[Mendele] Mendele Vol. 21.014

Tue Feb 28 20:46:13 EST 2012

Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________

Contents of Vol. 21.014
February 23, 2011

1) Call for Papers (Jan Schwarz)
2) Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem (Jordan Brown)
3) Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem (Dina Levias)
4) Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem (David Bienenfeld)
5) Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem (Hershl Hartman)
6) Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem (Khane-Faygl Turtletaub)
7) lise/Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem (Gloria Donen Sosin)
8) Jabberwocky - a protest letter (Rukhl Schaechter) and a reply (Victor 
Bers)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 19
Subject: Call for Papers

European Yiddish Academic Workshop: Yiddish Culture in its European 
Context
Lund University, October 28-20, 2012

The chair of Yiddish at Lund University, Sweden, in corporation with the 
chairs of Yiddish at the Heinrich-Heine University of Duesseldorf and 
theUniversity of Amsterdam, are pleased to announce the convening of the 
first European Yiddish Academic Workshop. This annual meeting will 
assemble senior and junior European researchers in the field of Yiddish 
from its earliest appearance in Europe to date.

Scholars of Yiddish of all ranks (including Ph.D. students) are invited to 
submit a proposal for a presentation in this workshop. The topics to be 
discussed this year are:

1.Yiddish Culture after 1945;
2. European Centers of Yiddish Culture in the 20th Century.

The lectures may cover topics related to questions of language, 
literature, history, folklore or any other relevant academic field. Length 
of a presentation is 20 minutes followed by a 15 minutes discussion.

Senior participants will be asked to finance their own cost of travel, 
while the organizers will cover the costs of hotel and meals during the 
meeting. The organizers will pay for travel expenses for junior scholars, 
including Ph.D. students.

Deadline for submitting a proposal for a lecture is May 15, 2012 and 
proposals of no more than 400 words should be sent to 
Jan.Schwarz at sol.lu.se

Jan Schwarz

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 18
Subject: Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem

"Der toyt hot zayn vinkl dortn
tsu vemen kumen hob ikh shoyn nit."

Ba mir heyst der tsveyter ferz:

to whom I have not yet come

Ikh veys nit tsi s'iz der toyt tsi epes andersh vos iz der "whom"...
kh'meyn az s'iz efsher der toyt, vayl der ershter ferz perzonifitsirt im, 
ober s'iz a bisl
modne tsu zogn:

Death has his claim staked there
(Death,) to whom I have not yet come

Ikh ken nisht di poeme, bin ikh nisht zikher az ot di iberzetsung leygt 
zikh afn saykhl. Nu, s'iz an idee.

Aldos guts,
Jordan Brown

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  February 2
Subject: Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem

If that is so, I will venture a wild hypothetical guess---

"Death has its staked out its plot there,
But there is no one there whom
   I can visit anymore"
i.e.:  my dear ones had no burial, they were victims of the death camps"

Dina Levias

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 2
Subject: Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem

"Der toyt hot zayn vinkl dortn
tsu vemen kumen hob ikh shoyn nit."

It seems to me from the tense of the second line, "hob ikh shoyn nisht," 
the more straightforward translation would be:

Death has his little corner there
To which I have not yet come.

David Bienenfeld

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 2
Subject: Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem

Elie Train is apparently confused by the Yiddish syntax which, in this 
case, places the objective phrase before the verb. The accurate 
translation of the two lines is:

Death has its corner there;
I no longer have anyone to visit.

Hershl Hartman

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date:   February 8
Subject: Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem

Death has staked out his corner there;
I no longer have anyone to turn to.

Khane-Faygl Turtletaub

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 3
Subject: lise/ Fefekuchen-Zilbert poem

The word "lise" or "lysy" in Yiddish comes from same word for bald is 
Russian (probably  Slavic origin, not just Polish)

And Elie Train's question is so sad and moving:

Death has his corner there (i.e. Death has staked out his place there)

the last line translates as So I have no one to come back to, or home to

Gloria Donen Sosin

8)----------------------------------------------------
Subject: Jabberwocky - a protest letter
Date: February 9

I was shocked to read your posting of [Leybl Talmy's Yiddish rendering of 
the] Jabberwocky yesterday. The author may be Jewish but if he weren't, I 
would have called this anti-Semitic literature.

He could easily have portrayed the antagonist as a goylem or a pipernoter. 
By choosing a rabbi, and mocking his beard and peyes, the author reveals 
his true colors.

But even more disturbing is: why did Mendele not only permit this posting 
but encourage its members to read it?

Rukhl Schaechter

  ..............................................................

The untershames replies:

I take full responsibility for running Talmy's "Jabberwocky." I believe 
that even if one takes the selection of a rabbi as at all significant, 
this sort of badinage has a secure place in Yiddish folklore and 
literature: think Peretz's "Bontshe shvayg," think  even of "az der rebbe 
elimelech. "

Moreover, Mendelyaner with a far better knowledge of Yiddish than I have, 
have written in praise of Talmy's version.

Victor Bers
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 21.014

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