[Mendele] Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements: Michael Wex at Mid-Manhattan, New York Public Library-- Dec. 23

[Victor Bers]

Mendele Personal Notices and Announcements

Dec, 9, 2015

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_______________________________________

From: Amanda Seigel <amandaseigel at nypl.org>
Date: Nov. 19, 2015 [sic]
Subject: Michael Wex at Mid-Manhattan, NYPL, on Dec. 23

Tayere Mendelyaner,

Please mark your calendars for a very special, free public talk by
Michael Wex at NYPL on Wednesday, December 23 at 6 PM.

This is a special pre-Yiddish New York program -
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.yiddishnewyork.com_&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=2pCjXHATwmL04sINbiQ9QXt6T3m_kSN6-90PxbfEw0Q&s=QoYJOZ4nTf_VPLQxe2M3P7HfXvGK6m9ugILmz71-aLU&e= 

Yiddish: German to Spite the Germans, a lecture with Michael Wex

Wednesday, December 23, 2015, 6 p.m.

Mid-Manhattan Library, New York Public Library
5th Avenue at 40th St.

Fully accessible to wheelchairs
For all ages

A look at how and why Jews living in German-speaking areas turned a
thoroughly Christianized language into a vehicle for Jewish ideas and
values. Although Yiddish shares most of its vocabulary with German, it
was never really “German.” Many innocent-looking Yiddish terms and
idioms express profound opposition to the German, i.e., Christian,
worldview; we’ll see how the fundamental ironies produced by such
opposition contributed to the development of the characteristic
Yiddish sense of humor. No knowledge of either Yiddish or German is
required.

With respect to Yiddish, William Burroughs was wrong: language is not
a virus, it's a dybbuk, and as far as Yiddish is concerned, German is
Linda Blair. From the moment when Jews in the Middle Ages started
speaking "German" to one another, they were speaking German
aftselakhis, German to spite the Germans, a German that Germans would
not understand, full of words that every German knew that were being
used to conceal attitudes and ideas that, when not actively offensive
to Christians, could hardly be considered endearing. Yiddish embodies
the successful circumcision of every German cultural assumption,
including many that might not at first appear to have anything to do
with religious practice or belief. This Jewish version of German
dispensed with the Christianity (and much of the residual paganism)
that informed the “original” language, sometimes disposing of it, at
others assigning meanings that simply were not there in the “original”
language to German words and phrases. We will be looking at some of
these words and phrases, as well as at the sources of their new
meanings and the ways in which Yiddish managed to sneak them in.

About the presenter:

Michael Wex is the author of three books on Yiddish, including the
bestseller, Born to Kvetch. He has taught the language at the
University of Toronto and the University of Michigan and is a mainstay
of the contemporary Yiddish scene. A native-speaker whose Yiddish
songs have been recorded by such bands as the Grammy-winning
Klezmatics, he has translated material ranging from classical Yiddish
literature to testimony for war crimes trials. He has also translated
The Threepenny Opera from German into Yiddish. He has also published
three novels, the most recent of which, The Frumkiss Family Business,
was a Canadian national bestseller. His next book, Rhapsody in
Schmaltz, a study of Ashkenazi food that does for Yiddish food what
Born to Kvetch did for Yiddish speech, will be published in April 2016
by St. Martin’s Press.

Website: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.michaelwex.com&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=2pCjXHATwmL04sINbiQ9QXt6T3m_kSN6-90PxbfEw0Q&s=9HFzP4KOHiLmLBVhrSpUL2ZsMRzsySRoRjuxWaI8xVY&e= 

This program has been organized in cooperation with the Yiddish New
York Festival ,  https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.yiddishnewyork.com_&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=2pCjXHATwmL04sINbiQ9QXt6T3m_kSN6-90PxbfEw0Q&s=QoYJOZ4nTf_VPLQxe2M3P7HfXvGK6m9ugILmz71-aLU&e= 
 and has been made possible by the generosity of The
Dorot Jewish Division,
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.nypl.org_locations_divisions_jewish-2Ddivision&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=2pCjXHATwmL04sINbiQ9QXt6T3m_kSN6-90PxbfEw0Q&s=NAEcNXXF6yH0GqOXl4YYA1kABk-WXVP8faWl05JsIsI&e= 

For more information, visit:

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__on.nypl.org_1Nmawf0&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=2pCjXHATwmL04sINbiQ9QXt6T3m_kSN6-90PxbfEw0Q&s=amcj3vvYcZSMMEn-hPhLLSCW_Y1e7uWtQFR66x2ynzE&e= 

Sincerely,



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