Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.353 March 7, 1995 1) Language clues to geographic origin (Mikhl Herzog) 2) Hebrew/Yiddish Puzzle (David Sherman) 3) Mordecai Gebirtig (Arre Komar) 4) Shmuel Rozhanski z"l (Shleyme Axelrod) 5) Irving Howe (Dvosye Bilik) 6) Paul Robeson (Bob Werman) 7) Paul Robeson (Sol Behar) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Mar 95 00:18 EST From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu Subject: Language clues to geographic origin Howard Gershen asks whether there are "benchmark" words whose variant pronunciations would provide a clues to a speaker's place of origin. The answer is, of course, an unqualified _yes_. In fact, we can get much closer than the large areas that Howard asks about: Lithunia, Belorus, Ukraine, etc. With the appropriate questions, we can focus in on much smaller subregions within each of them. Some of us play that game all the time. In fact, anyone can take Volume I of the Yiddish Atlas in hand and play too: Devise any number of questionnaires for the purpose. When Volume III appears, it will permit an even more refined focus-- even zeroing in on clusters of towns. Rick Gildemeister's opinion to the contrary seems reasonable on the surface, but it's not supported by the facts we've been able to establish "in the field". The normative influence of yeshives is the least of our problems. Consider "contamination" that may result from marriages across dialect boundaries. Think of the many who survived the war by crossing dialect boundaries--Polish Jews in the Soviet Union, to say nothing of Yiddish speakers who have spent decades in centers of immigration: New York, Montreal, Mexico City, Tel Aviv, etc., in contact with speakers from other areas. Despite it all, the boundaries on our maps, based on data gathered from such people yield trait-areas of excellent sharpness. Read the introductory materials to Volume I. If anyone wants to take the initiative to construct the kind of questionnaire that Howard Gershen has asked for, and would like my help in refining it, I'd be glad to try. Mikhl Herzog 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Mar 95 0:41:46 EST From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca Subject: Hebrew/Yiddish Puzzle This doesn't answer the question, but a few years ago, we went to NYC and met some friends to go to a restaurant, with our (and their) kids. I had occasion to tell one of my kids to stop touching something, and said, as usual, "loz op!" ("leave that alone!"). But in our dialect (my in-laws are from Staszow), that comes out "loz oo". My friend turned to me in surprise and asked if I was speaking Hebrew to my child. He heard it as "lo zu" ("not this"). Same general idea, different meaning! David Sherman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Mar 1995 13:07:00 -0500 (EST) From: komar@yu1.yu.edu Subject: Mordecai Gebirtig I want to call your attention to a recently released collection of the songs and poems of Mordecai Gebirtig on a Koch CD (# 3-7295-2H-1). Among the 19 works on the album is a powerful recitation of S'tut vey, which was recently printed here on Mendele. The presenatation and performances by Daniel Kempin are particularly moving and effective. I am sure that every khaver of Mendele will be touched by this album. I happened to stumble upon it while browsing in Tower Records looking for the Maramaros album of lost Yiddish music of Transylvania. (Unfortunately the latter album still remains lost so I am not in a position to comment upon it.) Arre Komar 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 05 Mar 1995 13:33:18 -0500 (EST) From: ptyaxel@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Subject: Shmuel Rozhanski z"l Zachary Baker posted a notice (4.332) of the death at age 93 of Shmuel Rozhanski, a major figure in 20th-century Yiddish letters and criticism; among other accomplishments, he was a founder of the Argentine YIVO and editor of the "Hundert Musterverk" series. Several advertisements expressing grief over his passing appear in the March 3 issue of the Yiddish _Forverts_. One, signed by Shifre Lerer, has a touch of affectionate humor. The text: a trer oyfn frishn keyver fun SHMUEL ROZHANSKI O"H avek iz a riz, a kemfer, eyner fun di letste argentiner idishe kultur-mohikaner. koved zayn ondenk! Shleyme Axelrod 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 03 Mar 95 12:30 EST From: dorothy_bilik@umail.umd.edu Subject: Irving Howe What was the point of Jascha Kessler's gratuitous and unjust attack on our beloved friend and intellectual giant Irving Howe? Yiddish language and literature, humanist politics and American literature never had a more impressive, intellectually rigorous spokesman than Irving Howe. I can't imagine that his attacker would have had the temerity to express such loshnhore had Irving been alive. We've gone on and on defining mentsh and here is the exemplar Irving Howe. Dvosye Bilik 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Mar 95 21:07 +0200 From: rwerman@vms.huji.ac.il Subject: Paul Robeson Dvosye Bilik writes: >Paul Robeson Jr. told of a 1949 Moscow concert where Robeson Sr. sang >"Zog nit keynmol" defiantly. Earlier he had insisted on meeting with >Itsik Feffer who had,of course, by that time been imprisoned at >Lubianka. There was a recognition through gestures by both that all was >up with Feffer. My wife, Golda, who knows about these things from her research on David Bergelson and interviews with the families, wives and children that survived Stalin's persecution of Jewish intellectuals and artists that ended with the killing of many [most?] of them on August 12, 1952, tells it differently. Feffer was dragged out of the dungeon and shaved and dressed in a suit to meet Robeson, but he could not hide the fact that his nails had been ripped out, although he was told to keep his hands hidden. Robeson noted all this in his diary . . . But, Communist apoligist that he was, Robeson betrayed his friend Feffer and announced to the world that Feffer was fine. So much for Robeson's solidarity with his Jewish friends. Bob Werman Jerusalem 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 05 Mar 1995 14:41:05 -0800 From: sbehar@uclink2.berkeley.edu Subject: Paul Robeson I'm glad to hear of Paul Robeson's gesture in support of Itsik Feffer at his 1949 Moscow concert. However, it should be said that Robeson, knowing clearly about the savage vendetta against Yiddish culture at the time, with the imprisonment and murder of the cream of Yiddish writers going on, never, to my knowledge, ever publicly or openly criticized what was happening. Sometimes gestures are not enough. Sol Behar ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.353 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. 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