Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.017 June 14, 1996 1) Al tiro avdi Yaakov (Bernard S. Greenberg) 2) Attitudes toward Yiddish (Leah Zazulyer) 3) Why Yiddish? (David Herskovic) 4) Mikhl Rosenberg (Heynekh Sapoznik) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 19:08:35 -0400 From: bsg@basistech.com Subject: Al tiro avdi Yaakov On Pearl CD GEMM 9285 (British) is a Yiddish-Ukranian-Hebrew folk song, "Al tiro, avdi Yaakov" performed by Cantor Berele Chagy (1892-1954) which touches me deeply on account of its recollecting my late Grandfather (1885-1956) who owned other 78's of this vanished genre by Hershmann. I am intrigued by the running word-to-word mix of Ukranian, Yiddish, and Hebrew in this short song; I can make out only bits and snatches of each (the Ukranian is the least familiar to me). If anyone is familiar with this song and knows the text, I would be in their debt. As much of the text as I can make out says, "Fear not, my Servant Jacob, the Lord has chosen the House of Jacob" and expresses similar sentiments (horrifyingly ironic in view of the fate of that culture-sphere). Any input or knowledge on this from anyone familiar with this selection and genre would delight me. (I will be away next week, so if anyone responds and I do not thank them then, that is why). Bernard S. Greenberg 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:53:16 -0400 (EDT) From: watson@uhura.cc.rochester.edu Subject: Attitudes toward Yiddish As I review in mind the written and spoken comments I have heard over the last decades about the survival/death of Yiddish...it seems to me that there has always been a political undertext: The association of Yiddish with the left, the Bund, socialism, political action in Vilna, the Holocaust, etc. And now a now a different but basically similar undertext in the remarks of academicians and "establishment" Jews that is dismissive of the historical/linguistic significance of the use of Yiddish by the orthodox. I fear that we have learned nothing in the 20th century if self hate is fueling statements on the death of Yiddish, and the insistance of that death! Some weeks ago, a post on Mendele [6.002 by Nechama and Gershon Winer] noted some precipitous actions having to do with Yiddish in Israel. When I try to make sense of these I am inclined to put them in the context of the recent Israeli political events. Does anyone know more about what happened and why? Leah Zazulyer 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Jun 96 16:50:50 EDT From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: Why Yiddish? It seems to be the fate of Mendele that every so often someone or another will reopen the can of worms of Yiddish: its users and its future. It has been Morrie Feller's turn this time. First of all I would like to point out an error in the piece by Ruth Wisse which Morrie kindly summarised. The statement "In Hasidic communities the use of Yiddish for any purpose other than to explain Jewish law is not condoned" is incorrect. To the contrary, it is Yiddish that is used for matters other than Jewish law as well as for oral discussions of the Jewish law. Ruth Wisse's statement sounds more like the attitude to Hebrew amongst religious Jews prior to Ivrit and amongst those Khsidim who still do not speak Ivrit. But throughout Morrie Feller's posting one question kept on repeating itself in my mind. Why? Why should a child or adult who knows nothing about Yiddish bother to take up this language? For what good reason? Yiddish is not merely a language; it is a way of life. It was created by Jews and used by Jews to prevent assimilation and to fulfil Balaam's words 'a nation that rests solitarily'. But there was a more fundamental reason. Jews needed a language that best expressed their own idiosyncratic way of life. A language they could cry in and laugh in; live in and die in; deal in, haggle in and all else in. This may sound like life in the shteytl and it is true that Yiddish was spoken in places outside the shtetl too. But it is out of the rough rock of the shteytl that Yiddish was hewn and it is in her wild orchards that the language was cultivated. The shteytl is Yiddish's natural habitat and only there could it have been immortalised by writers, playwrights, and poets. If Yiddish is not a sophisticated language, if it sounds vulgar to the connoisseur and coarse to the enlightened, it is only because it takes after its creator and patron, the shtetl Jew. Yiddish is a language for those who think chopped liver is an alternative (or even superior) to caviar; Sholem Alaykhem to Shakespeare; klezmer to Beethoven or even Elvis. So why should a child or student to whom the shtetl life is quaint and alien or in many cases even repulsive take to learning a language that expresses and means nothing to them. Without having experienced any semblance of this way of life how much of the language will they ever understand? How is one to explain the pithiness in a saying like 'mizanavte dekhazarte loy makhante leshtramalte' to someone who has never learned a blat gemore? What does 'kamo loki avoysayni' mean to someone who has never experienced a sayder? What tastes do 'asher loy blintsi avoysayni bemitsroyim' invoke in the palates of an am-ho'orets who makes hamoytsi on a radish? It perplexes me when Mendelisten ask for Yiddish words for obscure medical or scientific terms. Why on earth wreck your brains when you will hardly use the word? And when you finally do get to use it could you not say it so much easier in English? Then there is the question of where this potential student would use Yiddish. Morrie Feller suggests creating a virtual 'gas' for Yiddish on the Internet. With respect, this is a non starter. However undesirable some people may find a khsidishe shtibl it is still far more hospitable terrain then sitting in solitary confinement babbling away on the net. But even if we were to create a 'gas' for Yiddish why would anybody cruise on this 'gas'? Simply to meet a friend, say 'a giten' and receive a reply of 'a beseren'? Is it not so much easier for this potential Yiddish student to walk out of their front door and say Hi! to the first person they meet? Now imagine this revival of Yiddish. A quaint and quirky language brought back from the dead by doctrinaire academics, hoisted on to apathetic students for no particular reason to be used only in virtual reality. Sorry, but not much of a language to me. The main reason given for this obsession with Yiddish is The Holocaust. The Holocaust destroyed millions of Yiddish speakers in Eastern Europe and therefore, the argument goes, we, the generations descendant of these martyrs, owe it to them to maintain and perpetuate their culture. I ask: Did millions of them not shlog Kapores every year? Did they not wear tefilin every day? Did they not keep Shabes and Yom-Tev? And on a more mundane level did they not wear dashiklekh? And did they not live in ramshackles? But these gripes aside how much water does this argument hold? By 1940 Hebrew had already gained a stronghold in Israel while Yiddish was severely in decline in the USA. I contend that the fact that the Bundistn did not get their way with a Yiddish utopia is proof in itself that they could never have succeeded. Blaming the Holocaust for the demise of Yiddish is a fallacy. Holocaust or no Holocaust, Yiddish would have ended up in much the same way as it has. All the Holocaust can be accused of, with regards to Yiddish, is of speeding up a process which was already under way. The Holocaust offers the best defence to secular Jews obsessed with Yiddish challenged as to why they are so interested in a language that their lifestyle has been the main cause of its decline. Shtetl Jews who made their way to a rosier future left Tevye back at home and allowed his oldest daughter to accompany them only to the port while the middle daughter was abandoned on arrival in their 'promised' land. The only family member that they remained on good terms with was the youngest daughter and we all know with whom she kept company. Yes, they tried to transport the aroma of the Shabes cooking and the geshmack of Yiddish canned in sentimental preservatives and vacuum packed in nostalgia-tight containers and yes they did succeeded but it was only for a while. The sell by date was there for anybody who cared to look and it was for want of time that they did not die sooner. My prognosis for the future is bright or bleak depending on your vantage point. The ultra-Orthodox with their high birth rate will continue to grow at a fast rate. As modern-Hebrew becomes more like any other language with less of a Jewish flavour to it I believe there could become a trend in Israel away from Hebrew to Yiddish. I cannot see, however, literature emanating from this group. Even if there was a shake up similar to the pre-war years in Poland and Russia it is unlikely to produce writers and the like. Nowadays a child who leaves the fold does so more because he is attracted to Michael Jackson or Arnold Schwartzenegger than because he has been won over by some ism or other. Besides, the situation amongst the orthodox is not desperate enough to inspire creative minds. Amongst the non-Orthodox I see Yiddish limping along always being of interest to history students and to those interested in the ultra-Orthodox. As the generation of non-frum Yiddish speakers decline there will very few to fill their place. Such journals as 'Kind un Kayt' could be a success but only because they tell the students about Yiddishkayt in a way which modern Israel, religious and non-religious, cannot offer. Through projects like these Yiddish could even come round full circle by introducing secular children to the delights and pleasures of Judaism. It is after all a funny old world! David Herskovic 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 17:15:47 -0400 From: sapoznik@aol.com Subject: Mikhl Rosenberg Vis a vis Mikhl Rosenberg [6.016]: He was not a singer but a comic and monologiost. His recordings made in the 1940's-1950s for the Banner label included titles such as "Shepsl Kanarik from Poughkeepsie" , "Getsl at a Football Game", "Getsl at a Baseball Game". These were truncated versions of longer monologs he made famous at Yiddish theater reviews and Catskill hotels. Heynekh Sapoznik ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.017