Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 5.273
March 10, 1996

1) Sholem-Aleykhem's _Kenig Pik_ (Part 4) (Leonard Prager)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 96 21:42:39 IST
From: rhle302@uvm.haifa.ac.il
Subject: Sholem-Aleykhem's _Kenig Pik_

                                 4

If we turn to Sholem-Aleykhem's _Shrage_ (1911), which is simply _Kenig pik_
transposed to Purim rather than Chanuka, we may better understand the author's
impulse to improve _Kenig Pik_, that is to make a richer whole out of its
parts.  To understand the transposition, one must stand back and look at
Sholem-Aleykhem's entire career.  One discovers that his motifs have a long
history and crop up repeatedly in altered form. One-act farces such as _Kenig
Pik_ and _Shrage_ are networks of typical Sholem-Aleykhem themes.

As early as 1887, Sholem-Aleykhem was concerned with representing the recently
urbanized Jewish middle class.(20) In 1894 the enlightened Marcus in the first
(and confiscated) version of _Yaknehoz, oder der groyse berznshpil_ ('Sabbath
Wine and Candles, or the Great Stock Exchange Game') declares:  "Kukt aykh on
in shpigl, vos far a ponim ir hot mit ayere spekulatsyes, mit ayer berze...
mit ayere kortn... mit ayere damen di aristokratkes...."(21) ('Look at
yourselves in the mirror, how unbecoming your speculations, your stock
exchange, your cardplaying, your 'aristocratic' wives....')  The series of
"evils" scored by Marcus will provide Sholem-Aleykhem with a comic complex of
great durability.

Cardplaying generates the plot mechanisms of both _Kenig Pik_ and _Shrage_,
but not plot alone.  _Di grine tishelekh_ ('the green cardtables') are perfect
props in Sholem-Aleykhem's world, because while "evil" they function as
humanizing elements.  Cardplaying appears in a dozen or more of
Sholem-Aleykhem's works, almost always as temptation, as delightful sin to be
resisted.(22)

_Kenig-pik_ and _Shrage_ are confrontation plays which reflect a certain
historical reality.(23) After the Kishinev pogrom of 1903 and the
disappointments of the Revolution of 1905, a large section of the
Russian-Jewish intelligentsia was drawn to Zionism.  During the same period
the Chovevey Sefat-Ever ('Lovers of the Hebrew Tongue') and the _cheder
metukan_ ('reformed elementary Hebrew school') made great headway.(24)

Berkovitsh in _Undzere rishoynim_ writes about the topical dimension of _Kenig
Pik_, "the dernier cri of the Jewish community":

        "_Kenig Pik_... iz geven a satire af der hebreistisher bavegung, vos
        hot demolt zikh ongehoybn frayndlen mit der yidisher plutokratye.  In
        di tsaytungen hot zikh getumlt vegn a groysn hebreishn farlag in
        Berlin mit a grunt-kapital fun a halbn milyon mark (vos s'hot zikh
        oysgelozt mit gornisht).  In kiev iz forgekumen a hebreisher
        tsuzamenfor, un es hobn zikh getrogn klangen, az der milyoner brodski
        aleyn hot tsugezogt af hebreishe tsvekn a hipshe sume.
        Sholem-Aleykhem, vos hot gut gekent zayne kiever layt, hot nisht
        gekent bayshteyn aza nisoyen __ nit oystsulakhn di yehupetser
        berze-spekulantn, di flaysike kortnshpiler, vos zenen ibernakht gevorn
        hebreishe kultur-shtitser.  Fun dem dozikn shpas hot zikh shtark
        baleydikt eyner a bakanter kiever gvir Hilel Zlotopolski, __ dafke
        Sholem-Aleykhem's a guter-fraynd, aleyn a talmed-khokhem un a
        gekhapter af shraberay, vos in di shpeterdike milkhome-yorn iz er
        mefursem gevorn bam hebreishn oylem vi a metsinat un hebreisher
        tuer.Yener hot in di oyserlekhe shtrikn fun _Kenig Pik_ gefunen epes
        fun zikh."(p. 164)

        ('_King of Spades_ was a satire on the Hebraist movement, which at
        that time had begun to rub elbows with the Jewish plutocracy. The
        newspapers were brimming with talk (which came to nothing in the end)
        of a large Hebrew-language publishing firm in Berlin with capital
        assets of a half-million marks.  A Hebraist convention was held in
        Kiev and there were rumors that Brodski the millionaire had promised a
        considerable sum for Hebraist activities.  Sholem-Aleykhem knew his
        fellow Jews in Kiev very well and he could not resist making fun of
        the local stockmarket speculators and card sharps who became patrons
        of Hebrew culture overnight.  Hilel Zlotopolski, a well-known and rich
        Kievan, who was a friend of Sholem-Aleykhem's was keenly offended by
        the farce.  He was a scholar and an enthusiastic amateur writer.
        During World War I he was reknowned as a patron of Hebrew letters and
        a Hebraist activist.  He saw something of himself in the external
        characteristics of _King of Spades_.')

In both _Kenig Pik_ and _Shrage_ the indulgent father, Yisroel-Iser, invites
his stock-exchange friends and their overdressed wives for an evening of
cardplaying.  There is a traditional dispensation for cardplaying on Chanuka
and Purim, which these all-year-round cardplayers hardly require.(25) The
father has promised Berte, his daughter, that he would celebrate the holidays.
The lighting of the candles in _Kenig Pik_ and the reading of the Purim
_megile_ in _Shrage_ are counterstatements to cardplaying.  The older
generation speaks, although imperfectly, Russian rather than Yiddish and is
only minimally versed in Jewish religious and cultural tradition.  Berte and
her fiance, Grishe, speak Hebrew and defend Jewish national values.  Grishe is
seduced into playing cards, symptomatic of the humorist's avoidance of
simplistic polarization.  Sholem-Aleykhem satirizes both the assimilated
"aristocrats" and the avid Hebraists.

In _Kenig Pik_ the card game is _tertl-tertl-; in _Shrage_ it is _oke_
('euchre').  Readers of Sholem-Aleykhem have all heard of "a zeks-un-zekhtsik"
('sixty-six') and of numerous other card games. Ben-Tsien Goldberg, one of
Sholem-Aleykhem's sons-in-law, tells us that his father-in-law was addicted to
the vice, which may help to explain the extremely vivid manner in which
cardplaying is described in his works.(26) Cardplaying is both an engrossing
and a gross activity.  It is antithetical to cultivated and attentive
conversation, a fact which the author exploits to score Jewish ignorance of
Jewish culture.  In _Kenig Pik_ one of the cardplaying guests recognizes the
name _Bialik_ as that of a landlord and the only poet another player has heard
of is Frug.(27)

In _Vos iz khanike_ (1901) ('What is Chunuka?'), written a decade before
-Kenig Pik_, the story is framed as a bet that the speaker can find someone at
a Chanuka cardplaying party who can explain the meaning of the holiday.  He
loses the bet.  Not a single person of any age group knows, and everyone is
immersed in the cardgames.  One young man's answer is "Khanike!  Mir zenen nit
kin tsienistn...."(28) In _Kenig pik_ and _Shrage_ Sholem-Aleykhem dramatizes
the themes of Jewish discomfort with and ignorance of Jewish tradition in
terms of generational conflict.  But if the older people are lost souls, the
young are hardly the true messiahs.  As long as one wields an idea and employs
it intelligently, well and good.  But when the idea begins to tyrannize its
bearers and becomes a burden rather than a torch, that is another matter.  The
young Hebrew teacher in _Shrage_ is a butt of the author's playful burlesque
of the introduction of the supposed "Sefardic" pronunciation of Hebrew in the
first decade of this century.(29) _Kenig Pik_ and _Shrage_ are the earliest
instances I know of in Sholem-Aleykhem and perhaps in all of Yiddish and
Hebrew literature where the "Sefardic" pronunciation is an object of comedy.
Not only does Sholem-Aleykhem indicate that Grishe speaks "mit der havara
hasfardit" [sic] ('with the Sefardic pronunciation'), but when Grishe
incorrectly pronounces the word for 'two' with final stress, he adds "betont
dem _im_".  "Shnay'im... shtay'im," says Grishe, uncertain of the correct
gender to boot.  In Ashkenazic Hebrew, which Grishe would have known from
childhood, stress is rarely on the final syllable.  In non-Ashkenazic
pronunciation of Hebrew, it is usually on the last syllable, but not always
(in the word in question, only penultimate stress is correct).  Grishe's
pronunciation is thus a hypercorrection.

The young Hebrew teacher, whose Yiddish has revealed him to be from Central
Yiddish territory, is advised by Yisroel, the father, to talk Hebrew to his
friends and not preach to the older guests.  They don't understand him in any
event.  He replies ("half in Yiddish, half in Hebrew"):

        Vos geyts mekh oen, tsi yener farshteyt mekh, tsi er farshteyt mekh
        nisht?  Dos iz man shprakh!  Lemay shemt zikh nisht ba unz der poylen
        [a typo for _poyl-?] mit zan poylish, der datsh mit zan datsh, der
        frantsoyz mit zan frantsoyzish un afile der tsiganer mit zan
        tsiganerish?  Ani medaber ivrit bechol makom veim kol haolam.  Afilu
        kesheani yotse bemerkava, ani omer lehakonduktor: Ten li kartis! Vos
        geyts's mekh oen?

        (Standard Yiddish romanization:
        Vos geyt es mikh on, tsi yener farshteyt mikh, tsi er farshteyt mikh
        nisht?  Dos iz mayn shprakh!  Lemay shemt zikh nisht ba undz der
        frantsoyz mit zayn frantseyzish, un afile der tsigayner mit zayn
        tsigaynerish?....  Vos geyt es mikh on?)

        ('What do I care if somebody understands me or not?  This is my
        language!  Is the Pole among us ashamed of Polish, the German of
        German, the Frenchman of French, or even the Gipsy of Romani? <In
        Hebrew>: I speak Hebrew everywhere and to everyone.  Even when I get
        on a bus, I say to the conductor: Give me a ticket! <Reverting to
        Yiddish>: What do I care?')(30)

Leonard Prager

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End of Mendele Vol. 5.273