[Mendele] Mendele: Yiddish literature and language Vol.18.011

Victor Bers victor.bers at yale.edu
Tue Oct 28 15:39:38 EDT 2008


Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________

Contents of Vol. 18.011
October 27, 2008

1) Jerusalem Yiddish Conference (Heather Valencia)
2) peysakh-lid (Itsik Goldenberg)
3) peysakh-lid (Paul Micheikin Pascal)
4) peysakh-lid (Ute Mueller)
5) Book recommendations (Mike Hirsch)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 24, 2008
Subject:  Jerusalem Yiddish Conference

I wonder if I am the only person to feel rather bemused by the announcement
by Carrie Friedman-Cohen, published in the latest Mendele Review, about the
planned Jerusalem conference. This conference has been flagged up for
months in Mendele, and I assumed that there would be a call for papers. Now
we are told, ôscholars from many countries have offered to participate. One
can identify more than two hundred Yiddish scholars worldwide.
Unfortunately, we cannot accept an unlimited number of papers. Thus,
discomfiting though it be, it needs to be made clear from this early
planning stage that there will be no call for papers.ö This statement
contains several illogicalities and non- sequiturs. Are we to understand
that because scholars from many countries have offered papers, they have
all been accepted and the program is now full? This would be a bit unfair
since many people have, I am sure, been waiting for the call for papers.
Or is Ms Friedman-Cohen suggesting that people may still offer papers with
the hope of being accepted? If so, this should have been stated (Though
that would in fact amount to a call for papers!).  Or is it that only
selected speakers are being invited to participate? I do hope not. Quite
apart from the exclusive nature of such a procedure, it could well mean
missing out on papers which might be more interesting than some proposed by
the invitees. If the speakers are by invitation only, this should have been
stated at the beginning. I find the conclusion that because ôwe cannot
accept an unlimited number of papersö (which applies, naturally, to any
conference) there is to be no call for papers, very puzzling. The only fair
and open way to run a conference is to issue a call for papers when the
conference is announced, and then choose those which the conference
organizers wish to have presented. This would of course not be an
unlimited number, but only the number the conference can accommodate.
There is still plenty of time to issue a call for papers with a deadline,
and then decide on the appropriate number from among those which have
already been proposed and those which would now be submitted. Inclusiveness
is very important in the field of Yiddish, where there is exciting and
important research being done by many young scholars throughout the world.
I do hope that this matter can be clarified in the next edition of Mendele.

Heather Valencia

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 8, 2008
Subject: peysakh-lid

The latest Mendele [vol. 18.010] had a question about a song.  I believe
the song you are looking for is Slutsk.  You can find it on the Milken
Archive Great Recordings of the Yiddish Stage, Volume 2 sung by Cantor
Abelson. Check out this url:
http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/cds.taf?cdid=34

Itsik Goldenberg

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 7, 2008
Subject:  peysakh-lid

I strongly suspect that the town being referred to [in Mendele vol. 18.010]
was Slutsk (sometimes spelled Slutzk), which existed under a variety of
regimes during its history, including Poland prior to the division of that
country in the late eighteenth century.  It is currently in Belarus, about
60 miles south of Minsk.

If I am right then the song must be "Slutsk, mayn shtetele".  The words and
score can be found on page 403 of the Slutsker yizker-bukh (this book has
been photographed page by page and is available in its entirety online
through the New York Public Library website).

The yizker-bukh deems the piece "a folksong".  In actual fact it was
written in the 1930's by Herman Wohl (music) and Aaron Lebedeff (lyrics).
Although for the sake of popular consumption Lebedeff wrote nostalgic
lyrics about a many different shtetlekh in Eastern Europe (not all of
which, obviously, he would have grown up in), he himself was born in Gomel
which, like Slutsk, was in the Byelorussian corner of the Russian Empire at
that time. Hankus Netsky of the National Yiddish Book Center is of the
belief that the piece was performed as a stand-alone within Lebedeff's solo
repertoire on the American Yiddish stage.  According to the online Freedman
Catalogue, though, it was created for the American Jewish musical "On
Second Avenue".  At least one of Lebedeff's recordings of "Slutsk, mayn
shtetele" was made in Poland (obviously before WW2).

The words which Mr. Kahana quotes from his granduncle's testimonial are
likely a variation on the song's last two lines:  "Fun shul af shabes flegt
er brengen fremde mentshn, un zmires flegt men singen zeyer sheyn."  The
ôerö in those lines is referring back to ôder tateö in the preceding line.
Why Mr. Kahana's family would sing it at the Peysakh table of all places is
a mystery to me, although I could conjecture that it was simply because the
whole family was together at that time and was therefore an opportune
moment to share their enjoyment of a song they might all have known.

Paul Micheikin Pascal

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 14, 2008
Subject:  peysakh-lid

Perhaps "Slutz" is "Slucz [swut???]".  According to Wikipedia, it is a
village in the administrative district of Gmina Radzil?w, within Grajewo
County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. It lies
approximately 6 kilometres (4 mi) north- west of Radzil?w, 26 km (16 mi)
south of Grajewo, and 66 km (41 mi) north-west of the regional capital
Bialystok.  The village has a population of 580.

Regards
Ute Mueller

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 12, 2008
Subject:  Book recommendations

I recently read "Jacob's Legacy".  It primarily concerns Jewish genetics,
but grants some credence to Wexler's ôrelexified Slavicö theory based on
Jewish genetic history.  I also read Michael  Wex's "Just Say Nu", which,
while it employs non-standard transcription, gives some interesting, if
figurative, translations of many less common Yiddish expressions.

Regards,
Mike Hirsch
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 18.011

Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead,
direct your mail as
follows:

Material for Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements, i.e.
announcements of events,
commercial publications, etc., always in plain text (no HTML or the
like) to:

    victor.bers at yale.edu (in the subject line write Mendele Personal)

Material for postings to Mendele Yiddish literature and language, i.e.
inquiries and
comments of a non-commercial or publicity nature:

     mendele at mailman.yale.edu

IMPORTANT:  Please include your full name as you would like it to appear
in your
posting.  No posting will appear without its author's name.
Submissions to regular Mendele should not include personal email
addresses, as
responses will be posted for all to read.

In order to spare the shamosim time and effort, we request that
contributors adhere, when
applicable, as closely as possible to standard English punctuation,
grammar, etc. and to
the YIVO rules of transliteration into Latin letters.

All other messages should be sent to the shamosim at this address:
mendele at mailman.yale.edu

Mendele on the web: http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/index.htm

To join or leave the list: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/mendele




More information about the Mendele mailing list