Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.312 May 5, 1996 1) David Opatoshu (Dan Leeson) 2) Yiddish actors/actresses on 78s (Chaim 'eynekh Sapoznik) 3) Graduate Student Conference in Yiddish (Bruce Mitchell) 4) Goyish nakhes (Charles Siegel) 5) Fonye (Shaul Ceder) 6) Fonye (Herbert Megel) 7) Yinglish lists (Howard Kusnetz) 8) Pinkes (Gilad J. Gevaryahu) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 03 May 1996 08:13:35 EDT From: leeson@aspen.fhda.edu Subject: David Opatoshu I regret to have to announce that the American actor David Opatoshu, whose father was the Yiddish novelist Joseph Opatoshu, died in Los Angeles on Tuesday, April 30. He was 78 years old and died after a long illness. David Opatoshu began his long career in the Yiddish theater and did not make his Broadway debut until 1938. In 1939 he went back to the Yiddish theatre playing Fishke, a lame boy in love with a blind girl in the Yiddish film, "The Light Ahead" as directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. He also wrote Yiddish short stories and a collection of them are to be found in his book, "Between Sea and Sand" published in 1946. Opatoshu served with the Air Force in WW2 and served in the South Pacific. The theater credits include the musicals "Silk Stockings," "Bravo Giovanni," "Once More With Feeling" and the dramas "Flight Into Egypt," "The Wall," and "Lorenzo." He made his Hollywood film debut in 1948 in "The Naked City" and later appeared in "The Brothers Karamzov," "Party Girl," "Cimarron," "The Best of Enemies," "Torn Curtain," "Enter Laughing," and "The Fixer." Using a novella of his father, he wrote the screenplay for "Romance of a Horse Thief" in 1971 and also appeared in the film. His best known film role was that of Akiva, a scholarly Jewish resistance leader in the 1960 film "Exodus." He also acted in numerous television productions including Studio One, Philco Playhouse, and Playhouse 90. He was a guest star on Perry Mason, Kojak, Star Trek, and other series. In the mini-seiries "The Trial of the Chicago Seven" he played Judge Julius Hoffman. (Material for this summary was taken from the obituary found in the New York Times, West Coast edition, of Friday, May 3, 1996.) Dan Leeson Los Altos, California 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 May 1996 15:34:11 -0400 From: sapoznik@aol.com Subject: Yiddish actors/actresses on 78s The rise of Yiddish theater and the development of recording as an industry occured simultaneously in the late 1880s and there are some wonderful records which document this tradition. While head of the sound archives the YIVO I collected several thousand Yiddish 78s among which were numerous discs by famous Yiddish theater actors (and those not well remembered). Among those who recorded were: Sholem Aleichem (1915), Rubin Goldberg (1918-1928), Gus Goldstein (1916-1929), Luba Kadison (1928), Abe and Gussie Karp (1918-1922), Noach Nachbush (1946-1955), Maurice Schwartz (1922-1928), Elihu Tenenholz (1924-1929), Boris and Bessie Thomashevsky (1924-1927). This list, of course, doesn't include the numerous musical comedy stars like Molly Picon, Aaron Lebedeff, David Kessler. etc. Chaim 'eynekh Sapoznik 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 02 May 1996 18:14:00 -0500 From: bjmitche@students.wisc.edu Subject: Graduate Student Conference in Yiddish Literature, Linguistics & Culture Please announce to graduate students that the German Department and the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are requesting papers on any topic in Yiddish linguistics. Papers should be twenty to thirty minutes in length and may be written in Yiddish, German or English. Interested students should send one-page abstracts to the University of WIssconsin-Madison, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, 818 Van Hise Hall, Madison, WI, 53706, to the attention of Bruce Mitchell, before 1 August, 1996. Papers will be read during the conference on November 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1996. Bruce Mitchell [forwarded to Mendele by Ellen Prince] 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 02 May 96 21:58:34 EDT From: 75522.1457@compuserve.com Subject: Goyish nakhes The current _Nation_ has what I think is a misuse of this phrase: "New York Jewish intellectuals are finally getting some _goyishe naches_: great prizes, triumphal banquets and conferences . . . ." p. 11. I always thought _goyish nakhes_ was used ironically -- to refer to violence, drunkenness, or something else that Jews would avoid but that goyim supposedly enjoy. But a friend tells me it can refer to anything that Jews avoid but a non-Jew would enjoy -- for example, a ham and cheese sandwich. If anyone could enlighten me about the use of this phrase, I would shep (or shlep) nakhes from reading his answer. Charles Siegel 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 May 96 20:48:47 PDT From: ceder@netvision.net.il Subject: Fonye I believe Fonye is the diminutive form of Afanasy, which is the Russian form of the Greek name Athanasios, and is, or at least once was, a fairly common name among Russians. Shaul Ceder 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 05:26:02 -0400 From: hmegel@tso.cin.ix.net Subject: Fonye As a child I remember hearing a Yiddish ditty that went like this: 'Ix, mix, drix, Fonye mitn langn bix'. I also believe that the term Fonye relates to a Russian or Polish soldier. Herbert Megel 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 20:14:26 +0000 From: helkay@hal-pc.org Subject: Yinglish lists The recent colloquy re: Safire's use of "tsatskes" leads me to ask if there is a dictionary or other comprehensive listing of Yiddish words which have been adopted into English. I'm sure I could come up with several dozen quickly, but I suspect there are several hundred. Can any of you Mendelyaners help? A sheynem dank. Howard Kusnetz 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 23:24:45 -0400 From: gevaryahu@aol.com Subject: Pinkes My wife claims that her mother used to refer to the pin-feathers of a chicken (those left over feathers that you have to plunk out with tweezers) as "pinkes" (or similar spelling in Yiddish.) I could not find this word in Harkavy, nor in Weinreich nor in Stutchkoff. And I know that it is not Hebrew or Russian. Did anybody else hear this word before? My wife's parents were both born in the USA and the grandparents came from Minsk and Pinsk respectively. Gilad J. Gevaryahu ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.312