[Mendele] Mendele Vol. 20.009

[Victor Bers]

Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________

Contents of Vol. 20.009
November 16, 2010

1) Yiddish in the University (Gerry Kane)
2) Government support for Yiddish in the University (Cyril D. Robinson)
3) Immured recluses? (Lena Watson)
4) akshn meshumed (Al Grand)
5) akshn meshumed (Jack Berger)
6) iberzetsn Shire Gorshmans "Di bobe malke" (Cedric Ginsburg)
7) kushers (Martin Jacobs)
8) Orthography in Bergelson's "Arum vokzal" (Mirjam Gutschow)
9) "befoyr" in I.B. Singer's "Yoshe Kalb" (Noyekh Miller)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yiddish in the University
Date: October 22, 2010

Yidish shteyt vayter in gefar! The comments by Seth Wolits and Barry 
Trachtenberg on the state of Yiddish programs in American Universities and 
by extension in Canadian Universities is heart-breaking.  But who is to 
blame?  The profs of the various programs for not raising their voices 
more loudly in the Jewish community about the need for Yiddish as part of 
any Jewish Studies program attached to a local university or the Jewish 
communities itself for being culturally ignorant and thus only supporting 
the religious stream or Hebrew stream without understanding how Yiddish 
has influenced the Literature and Culture of America or Canada.

Seth makes the point that Germany, Poland and France understand that 
Yiddish language and literature were an important part of the modern 
growth of their national cultures and so have to include Yiddish studies 
in their curricula. North American Jewish Communities don't and in my 
experience North American Yiddish scholars don't push the need for 
inclusion at either the University level or community level.

Today's North American Jews will not be friends of Yiddish and will not be 
until those who need their funds to keep teaching can put enough pressure 
on those Jews who give millions to Universities to vote dollars in the 
direction of Yiddish as part of Jewish studies in every university that 
has such an academic animal.  Universities understand dollars.

Si'z a skandal.  Ober men hert nisht keyn geshrey fun undzere akademiker!

Gerry Kane
2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 22, 2010
Subject: Government support for Yiddish in the University

Dear Mendele: Thank you for your useful description of support of Yiddish 
education in Europe. It should be pointed out, however, that in France and 
generally throughout Europe, it is not only Yiddish that is supported but 
the state supports all kinds of services either unknown or contentious in 
the US: health care, care of the elderly, child care, day care, and, 
generally, cradle to grave services. Even the extreme right approves of 
these policies. Education at all levels is either free or low cost.

Cyril D. Robinson
3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 22, 2010
Subject: Immured recluses?

In J. Bashevis-Singer's Magician of Lublin, the main character, Yasha, as 
an act of
repentance let a tiny house be built around him with nothing but a tiny 
window, where he lived as a recluse, studying the Torah day and night. 
This act set the town agog.   The Rabbi said this wasn't "yidish."  And 
then:   "True, it had happened in Lithuania that a   "poyresh" (recluse) 
had himself immured, but the Polish righteous didn't think much of it." 
I personally have never come across any such instance or reference to one. 
Can anyone pour some light on this practice? How common was it, if at all?

Many thanks,
Lena Watson
4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 22, 2010
Subject: akshn meshumed

If I may add a personal recollection regarding the "akshn - meshumed" 
issue raised by
Mike Hirsch and responded to by Leybl Goldberg: I distinctly recall that 
as I grew up in the 1930's and 40's in a Yiddish speaking family with 
parents both of whom came from a Russian shtetl called Zhitkovitch (near 
Minsk), I would often hear my mother say "an akshn iz erger vi a meshumed" 
whenever I or anyone else would become especially
obstinate.

Al Grand
5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 22, 2010
Subject: akshn meshumed

Re:  Leybl Silberstein's posting about "akshn meshumed""A pig-headed 
apostate." Nothing "so-and-so" about a "meshumed."

Jack Berger
6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: November 12, 2010
Subject:  iberzetsn Shire Gorshmans "Di bobe malke"

In di letste teg bin ikh farnumen mit iberzetsen a mayse fun Shire 
Gorshman. Di mayse heyst  "di bobe malke," geshribn in 1948. Es zaynen 
faran etlekhe verter vos ikh gefin nit in keyn verterbukh - ikh banuts 
zikh mit [uriel] vaynraykh, harkavi un dos naye yidish frantseyzish 
verterbukh tsuzamen mit a frantseyzish-english frantseyzish verterbukh.
1. Efsher ken eyner fun di mendelyaner mir helfen mit der badaytung fun di 
verter vos ikh hob nit gefunen:
RAMOYNKES - zumer flegt dos erdene dekhl bavaksen vern mit mente, 
ramoynkes
LIYOK - flegt zi mitn egberl makhn lekhlekh, tsubinden a laymenem liyok - 
es zol tripn
KAHANETS - nit oysleshndik di kahanets
FIRHOYZ, FIRHAYZL - dos alte porfolk hot zi gelozt ba zikh in firhayzl 
lebn khazer
MEDNITSE, ANTONOVKES, PLOSTN - [di gendz] arayngeleygt in an 
oysgeshayerter
mednitse, arumgeleygt antonovkes un plostn, arayngeshtelt in oyvn
SAMOHON - zi hot im oysgelernt, vi azoy tsu makhn fun samohon a geshmake 
mashke
MOLODYETS - ay babke bist a molodyets
STAROSTE - di bobe malke hot shoyn gevust, az Vlades iz staroste in dorf
BOBE, BABKE, BABESHI - ikh farshtey di verter: bobe = grandmother/midwife;
babke = diminutive of bobe, OR old lady?; babeshi = ?

2. Shire Gorshman hot gelebt in amolike ratn farband, un iz oyle geven 
keyn yisroel in di 90er yorn. Ikh vil bakumen derloybenish fun ire yorshim 
aroystsugebn an iberzetsung fun der mayse. Efsher veyst emetser: mit vemen 
ken ikh handln benegye dem inyen?

A sheynem dank,
Cedric (Yankev) Ginsberg
7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 31, 2010
Subject: kushers

This word occurs in the title of a chapter of the Tarnogrod memorial book: 
"Di "kushers" in Kneshpol" (Kushers is in quotes in the original).  The 
text makes no mention of kissing.  It is about a family named Lumerman who 
live in a village (dorf) called Kneshpol, on the river (taykh) Tanew, 
between Tarnogrod and Bilgorey, in Poland.

The text itself says that the principal occupation of the people of 
Kneshpol was binding wood into bundles (which they then sent down the 
Tanew river to their destination), and that people who do this are called 
"kushers."   Can anyone now tell me the origin of this word, apparently 
used only in this one town in Poland, near Tarnogrod?

Martin Jacobs
8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 25, 2010
Subject: Orthography in Bergelson's "Arum vokzal"

Noyekh Miller is looking for two early editions of Bergelson's  "Arum 
vokzal" to compare language and spelling of the two. He wonders about the 
Germanized spelling and the Segol under some Ayins. He also wonders why 
these do not appear in other editions. I do not know the two editions but 
from his description and the questions he raises I would suggest as an 
answer: Changed spelling conventions.

For some time it was highly fashionable to spell Yiddish texts similar to 
German, with some ie's (also ih for German ie) and an h after some ts. 
Later, the fashion changed and nearly all texts reprinted nowadays are 
being "corrected" to our conventions nowadays without mentioning this, so 
that we are puzzled when we see a text in its originalspelling.

Don't get me wrong: I do think it is indeed interesting researching the 
shift, the when and where, but if Noyekh Miller is just bewildered, I 
would like to say that there is nothing extraordinary happening here. 
Examples for texts can be found in abundance, e.g. in electronic form on 
archive.org, one I had to think of spontaneously is the Yiddish 
introduction to Abelson's Yiddish-English encyclopedic dictionary from
1915.

Kletskin 3rd edition is this: http://www.archive.org/details/nybc202344
Kletskin 1929 is this: http://www.archive.org/details/nybc206370
Wostok 1922 is this: http://www.archive.org/details/nybc201194
and there are more editions of this work in the archive, next to the 
Soviet publications and the Polish and Argentine postwar publications
Compare the one by Progres, Warsaw, 1909:
http://ia331418.us.archive.org/2/items/nybc206296/nybc206296.pdf

The last one has the sought for Segol under Ayins as well. Compare it to 
other books bound into the same volume, e.g. Sholem Asch's "In a shlekhter 
tsayt" (about p. 100), same publishing house, 1903 which does not show the 
Segol.

Mirjam Gutschow
9)----------------------------------------------------
Date: November 9, 2010
Subject:  "befoyr" in I.B. Singer's "Yoshe Kalb"

On page 318 of Yoshe Kalb we find in the announcement of a beyz-din of 70 
rabonim to investigate the charge that Rebe Meylekh's son-in-law Nokhem 
is, loy aleynu, a bigamist the following words: "mir zenin (sic) nit 
maskim mit di reyd befoyr (sic) di zakh iz klor gevorin (sic) durkh a din 
toyre".  Singer wanted perhaps to place a sort of mekhitse between his own 
modern secular Yiddish and that of the provincial rabbis who in practice 
wrote little or no Yiddish; maybe as well it was a gentle poke at their 
unsure orthography.  Well and good.  But what is this word "befoyr"?  It 
is not to be found.  Clearly the right word is "eyder", and the great 
Maurice Samuel who translated the book writes "before".

Is this an error?  Since the novel was published in 1932, some years 
before Singer came to America, "befoyr" is not very likely a gelumpert 
transcription of "before."  geshribene fasolyes Is it alt-yidish?  And if 
not, what happened?

Noyekh Miller
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 20.009

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