[Mendele] Mendele Vol. 20.008

[Victor Bers]

Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________

Contents of Vol. 20.008
October 20, 2010

1) Yiddish in the University (Seth L. Wolitz)
2) Cuts at the University at Albany (SUNY) (Barry Trachtenberg)
3) Raising money for university Yiddish instruction (Harriet Murav)
4) Internationale in Yiddish (Leybl Goldberg)
5) Two Versions of Bergelson (Noyekh Miller)
6) Shoemakers, Rabbis and High Foreheads (Lane Silberstein)
7) akshn meshumed (Leybl Goldberg)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date October 8, 2010
Subject: Yiddish in the University

Dear Colleagues:

In Europe the institutions that support Yiddish generally receive state 
support whereas in  most American institutions, private or public, there 
is limited financial support for  Yiddish. Let us remember something else! 
Germany is and will continue to be the center  of world study of Yiddish 
as time goes on. Why? They have state support and they have  guilt and 
they have a project! The plan is to incorporate Yiddish once again as a 
form of  Juedisch-Deutsch, the language of the Jews in Osten into the 
ensemble of German Kultur.  The Eastern European Jews are now being 
recognized as the best friends of German  culture, Kulturtraegers as it 
were, to the Slavic world and the German language they  brought developed 
in comparative isolation in the East into Yiddish. The horror Hitler 
wrought was a most grave mistake! The Jews were the best friends of German 
Hochkultur. It is now the duty of German scholarship to study, esteem and 
protect the  remains of Yiddish and show it is part of the German 
inheritance.

The Polish position however holds a different take of the situation. 
Yiddish is a language that belongs to Eastern Europe and especially 
Poland, where it developed based on Slavic  syntactical models. Yiddish is 
a language built on Germanic roots, Slavic syntax and  vocabulary, and 
Hebrew/Aramaic elements. But most importantly, Yiddish culture is  based 
on Slavic literary and cultural models and its Hochkultur reflects the 
absorption of  the best of Slavic literary examples from Polish and 
Russian literatures and cultures.  Therefore, Poland sees itself as the 
heir, not Germany, to the protection of the Yiddish  language and culture. 
The recent efforts of the Cracow scholars of Yiddish to underscore  the 
integration of Yiddish culture with Polish cultural life in that former 
capital of Poland  is further proof that the Poles are ready to defend 
Yiddish as part of the patrimony of  Poland no less than the German 
attitude. Time will tell what Russian scholarship will  show but already 
in the plastic arts, many a volume treats the Yiddish cultural artifacts 
as  part and parcel of the Russian-Jewish entente cordiale! And Ukraine 
and Rumania no  doubt will join in too as their economic conditions 
improve. Therefore, European  appreciation of Yiddish is not selfless. 
There are political and ideological reasons why  Yiddish Studies has more 
intense accomplishment in Europe.

Only in France has the study of Yiddish approached a level of quality and 
quantity that  eschews political and ideological interests and appears 
more purely academic. But even  in France, the study of Yiddish and its 
culture is part of the effort of integrating the  Jewish inheritance 
inside the new France, une culture franaise universelle. Jewish  culture 
from the Yiddish ideally should be as accepted as Alsatian or Breton 
cultures in the national cultural ideal. La France is a unity of many 
elements and the Jewish souche  must also be included. Europe, therefore, 
has no problem in supporting Yiddish language and culture if it serves the 
purpose of the national interests.

In America, take my institution, the University of Texas at Austin, it had 
one of the oldest Yiddish language programs in America but when the 
Yiddish Professor quit her position,  the chair, a Jew of German Jewish 
origins, decided that Yiddish was a luxury that the  Germanic Department 
could no longer afford. He did not want to hire a new instructor of 
Yiddish and he made it clear that the classes were just marginal in 
enrollment. Therefore,  the teaching of the Yiddish language had to go. 
And so ended one of the longest runs of  Yiddish being taught as a 
language of study in the United States. No regrets but some  crocodile 
tears. And even when it seemed possible to privately fund Yiddish, there 
was  raised the question, where could one find a proper Yiddish language 
teacher!
The fact simply is the following: The German departments don't really care 
about Yiddish, the English departments don't care either and the Hebrew 
Studis and Jewish  Studies Programs hold no stake in Yiddish either. Thus, 
Yiddish has a few courses here  and there and it is going nowhere in 
America.

Sincerely,
Seth L. Wolitz

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 19, 2010
Subject: Cuts at the University at Albany (SUNY)

Dear Colleagues,

No doubt you have heard about the proposed cuts to the Humanities programs 
at the  University at Albany. Below are my comments to the Faculty Senate 
(each speaker was  given only three minutes) regarding the changes in 
Judaic Studies at the University over  the past few years and how this new 
round of cuts will further diminish our offerings.

Yours,
Barry Trachtenberg

Lost in the current discussions about the cuts in the academic programs 
are the recent  changes in Judaic Studies. Founded as a Department forty 
years ago this very month,  Judaic Studies at UAlbany was a forerunner of 
the burst in Jewish Studies programs that  has occurred over the past two 
decades. Now, more than one hundred and twenty-five  Universities in North 
America and Canada offer Jewish Studies, and it is a field that is 
continually growing.
I arrived to UAlbany in 2003 as one of the first faculty members whose 
line was to be  paid through a public-private partnership (a failed 
experiment that demonstrated how  academic speech can be suppressed 
through such arrangements). I was the fifth member  of a vibrant 
Department that offered classes in many realms of Jewish Studies. While we 
never had more than 20 majors at any given time, we often served annually 
more than  one thousand students in our classes, many of whom saw Jewish 
Studies as a vital part of  their education. Our recent external review 
from 2009 credited us as a "nationally  competitive program" with a staff 
who is "young and energetic" but "lacks the non- replacement of departing 
faculty".

Now, I am the sole full-time faculty member in Jewish Studies, and I, 
along with a  Hebrew lecturer and a handful of adjunct instructors, have 
had our Department dissolved  and we are now housed in History. We are in 
the process of suspending admission to the major. As part of my 
responsibility to oversee Judaic Studies, soon to be officially a program, 
I am to create an interdisciplinary major out of the faculty located 
across the University, following the model that exists at most other 
schools. Such a task was already going to prove difficult. Since the 
Judaic Studies Department was the site where those faculty with an 
interest in the topic were housed, there are only a few faculty at the 
University with either the training or the interest in mounting classes 
and making the long-term commitment to teaching them on a regular basis. 
Now, with the plan to cut the programs in Theater, Classics, Russian, 
Italian, and French, I fear that my job may be impossible. At least three 
of the five programs have faculty with an interest or clear affinity with 
Jewish Studies. Take the work of French Professor Brett Bowles, for 
instance, who works on antisemitism in French film. One could also point 
to Professor of Russian Henryk Baran, who researches the Protocols of the 
Elders of Zion. As well, faculty in the Theater Department are currently 
preparing a production of Dear Harvey, a
play on the life and times of the civil rights activist Harvey Milk. The 
absence of these programs will be devastating to my efforts to rebuild the 
Judaic Studies major.

Just as the creation of the Judaic Studies Department in 1970 augured 
future  developments in the discipline, the decision to permit its 
attrition over the past few years  has likewise presaged the recent news 
about the tragic cuts. I strongly suspect that had we
not lost our faculty to retirements or to other Universities, we too would 
have been  terminated, rather than only downsized.

As the Faculty Senate weighs its decision regarding the termination of 
these five  programs, please consider that the cuts impact constituencies 
far beyond those immediately affected. It is devastating and shameful that 
these programs are to be terminated. The effects of these ill-conceived 
decisions will extend far and wide throughout the University and degrade 
us all.

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 10, 2010
Subject: Raising money for university Yiddish instruction

I am trying to restore the teaching and learning of Yiddish at the 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by teaching Yiddish 101-102 
myself on an overload basis. I would like to raise funds for undergrad and 
grad fellowships for the study of Yiddish and for the support of teaching 
Yiddish (a qualified grad student could do first and second year). The 
summer programs are extremely expensive, and offering Yiddish as a regular 
language course during the academic year makes sense for many reasons. 
Does anyone have information about foundations that would give this kind 
of support?

I would be most grateful for any advice.
Harriet Murav
4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 11, 2010
Subject: Internationale in Yiddish

Here is a version of the Internationale in Yiddish, as I learned it at 
Arbeter Ring Camp in the 1940s:

Shteyt oyf, ir ale vert vi shklafn,
in hunger lebn muz un neyt.
Der gayst, er kokht, er ruft tsu vafn--
tsum shlakht undz firn iz er greyt.
Di velt fun gvald-tatn un laydn,
tseshtern veln mir un dan
fun frayhayt, glaykhayt a gan-eydn
bashafn vet der arbetsman.
Dos vet zayn shoyn der letster
un antsheydener shtrayt;
mit dem Internatsional,
shteyt oyf ir arbetslayt.
Dos vet zayn shoyn der letster
un antsheydener shtrayt;
mit dem Internatsional,
shteyt oyf ir arbetslayt.

Barnett (Berl) Zumoff

[Moderator's note: Leybl Goldberg offered a version of the song from the 
popular reader "Unzer Vort" (Kh. Bez/Bezprozvani and Z. Yefroykin, Maks N. 
Maisel Farlag, N.Y., 1933, p. 200) and the following translation.]


(Literal translation: Arise you all, who like slaves/ In hunger and need 
must live!/ The  sirit-- it boils, it calls to arms/ To the battle it is 
ready to lead us.

The world of violence and suffering/ We shall destroy, and then-- /Of 
freedom and quality a paradise/ Shall the workingman create.

This will be the final/ And decisive battle! /With the International/ 
Arise ye workingmen!)

Leybl Goldberg

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 14, 2010
Subject: Two versions of Bergelson

I'm looking at two versions of "arum vokzal" by Dovid Bergelson, both 
published by the famous Kletzkin Ferlag in Vilna.  The first is undated 
but is marked 3rd edition, the second has no edition number but is dated 
1929 and as far as I can tell resembles but is not identical with the 
Wostok (Berlin) edition of 1922.  I assume that the first of these was 
published some time after 1911 (the story first appeared in 1909) but 
before 1922 because the main -- and glaring -- difference between the two 
versions is the orthography and use of nekudes.

Briefly, the "3rd edition" version reads as though it were transliterated 
from a German manuscript (fertieft, oysgedienter, etc.) and distinguishes 
voiced from unvoiced ayins by adding a segol.  The 1922 version on the 
other hand (and with a handful of exceptions) looks pretty much like 
something in this week's Forverts.

Obviously something pretty major must have occurred in the Yiddish world 
for publishers to go to the considerable trouble and expense of 
recomposing the text.  My question is: what happened?

Noyekh Miller
6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 12, 2010
Subject: Shoemakers, Rabbis and High Foreheads

Norman Buder asks, "2. Can you cite any other examples from Yiddish 
literature in  hich shoemakers and rabbis are thus compared, or in which 
shoemakers are depicted as having high foreheads or having other 
characteristics associated with rabbis, thinkers, etc.?"

I.J. Singer's "The Family Carnovsky" presents an opposite example: the 
young Georg  Crnovsky refuses to study Torah.  His teacher laments that 
"Only a shoemaker will I make of [Georg]!" However, I have only read up to 
this point in the novel.  Nor do I remember any descriptions of the boy's 
head.

Lane Silberstein
7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 12, 2010
Subject: akshn meshumed

Mike Hirsch asked about "akshn mshimet" and said that he thought it meant 
"stubborn ox". I think what he probably heard from his Ukrainian born bobe 
was more likely "a farakshente meshumed" or "an akshn, a meshumed," with 
"meshumed" pronounced "meshimid". A "meshumed" is literally an apostate, 
an outrageous fellow. "akshn" (spelled ayin-kuf-shin-nun) just means a 
stubborn person; it has nothing to do with "ox," which is "oks." So, the 
over all idea might be conveyed as "a pig-headed so-and-so."

Leybl Goldberg

[Moderator's note: SZ Beer confirms that meshumed (meshumad in Hebrew) is 
an apostate.]

______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 20.008
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