Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.032 July 15, 1996 1) Introduction/tsatskele (Edith Cohen) 2) Shvitser (G. Daniel Bugel) 3) Mishteyns gezogt (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 4) Al tiro avdi yakov (Bernard S. Greenberg) 5) I.B. Singer's Nobel lecture (Marcia Gruss Levinsohn) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 12:40:21 -0700 From: bd016@scn.org Subject: Introduction and comments on tsatskele I would like to introduce myself. I am Edith Cohen and I live in Seattle, Washington. I used to be a Research Technologist at the University of Washington where I subscribed to a Yiddish newsletter much like Mendele but was out of Canada and was e-mailed by David Sherman. I no longer work at the UW and was laid off several years ago which prompted my return to school to change careers. I currently am a student at Bellevue Community College in their Interior Design program. I still have one more year until I finish. I am a New Yorker by birth and went to a Jewish Day School which was closely related to the the Farband. My parents were active in that. I read with a smile all the comments on tsatskele. If my memory serves me correctly, a tsatskele was a young woman/teenager who was a real handful for her parents to control. She had a mind of her own and was rather demanding. (The other definition of tsatskele I consider to be incorrect.) We used the term chatchke to mean a souvenir or other piece of stuff that was not necessary, but just hung around the house. This was something that really should have ended up a in a used item store so that is did not clutter up your own home. I guess this could also be considered to be a bauble of some kind. Thanks for so much enjoyment and please forgive my spelling. I"m quite new to using the electronic mail system, and I do not know how to access a spellchecker. Edith Cohen 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 03:54:16 +0200 From: bugel@innet.be Subject: Shvitzer I was asked the following by a friend: Do you have any idea where Hebrew got the verb leHashvitz from? Is it from Switzerland, somehow? because I understand "schwitzen" does occur in Yiddish, but that, like in German, has nothing to do with showing off (unless by "showing off" you mean "reflecting light"). and I answered... Lehashvitz does actually comes from Yiddish, and means to brag. The funny thing is that it has entered Hebrew both in its original form (as lehashvitz, shvitzer, etc.), and in translation (yaz'an, and yaz'anut, meaning the same as shvitzer!!!!) So you're right about the Yiddish connection. I don't know an alternative link between sweating and bragging but the one which you propose, but perhaps Yiddish shvitzer is linked to German Schwaetzer, which means chatterer, blatherer... Could anyone confirm this or give me an alternative etymology? G. Daniel Bugel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 14:49:45 -0400 From: shirshan@aol.com Subject: Mishteyns gezogt Noyekh is quoted in Philologos in the Forward of July 5 as stating, "Mishteyns gezogt"...is an ironic, even sarcastic signal that what has gone before is more pathetic than imposing." In the Forward of June 28, Masha Leon, reporting from the Booksellers Convention in Chicago bemoans the cancellations of lectures by Jane Fonda, Elie Wiesel, and Fergie (her order of billing, not mine), then adds, "Among the hundreds of autographing legitimate and meshteins gezogt (i.e., proto-) celebrities were Cindy Crawford,...Ross Perot,...Spider Man, and Art Buchwald." As if we didn't know that Noyekh knows from whence he speaks. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 14:48:49 -0400 From: bsg@basistech.com Subject: Al tiro avdi yakov Many, many thanks to those Mendelyaner who have helped me with this project, especially Robert Rothstein. What I thought was a hopelessly obscure remnant of a vanished past turned out to be the front door to a wealth of knowledge and more to explore, both in books and the living memory of those who have helped me. My sincerest thanks, Bernard S. Greenberg 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 17:16:04 -0400 (EDT) From: mashinke@wam.umd.edu Subject: I.B. Singer's Nobel lecture ...s'zenen faran azoyne vos rufn on Idish a toyte shprakh. ober m'hot oykh gehaltn knape tsvey toyznt yor tsayt Hebreish far a toyter shprakh. mit amol iz Hebreish oyfgeshtanen tkhit-hmtim oyf a vunderlekhn oyfn, mamsh durkh nsiim. Arameish iz zikher gevorn batrakht vi toyt. ober in dem dozikn toytn loshn iz gevorn geshribn der zokhar, a mistish verk fun himlisher prakht. s'iz a fakt az di klasiker fun Idish zenen oykh di klasiker fun modernem Hebreish. Idish hot nokh vayt nisht gezogt dos letste vort. es anthalt oytsres vos zenen nokh nisht antdekt far der groyser velt. es iz a loshn fun martirer un kdoyshim, fun troymer un mKublim - raykh in humor, un in zkhroynes, vos der min mentsh tor nisht fargesn. in a figurativn zin Idish dos kluge un untertenike loshn fun unz alemen, der idiom fun der dershrokener un hofndiker mentshhayt. There are some who call Yiddish a dead language, but so was Hebrew called for two thousand years. It has been revived in our time in a most remarkable, almost miraculous way. Aramaic was certainly a dead language for centuries, but then it brought to light the Zohar, a work of mysticism of sublime value. It is a fact that the classics of Yiddish literature are also the classics of the modern Hebrew literature. Yidish has not yet said its last word. It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and Kabbalists- rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget. In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wize and humble language of us all, the idiom of frightened and hopeful humanity. The above are the concluding words from, Isaac Bashevis Singer, _Nobel Lecture_, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York which I checked out from the University of Maryland Library. It is a small book, 7 1/2" x 5" and contains both the Yiddish and English text of the lecture plus chapters; Nobel Prize Citation, Why I write for Children, and The Work of Isaac Bashevis Singer by Professor Lars Gyllensten. You're probaby familiar with Singer's comments at an interview where he said that Idish was long from dead but was "a bisl krank." (a little sick). Thank you Zellig Bach, Zachary Baker, Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan, Morrie Feller, Ellen Prince, Leybl Botvinik, and others for the recent discussion of Ruth Wisse's article. zayt zhe ale gezunt un shtark, Marcia Gruss Levinsohn Silver Spring, Maryland ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.032