Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.033 July 17, 1996 1) Yiddish: lingua franca today? (Arn Abramson) 2) Oprikhtn goles (Zellig Bach) 3) Yiddish song search (Jill Milians) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jul 96 15:45:23 EDT From: abramson@uconnvm.uconn.edu Subject: Yiddish: lingua franca today? I want to report to all of you that during my recent three-week stay in Eastern Europe, where I was visiting ancestral villages and nearby cities, I was linguistically poorly prepared as far as the major or offical languages are concerned. In Lithuania, a little piece of Poland, and Ukraine, I could not function in Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, or Ukrainian! Fortunately, I had arranged for drivers and guide-interpreters. Now here is the point. Wherever I found Jews, there were people who spoke Yiddish. Indeed, some of them were native speakers; others, along with me, were more or less fluent. Specifically, I communicated usefully in Yiddish in Vilnius, Kaunas, and Shakiai, all in Lithuania; in Kiev, Korsun Shevchenkivsky, Gorodishche, and Ol'shana, all in Ukraine. In Poland, I only visited Sejny and Suwalki, where Jews are no longer to be found. Arn Abramson 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 22:27:00 -0400 From: zellig@aol.com Subject: Oprikhtn goles In connection with Eliyahu Juni's beautiful and very informative post (6.031,1) on the same subject matter, herewith two comments: 1. About inviting a beggar into one's own home for a hot meal: Kadye Molodovski, the very original famous Yiddish poet (1893-1974) wrote that her mother had a deep respect for every beggar, believing with all her heart that anyone of them might be _eli'yohu ha'novi_ (Elijah the Prophet) who, according to legend, would in the disguise of a poor man, drop in on impoverished folk and miraculously make their bodily afflictions vanish or otherwise help them with their worldly woes. With the same strength of faith her mother also believed that a beggar might be one of the _lamed-vov_, the thirtry-six Just and Saintly men in whose merit the world exists. Once a beggar came to the door and asked for food. Kadye, then a little girl, let him in, as was her family's custom with beggars. Her mother, being busy at the moment, told her what to serve him, which she did. When the beggar left, her mother chastised her for serving him the food on a bare table, without a tablecloth, since he might indeed have been _eli'yohu ha'novi_ or a _lamedvovnik_, one of the Thirty-Six just and saintly men. 2. Children's views of _Gimpel_, our wandering town's beggar: Gimpel's disheveled looks and garb, as well as the contrast between his devotional mode of praying and his occasional childish ways, excited the fantasy of the children. In twilight hours they were engrossed in discussions about him, especially on Sha'bes nights before it was permitted to light a candle, or the kerosene lamp, and elongated shadows assembled on the walls in voiceless meetings. In these talks they wove Gimpel into the fabric of folk legends and heatedly argued several possibilities. Some children were certain that he was _eli'yohu ha'novi_, who usually appeared in various disguises but, especially, as a poor man deprived of home and family. Others persisted in the belief that he was one of the thirty-six Just men who go through life as the poorest of the poor and whose saintliness remains concealed from all, even from themselves, until their very last moment on earth. Was there a mysterious connection between Bashevis' "Gimpel the Fool" and Gimpel, our town beggar? Was there another-worldly relation between them? As "Gimpel the Fool" left Frampol to go "into the world," so did our town beggar Gimpel vanish one day in the middle of winter. Both his appearance in town, without anyone knowing whence he came, and his mysterious disappearance, fitted into the children's fantasies. Now they were certain that Gimpel, indeed, was one of the _lamed-vov_. Townspeople said that Gimpel started to walk to another place on that fateful winter day. The evening was mild, but later that night a blizzard broke loose, and heavy snow and bitter frost settled over fields and roads. Fatigue and sleep overtook him. As he lived, so did Gimpel die -- alone, without kin or friend. Snowflakes blanketed his body and tucked him in forever in a sweet sleep. Their whiteness was the white of _takhrikhim_, his burial shroud. And the howling winds pronounced his death to all corners of the world. Zellig Bach, Lakehurst, NJ 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 11:38:11 -0400 From: sbc@worldnet.att.net Subject: Yiddish song search I am looking for the music to a Yiddish song that starts with the following words: Shpilt-zhe mir a lidele fun yidish. Please help. jill milians ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.033