Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 3.006
May 19, 1993

1) Sutzkever (Bob Werman)
2) Schmorvoz (Martha Rubin)
3) Yid(d?)ish vokh (Berl Hoberman)
4) Beize vechere (K.N. Leibovic)
5) Transcription (Arn Abramson)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue May 18 14:46:28 1993
From: RWERMAN%HUJIVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu
Subject:  Sutzkever

This evening I had the pleasure of attending an evening celebrating the
poet, Avraham Sutzkever's 80th birthday and 60 years of literary
production.

I know that Yiddish language interests the readers of Mendele more than
Yiddish literature and that saddens me.  My Yiddish is shvach but good
enough to recognize that Sutzkever is a great poet, by any standard, by
world standards.  He is musical and complex and yet available.  His
metaphors are carved out of impossible conjuctions and yet work.  His
subject matter is the Jewish experience of Europe and of Israel, of the
the Haskalla and of religion.  He is a survivor of the Vilna ghetto and
of the Partisans.  He is the editor and founder of the Goldene Keit, the
major literary journal in Yiddish.

I was one of more than 150 lovers of Yiddish and of Sutzkever that came
to hear his praises sung by, among others, Avraham Noverszern, Chone
Shmeruk, Dan Miron, Yossl Bernstein and to hear Sutzkever's marvelous
readings.  Some of the more recent material has been translated by Ruth
Whitman into English, by the way.

Miron, who alone spoke in Hebrew, although his Yiddish seems very good
to my ear, was particularly impressive. Miron is just after sharing the
Israel Prize in literary criticism with Gershon Shaked and called
Sutzkever the greatest of all Israeli poets.

A very special evening.

__Bob Werman    rwerman@hujivms.bitnet    rwerman@vms.huji.ac.il

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue May 18 14:53:37 1993
From: nrubin@s1.csuhayward.edu (martha rubin)
Subject: Schmorvoz

Does anyone by chance know the meaning of the term "schmorvoz?"  I
believe the term comes from somewhere near Odessa, and means something
like schlamazl.

martha rubin

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue May 18 18:27:59 1993
From: Robert D Hoberman <RHOBERMAN@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Subject: Yid(d?)ish vokh

Here's from another cranky linguist.  I would write "Yiddish" if I were
writing in English, but "Yidish" if I were writing in Yiddish.  How do I
know if I'm writing in Yiddish or English? --If I feel I really should
be writing in the Yiddish/Hebrew/Jewish alphabet, but I'm not because my
machine or my readers can't handle it, then I'm writing in Yiddish and
would use YIVO transcription consistently.  Never mixed, as Shleyme
Axelrod stressed.

Bob/Berl

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue May 18 21:02:54 1993
From: BPHKNL@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: beize vechere

in main loshn iz beize vetchere af einglish wertlech ibersetzt "angry
evening" oder besser gezogt "an evil night".

k.n.leibovic.

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue May 18 21:47:23 1993
From: "Arthur S. Abramson" <ABRAMSON%UCONNVM.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject: Transcription

Let me say to Meylekh that the intent of my little discourse on
transcription vs. transliteration was to say essentially what Ellen
Prince and Shleyme Axelrod have said today, in other words, what I think
I said at the end, "Let each spelling have its place." When I write a
Yiddish (N.B.!) expression or sentence in Roman script, I, consistent
with the system, write "yidish." When using the name of the language as
an ENGLISH word, I write "Yiddish."

Arn

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End of Mendele Vol. 3.006