Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.094 August 28, 1993 1) Fishl Kutner, Yiddish schools, etc. (Stephen Dowling) 2) Horrors (Bob Hoberman) 3) Rivkele di shabetke (Michael Abramson) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Aug 26 00:00:37 1993 From: stephen dowling <71072.2134@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Fishl Kutner, Yiddish schools, etc. As a brief postscript to what I wrote the other day about Fishl Kutner, I would like to briefly mention something that he discovered in his research. Did you know that Mexico, Canada, Australia and Argentina all have Yiddish Day Schools? I knew that three of the above did. I had a hazy sense that Mexico did. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in contacting anyone there. Fishl succeeded in making numerous contacts there. If he has time, it would be wonderful if he could provide a description of what is going on there. If reports can be believed, they have a large Shule movement there. I have a reason for bringing it up. I feel that Yiddish Day Schools are the best way to teach children short of having Yiddish speaking parents that attend Yugntruf's Pripetchik. I have noticed that where you have them you find young people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that speak Yiddish. Australia's Sholem Aleichem School (founded 1974) has helped to revitalize the Kadimah (the local Bund group). They may not speak it every day. Importantly, they can speak Yiddish if they want to. In the United States, that is far from true.* The Workmen's Circle publishes a series of Yiddish children's books. I sell very few in the United States. The bulk of them are sold to the Sholem Aleichem School in Australia and the I.L. Peretz School in Montreal. Both schools purchase large quantities of the more advanced books in the series. As far as I know, the Peretz Schools teaches both Hebrew and Yiddish and gives instruction in French and English. I hope someone from Montreal will correct me if I am wrong. I am not sure if such schools would work in the United States. In all of the above, the Jewish communities are much smaller and there is a large enough concentration of parents interested in giving their children such an education. I know that many of the Workmen's Circle Shules closed in the 1960's due to a lack of students. It may be that the only places that can support such schools are large metropolitan areas. It is possible that Yiddish schools can only thrive when the Jewish community is smaller and feels a need to rally around the institutions they have. I have always felt that the farther you get away from New York, the more involved people get in the events and organizations in their area. This is my feeling. Failing the above, I feel we should attempt to get more Hebrew schools to adopt Yiddish as part of their curriculum. I'm certain that other people have different opinions and look forward to hearing them. *********************************************************************** A sad note... A few weeks ago, Frieda Wiener, Houston area Yiddish activist, passed away at the age 103. I will reproduce the Forward obituary shortly. Stephen Dowling 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Aug 26 17:58:41 1993 From: Robert D Hoberman Subject: Horrors As a linguist interested in Yiddish I'm embarrassed at the following item, which was posted on the LINGUIST e-mail discussion list. (I haven't asked permission to circulate it.) It's an object lesson: not only is the transcription about as awful as you can get, there's no sense that it's worth even trying to get the Yiddish correct. Looks more like the Katzenjammer Kids. Talk about the ludic use of Yiddish. Standard shmandard; -- let it at least be Yiddish. Bob Hoberman ---------------------------------- [From Linguist] Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 12:17:56 -0700 (PDT) From: AHARRIS - Alan Harris Subject: RE: 4.594 Just for Fun: Yiddish/Hebrew Pun I guess it is time to tell an old Yiddish/French pun joke: A Yiddish-speaking couple send their son to a French Lycee to get "kultur." The son comes home the first day and Papa frakt (asks)(and please pardon my Yiddish errors but this is how I remember the joke): (NB ch = [x]) New? Vas hapsdu gelehrnt diese tog [So, what did you learn today?]. OOy, Papa, the son replies, Ich bin gelehrnt dat an aksent agu gait a hint (makes the appropiate upper gesture) oon an aksent grav gait a hir (makes the appropriate downward gesture) [ Oh, Dad,I learned that an accent ague goes that way, and an accent grave goes this way NB: the gestures are reminiscent of bird's wing flapping)]. And papa says: Is goot; vas noch hapsdu gelehrnt mayn zoohne? [that's good; what else did you learn, m'boy?]. And the son says: Ich bin gelehrnt dat a palatz is a chato; unt a sheine palatz is a bo chato [I learned that a house is a chateau; and a beautiful house is a beau chateau NB. which of course sounds like the opening line of all prayers in Hebrew [baroch ato. . .] Now the papa cannot believe his ears re: this learning of Hebrew prayers in a French school so he says, a bit incredulously: Azoi? [Is that the truth/is that really so?] And the son says proudly: Yah, Papa, unt azoi in Fransozish is azoi! [Yup, Pop, that's right. And "indeed" in French is [wazo] oiseau!] It probably is better in its nonsense form in the Yiddish telling, but for what it is worth. . . ach 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Aug 27 01:49:56 1993 From: MAC191H@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au Subject: Rivkele di shabetke In response to Pierre Lewis(Hilf gevinsht Wed Aug 25) - I leave the grammatical questions to more fluent speakers of the language. My understanding of the wartime song "Rivkele di shabetke" is that it means she was a sabbath woman. Her husband Hershele was taken by the Nazis on sabbath and she mourned for him. I don't know about mitgebrengt za fidele - perhaps it was their(zayer) fiddle or maybe the word has been imported from Russian. I'd be interested to know what others think. Michael Abramson ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.094