Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.230 January 24, 1996 1) Yiddish books in London? (Alan R. King) 2) Loshn-Koydesh in Yiddish (Alan R. King) 3) Yak/dobri (Bob Rothstein) 4) Euphemisms (Bob Rothstein) 5) Belz (Bob Rothstein) 6) Bekeshe (Bob Rothstein) 7) Aliza Greenblatt (Bob Rothstein) 8) Aliza Greenblatt (Susanne Shavelson) 9) Kamer-kamer-hoyz (Ellie Kellman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:59:26 +0100 From: mccay@jet.es Subject: Yiddish books in London? A question: Could anyone please tell me where (if anywhere) one can buy Yiddish books in London? If you like you can reply to me personally on this, and if so I promise, as is the custom on some lists, to post a summary of your replies on Mendele at a later date. A dank! Alan R. King Gipuzkoa, Basque Country 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:59:22 +0100 From: mccay@jet.es Subject: Loshn-Koydesh in Yiddish To Arnie Kuzmack re "Hasofe", Mendele v. 5.215 (as you can see I am a few days behind in my Mendele reading): ...And then there is the use (and misuse?) of Loshn Koydesh by Sholem Aleykhem's Tevye der Milkhiker. Is this a third type of use? But seriously, I wonder if any studies have been done of the use of, and play with, Loshn Koydesh made by Sholem Aleykhem in his writings? What fascinates me is what this implies sociolinguistically and culturally about the kind of readers he had, and I sometimes wonder whether the average reader understood all the jokes. Does anyone have any comments? On a personal note, I never thought of my grandparents as having been very literate (my grandfather was a simple tailor and Petticoat Lane bric-brac seller), and yet my mother tells me she recollects, in her childhood in London back in the 1920s, that on Friday evenings the family would gather around the fire while my grandmother (whom I never met) read a certain Yiddish paper out loud. The whole family's favourite column, she said, was by Sholem Aleykhem, and this was invariably read first, and had everyone laughing like mad! Alan R. King Gipuzkoa, Basque Country 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:03:18 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: yak/dobri In the first of several belated postings I'd like to answer Mendy Fliegler's question (5.176) about the Slavicisms _yak_ and _dobri_, which came up in a question about a Sholem Aleichem passage. The former is a conjunction (in Polish and elsewhere) that can mean 'as' and various other things. The latter is easier: it means 'good' and shows up in Yiddish as well in the names of some klezmer genres, e.g., _dobriden_ lit. 'good day' and _dobrano_ 'good night'. Bob Rothstein 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:27:43 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Euphemisms In reference to Zellig Bach's posting (5.198) on euphemisms in Yiddish: there's a proverb that says Vos men shemt zikh tsu zogn oyf yidish, zogt men oyf loshn-koydesh. What one is embarrassed to say in Yiddish, one says in Hebrew. Bob Rothstein 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:20:02 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Belz In 5.179 David Herskovic asked which Belz was the subject of "Mayn shtetele Belz"--the one near Lviv (Lemberik) in Ukraine or the one in Moldova (historical Bessarabia). I don't have a definitive answer, only some clues. The song was written by Jacob Jacobs (words) and Alexander Olshanetsky (music) for William Siegel's 1932 play _Dos lid fun geto_ (_Song of the Ghetto_). Jacobs was born in Hungary; Olshanetsky, in Odessa. (I wasn't able to establish a birthplace for Siegel.) This circumstancial evidence suggests Bessarabia over Galicia. The Bessarabian Belz is really Belts (and that's the official Yiddish form as well as the Moldavian/Romanian form), but there's a tradition of using _Belz_ in Yiddish for both places. Siegel's play, by the way, was the occasion for the theatrical (as opposed to concert) debut of the great Yiddish and Russian singer Isa Kremer. Bob Rothstein 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:22:58 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Bekeshe In 5.198 Mikhl Herzog pointed out that the word _bekeshe_ is "used mostly in Galicia and in the area to its southwest." That's not surprising since, although the word exists in Polish and Russian (and, with an initial _p_, in German), the original source is apparently Hungarian, where _bekecs_ is a kind of fur coat. Bob Rothstein 7)---------------------------------------------------- From rar@slavic.umass.eduWed Jan 24 11:11:04 1996 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:55:23 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Aliza Greenblatt Re 5.129: If I'm not mistaken, Aliza Greenblatt was Arlo Guthrie's _grandmother_ since she was the mother of the noted dancer Marjorie Guthrie, who was Woodie Guthrie's wife and the mother of Arlo Guthrie. Bob Rothstein 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:12:36 -0500 (EST) From: shavelson@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Subject: Aliza Greenblatt Just wanted to correct Michael Godfrey-- Aliza Greenblatt was Arlo Guthrie's grandmother, not mother. Marjorie Greenblatt, the daughter of Aliza and Isidor Greenblatt, married Woody Guthrie. Susanne Shavelson 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 10:04:18 -0500 From: e.kellman@utoronto.ca Subject: Kamer-kamer-hoyz The children's game "kamer, kamer, hoyz" is described is described by Yekhiel Shtern in his study of children's culture in the shtetl Tishevits entitled "Kheyder un besmedresh", published by YIVO in 1950 (see pages 59-60). The following is a somewhat rough translation of Shtern's description of the game: "One child stands facing a wall while each of the other players finds a hiding place. When everyone has hidden, the leader sings out the ditty "rude, marane" (text on page 59: "rude, marane, geshlosene pane, zibn mol arum, sheyne kale ker zikh um"). The child standing with her face to the wall then turns around and looks for the other players, while keeping close to an agreed-upon spot. If she finds a player in his hiding place, she raps on the hiding place, saying the following words: "kamer, kamer, hoyz, Yosl (substitute the name of the player), kum fun dayn baheltenish aroys". The last child to be found now faces the wall, and the game begins again. If one of the players manages to get to the searcher's spot without being noticed by the searcher, he raps on the spot and says: "kamer, kamer, hoyz, eyns, tsvey, dray". The seacher then goes back to her spot, and the game begins again. Ellen Cassedy mentions that Sholem Aleykhem makes reference to the game in several stories. I'd be interested to know the exact references. Itsik Manger refers to the game too, in the first chapter of "Dos bukh fun gan-eydn". Shmuel-Aba's classmates in kheyder "shpiln in kamer-kamer-hoyz" when the rebe leaves the classroom to davn minkhe. Ellie Kellman Toronto ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.230