______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.270 March 9, 1994 1) Klezmer (Joyce Rappaport) 2) Biases (Jascha Kessler) 3) Der Yiddisher Mikado (David Sherman) 4) Kabak (Ron Rabin) 5) Jews and numbers (Rick Turkel) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Mar 6 17:54:47 1994 From: Subject: klezmer In Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, there is a scene in which the Jewish musicians entertain. I'm curious to know the Russian term for these players. (See Acts II and III). Hope this enlightens our discussion. Joyce Rappaport 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 01:12:40 1994 From: Subject: Biases For the list and MH: I was not aware that that revealed any biases, at least in advertently. I was merely supposing, given early acquaintance with certain type s of prudery, Labor Zionist, Workmen's Circle, and especially 'way,'way left, f rom the Coops, in the Bronex, that is. "We had none among us," showed neither i rony nor skepticism, per se. Irony is hard without context,hard to catch. the re is no debate here, only chitchat, and I trust it is taken as such. We seem to live in an intellectual climate these days where people are terrifie d to be accused of bias, etc, and thus allow themselves to be terrified. Examp le: one of my colleagues, a straight arrow Boston Irishman, a distinguished pro fess of American Literature, was attacked a little while back because he had li sted on his Syllabus for the Graudate Course in AmLIt, 20th Cent, MR. SAMMLER'S PLANET. Protests! A racist book! He was rather taken far far aback. We plum meted this low. A feygele is a feygele, nit a shande. I was mjust written a letter by a Chinese girl who wants to enroll in my D H La wrence Seminar in the Spring, because she is a Romantics major and had run acro ss talk of Wordsworth by DHL. When she asked around the Department (and she wro te me this, and I have not yet met the girl, I assume she is a girl, as Junior) , she was told the absence of assignments or courses on DHL was because he is a "racist," a "sexist," a "pornographer." Well, we'll have a lot of work to do, because, yes, Racism is the 20th Century's greatest achievement, out of the 18t h Century, and Sexism is ancillary, as it were to that, since it concentrates o n the two races of mankind, male and female (vide Aristophanes), and pornograph y is in the eye of the beholder (cf. DHL's A PROPOS LADY CHATTERLEY). Biasses? Yessir, all over the lot. Portnoy, Alexander, had a lot to say about that, tha t erstwhile Commissioner of Human Rights, etc. in some Jewish novel about some Jews. Enough. Methusaleh awaits our coming. Jascha Kessler 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun Mar 6 23:28:32 1994 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman) Subject: Der Yiddisher Mikado Just came back from a performance of Der Yiddisher Mikado, put on by the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island, who have come to Toronto for the weekend. It was excellent! Some of the singers (especially the female leads) didn't project as much as one would have hoped, but we were sitting in the front row so it didn't bother us. I grew up on G&S long before I learned any Yiddish (my parents were active in the local G&S Society, and I heard it at home all the time), so this was a real treat. Some of the translations/adaptations of the songs were hysterical. Murray Nesbitt as Khay-Shpay was superb. Yes, I'm sure this won't meet the standards of the academics on MENDELE, but I enjoyed it all the same. (Perhaps you (you know who you are) will admit it's an improvement over Country Yossi?) Does anyone know if the Yiddish lyrics are available? I understand that they deliberately don't have a video or audio tape. David Sherman 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 07:23:58 1994 From: RABINRL@SNYBUFVA.CS.SNYBUF.EDU Subject: Kabak "Kabak" may indeed be a Russian word meaning tavern. But when one's head is compared to a kabak, the source is more likely Turkish. The modern Turkish word for pumpkin is kabak (also used for eggplant and sometimes for squash generally, e.g., kabakli kebap--kebab with squash). If one hears this in the Ukraine, does one hear yet a faint echo of the Khazars? Or perhaps it walked over from the Balkans, something the Ottomans left behind. Ron Rabin 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 7 09:44:48 1994 From: rmt51@cas.org Subject: Re: Jews and numbers Delphine Bechtel asks (mendele 3.265) about Jews not counting people. This minhag goes all the way back to the Torah, in the portion read two weeks ago (Ki Tisa). In Exodus, Chap. 30, Moshe is commanded to take a census of Bnei Yisrael, not by a direct count but by having each give half a shekel toward the building of the sanctuary. Another way of counting men for a minyan is to recite a ten-word verse, counting one man for each word; the one usually used is "Hoshiya et `amekha uvarekh et nakhalatekha ur'em venas'em ad ha`olam." -- Rick Turkel ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.270 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Mendele: Yiddish literature and language