etlekhe von undz zenen gegangen in shule, un yetst az mir zenen in undzere sekhtziker un sibetsiker, farbrengen mir zikh mit dem sprach. Letste vokh iz eyner von undz areyngekumen mit a poeme vos er hot geshribn. Efsher vet emetzer dos gefinen interesant. Ikh hof azoy. Mentshen bentshen Got in Himl Far zeyer groysen glik. Zey danken im oder ir Far zeyer gezunt un parnose. Ich bin oykhet dankbar Far mayne glikn Ober ikh vays nit vemen Tsu danken--- Ikh ken nisht Danken in der velt arayn Ikh muz kenen visn Tsu vemen ich red. Ober az di gantse velt is vilik Dos tsu ton Bin ikh aza groyser nar?? --- Marty Ross Bert Steinberg Lafayette, California 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 18:30:57 -0500 (EST) From: szbeer@mailbox.syr.edu Subject: Seeking yiddish poem Does anyone know the author and can furnish the words for a poem in yiddish that expresses the idea of the poet pleading with god to the effect that you have already made us like the dust of the earth, when will you make us, as promised, like the stars in the sky? Sylvan Zavi Beer 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Jan 96 22:49:37 EST From: 102670.3200@compuserve.com Subject: Haredi Yiddish A recent inquiry asked about use of Yiddish among haredim. Based on my experience in the litvishe yeshive oylem (sorry if the questioner "doesn't approve"), casual conversational Yiddish is mostly limited to certain rabbinical families. It is used in some yeshives to teach advanced shiurim, but most agree that this is a vestige; indeed, virtually none of the students in the shiur understand it, and need to attend a "khazores hashiur" by one of the more heimish advanced students which is really just a translation. Even this "shiur yiddish" is of rather poor quality, and most of its speakers are native Americans who probably seldom spoke it at home. There is a certain cachet to speaking Yiddish, especially when giving over a dvar toyreh or a vort in a rabbinical environment, among the young and especially "farfrumt" in the yeshives, but by and large the Yiddish they speak is poor and unnatural. In yeshives such as Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn and even in Lakewood, there is no casual Yiddish conversation among American students. It is used to express certain concepts in lomdus, but in this way it is more like a lingo than a language. It is still the language of formal rabbinic discourse, and at events such as the conventions of the Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah, most addresses are given in Yiddish, with simultaneous transalation by radio headphone for the majority of listeners (except on Shabbos). But no one thinks these rabbonim speak Yiddish among themselves in private. Unquestionably conversational Yiddish among khasidim is much more widespread than among misnagdim. I hear it in Boro Park and among the Satmar khasidim of Williamsburg, and would say that even younger Hungarian and Polish khasidim speak Yiddish before English. (Very few young Lubavitchers (Russian khasidim) do, at least outside of Crown Heights.) In Monsey there is little doubt that Yiddish is the everyday language for Vizhnitsers and others. Hebrew is virtually never used in the U.S. for conversation among non-Israelis, of course. There is always a lively debate in our community as to whether Rav Shach, head of the litvaks in Israel, speaks Yiddish or Hebrew at home. He has lived in Israel since after the war, and of course is quite fluent in Hebrew. Considering that few of his students speak Yiddish as a first language, it is unlikely that few other than his closest and oldest relatives speak Yiddish, and the same is true for most of his generation. When Rav Shach speaks publicly, he does so in Hebrew. Haredim in Israel have no problem speaking Hebrew for mundane purposes; as a political battle, that one has been lost, especially (but not only) among misnagdim. But few would doubt that the Gerrer Rebbe and denizens of Mea Shearim and other such neighborhoods rely on Yiddish. Even in the U.S., the late Lubavitcher Rebbe used to farbreng in Yiddish, and it would be unthinkable for a khasidishe rebbe to address his khasidim in English. I have communicated with yerushalmi yidn (not hasidim but hasidic-style litvishe misnagdim) in Yiddish, and among these "deepest" haredim, I do not doubt that Yiddish is the every-day loshn of discourse among themselves. Henekh Coleman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 23:05:11 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: Pluperfect Incidentally, anyone who wants to see a "real, live" usage of _gevezt_ as the invariant auxiliary in the pluperfect can find it in Olsvanger's _Royte Pomerantsn_ (he spells it: "gevest"). The first gloss of _gevezt_ indicated in U. Weinreich's Eng.-Yid. Yid.-Eng. dictionary is, I think, U.W.'s "appropriation" of the obsolescent auxiliary to fill (what he thought to be a) lexical gap (i.e. to correspond to the English _formerly, sometime_ as in the example he gives: der gevezt barimter aktyor 'the formerly famous actor'). And I think Max Weinreich uses it in this way (adopting his son's suggestion) in his _Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh_. I don't recall how I know this (if indeed it is accurate); I think I read it somewhere. Crucial point being: if you are ever interested in the form _gevezt_, assume that the gloss 'formerly, sometime' is a neologism, that is, a "recyclism" -- an old word being given a new function. To Ellen Prince: I don't get your comment about Olsvanger's litvishkayt. It has been said that in "litvish" Yiddish, the hobn vs. zayn auxiliary class distinction has been levelled -- with _hobn_ the winner. First of all, this is a gross overgeneralization (veho-raye: the auxiliary _zayn_ is to be found in the appropriate places in _Royte Pomerantsn_, by and large). If the auxiliary _zayn_ had disappeared from litvish Yiddish, we'd expect there *only* to be _hobn gehat ge..._ Your comment was: "olsvanger, being a litvak, does not use 'gehat' with 'zayn' verbs[...]" If being a litvak is significant to auxiliary selection, and given that _some_ levelling in _some_ areas of Lite and Vaysrusland has taken place, wouldn't we dafke expect instances of _gehat_ with _zayn_-verbs? If time permits, and if anyone is interested and reminds me, I'll mention some things about invariant auxiliaries in the conditional, as well as some more detailed info about auxiliary selection in litvish Yiddish. Dovid Braun Cambridge, MA ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.218