[Mendele] Mendele Vol. 21.007

Tue Nov 1 18:13:48 EDT 2011

Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________

Contents of Vol. 21.007
October 24, 2011

1) Words to "Tsugeklept sought" (Ann Rabinowitz)
2) dreyen a spodik (Barry Goldstein)
3) dreyen a spodik, shantazh (David Spodick)
4) shantazh (Dina Levias)
5) dreyen spodik, shantazh (Elvira Groezinger)
6) "bomb" in Opatoshu's work (Nathan Weinstock)
7) Jacob Gordin's "The Yiddish Queen Lear" and "Mirele Efros" (Max 
Shulman)
8) Call for Papers for Conference: The World Elsewhere (Department of 
German,
Berkeley)
9) The Bund on Wikipedia (Eli Russ)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 18
Subject: words to "Tsugeklept" sought

I would like to find the lyrics of a song recorded in Lemberg in 1908 by 
Minna Bleichmann (later wife of Morris Axelrad) which is entitled 
"Tsugeklebt." Minna is singing so fast on the recording that it is 
difficult to decipher what she is singing.Thanks for any help on this 
inquiry.

Ann Rabinowitz

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 4
Subject: dreyen a spodik

The writer also used the expression "dreyt dem spodik." Again, neither 
Uriel Weinreich nor Harkavy contains the word "spodik."

"spodik" and "dreyen a spodik" are in Uriel Weinreich (and probably 
Harkavy): p277 (from the right), 516 (from the left): "high fur cap" and 
"bother, annoy"

Barry Goldstein

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 6
Subject: dreyen a spodik, shantazh

You will see by my name why "spodik" is familiar to me. A spodik is two 
things: a  saucer and a conical black fur hat. "dreyen a spodik"  means to 
annoy someone or put someone on, -  identical to " hakn a tshaynik."

"shantazh" is easy, it's French for "blackmail" ("chantage") and 
M.Friedman can find it in the English-Yiddish (not in the Yiddish-English) 
section of Uriel Weinreich's dictionary, but of course you have to know 
French to guess that --- my 5 years finally
paying off.

zayt gezunt,
David Spodick

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 3
Subject: shantazh

Marvin Friedman on Sept. 25, asks (in Mendele, Vol.21.006) for the meaning 
of the word "shantazh":the word is the French word "chantage" (which comes 
into Yiddish via Russian): it means blackmail."Faire chanter," a verb, is 
"to blackmail"; in Russian, it's "shantazhirovats."

Dina Levias

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 4
Subject: dreyen a spodik, shantazh

Answering the query of Martin Friedman on "shantazh" and "spodik": 
Shantazh means blackmail (Polish szantaz, originally French, chantage). 
Spodik comes also from Polish, spodek (saucer) - as I don't know the exact 
context, it could mean that he is turning the saucer, thus looking for 
things hidden underneath (as a metaphor).

Hoping to have helped you.
Best,
Elvira Groezinger

[Moderater's note: Similar responses were also received from Eric 
Weitzner, Lazar Greisdorf, Leonard Fox, Sonia Kovitz, Zulema Seligsohn, 
John Burke, Jack S. Berger,Michael Koplow, Tzilla Kratter and Noyekh 
Miller. Some contributors also noted that a spodik is commonly worn by 
Gerer Hasidim. Mordkhe Schaechter, z"l, used to explain that "spodik" - 
the type of hat - represents a person's head in this expression. 
Hence,"dreyen a spodik" means "dreyen a kop."]

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 4
Subject: "bomb" in Opatoshu's work

Tayere Mendelianer,

In one of Opatoshu's tales, he has a group of friends sitting at a cafe 
terrace singing: "Oy,a bomb, oy a bomb!"

Can anyone tell me what "a bomb" is? Obviously, not a bomb!

Thanks already,

Nathan Weinstock

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 9
Subject: Jacob Gordin's "The Yiddish Queen Lear" and "Mirele Efros"

I am looking for a translation of Jacob Gordin's "The Yiddish Queen Lear" 
or "Mirele Efros."

So far, I have been unable to locate one to help in my own work.

Any thoughts, ideas?

His other works "The Yiddish Kenig Lir" and "Got, Mentsh, un Tayvl" are 
readily available, but Mirele as famous as it is has been hard to locate.

Any help is appreciated.
Max Shulman

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 23
Subject: Call for Papers for Conference: The World Elsewhere

THE WORLD ELSEWHERE

"For you the city, thus I turn my back: There is a world elsewhere." From 
Coriolanus, Shakespeare

Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference
University of California, Berkeley
March 16-18, 2012

Keynote speakers:
Professor James A. Schultz, Chair, Department of Germanic Languages, UCLA
Professor David Shneer, Department of History, University of Colorado

The power of literature is to imagine worlds. From Wolfram von 
Eschenbach's Kingdom of Zazamanc to fantastic imaginings of faraway lands 
in Medieval and Early Modern Cosmographia and from Calvinist cities upon 
hills to Kafka's penal colony, its renderings and attempted realizations 
have fueled the imagination, sparked debate, and far too often led to 
disaster. The world elsewhere may, following Thomas More, be called 
Utopia, but this is both a "good place" and "no place," making such 
constructions inherently fraught with challenges from pragmatism and 
problematic in their definitions of what "good" is.
These worlds are often fantastic, but can also be terrifying; are often 
familiar, but upon closer inspection utterly alien. They are "imaginative 
spaces" in which we work through the hopes, fears, desires, and 
possibilities that human experience engenders.  They provide the means 
through which we imagine ourselves as part of a world, a universal 
community.  The Internet and digital media grant us new power to simulate 
our imagined worlds.  But how have the nature and use of these imagined 
worlds changed in our increasingly interconnected and globalized age?

For the conference, we encourage an interdisciplinary approach, seeking 
papers from scholars of modern and medieval literature, film and 
philosophy, history and art history, linguistics and sociology, and 
related disciplines.

We especially encourage submissions on Yiddish literature.

The conference will be held in Dwinelle Hall at the University of 
California, Berkeley, March 16-18, 2012.  Please submit a 300 word 
abstract for a 15-20 minute paper by December 31, 2011, to:
theworldelsewhere at gmail.com.

Possible topics include, but are in no way limited to:

Travelogues (e.g. Felix Fabri, Mendele Mocher Seforim's The Travels of 
Benjamin the Third)
The past as imagined world
World literature and the making of worlds
Models of an ideal society (religious, philosophical, artistic, political)
Social media and connectivity
The reconstruction of language families (e.g. Proto-Indo European, 
Proto-Germanic)
Dystopian mirrors of modernity
Feminist utopian literature
Nostalgia for place (e.g. the shtetl, Heimat)
The imagined worlds of moving pictures
Utopian socialism and artistic communes (e.g. East Germany, Worpswede)
Colonial and post-colonial fantasies
Encounters with the "New World" (e.g. Karl May, Alexander von Humboldt)
Frankfurt School utopias
The circulation of stories
New forms of authorship, publication and readership
Alternate histories

Conference organizers: Jenna Ingalls, Tara Hottman, Kenneth Fockele
theworldelsewhere at gmail.com

Department of German
5319 Dwinelle Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3243

9)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 3
Subject: The Bund on Wikipedia

Friends,

In honor of the 114th anniversary of the founding of the General Jewish 
Labor Bund of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia in Vilna on October 7, 1897, 
The Bund on Wikipedia Project invites you to join our growing online 
movement of Wikipedia Editors dedicated to creating and editing Wikipedia 
articles about the Bund. Our Project seeks to assist professional and 
non-professional researchers of the Bund, as well as to preserve the 
memory and legacy of the Bund through Wikipedia.

Since our inception in 2009, the Project has created and edited nearly 100 
Wikipedia articles on the Bund, and has donated them to the YIVO Institute 
for Jewish Research.
We ask that you take part in our Project by becoming a Wikipedia Editor, 
or support our work with a monetary gift or source material. For more 
information, please visit our website: http://bundwiki.weebly.com/.

Yours,

Eli Russ
Founding Director
The Bund on Wikipedia Project
http://bundwiki.weebly.com/
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 21.007

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