Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 5.294
March 31, 1996

1) A royte pomerants (Peter Kluehs)
2) Mumps (Zachary Baker)
3) Yiddish periodicals (Daniel Soyer)
4) A retenish (Ruven Frankenstein)
5) Formal/informal distinctions (Miki Safadi)
6) Closing remarks (Morrie Feller)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 28 Mar 1996 20:36:00 +0200
From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de
Subject: A royte pomerants

ikh vintsh alemen a freylekhn peysekh un shik aykh a maysele vegn ot der
teme.

Milyonen

az ikh volt gehat dray milyon kerblekh, veyst ir vos ikh volt gemakht?
far eyn milyon volt ikh gekoyft mel,
farn tsveytn milyon volt ikh gekoyft rozhinkes,
un ikh volt oysgebakt a groysn kugl,
un ikh volt zikh ibergezidlt in kugl arayn.
ay vos? vet ir fregn, vos volt ikh gemakht mitn dritn milyon?
dem dritn milyon volt ikh ibergelozn oyf peysekh.

peter kluehs
wehrheim, germany

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 96 11:35:58 PST
From: bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu
Subject: Rozhinkes mit...?

My Vilner informants (Dina Abramowicz, Dr. Yulyan Rafes) tell
me that the Yiddish for "mumps" is "mandlen."

Zachary Baker

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 30 Mar 96 11:30:21 EST
From: 74212.2700@compuserve.com
Subject: Yiddish periodicals

Regarding the recent query concerning a list of current Yiddish periodicals, a
couple of years ago, the Congress for Jewish Culture published such a list in
its newsletter (of which only that issue has appeared so far). Copies may be
obtained by writing to the Congress for Jewish Culture, 25 East 21st Street,
New York, NY 10010.

Daniel Soyer

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 18:22:21 +0100 (MEZ)
From: frankens@mail.uni-freiburg.de
Subject: A retenish

tsi iz eyner fun aykh Mendelniks azoy gut mir di kashe tsu derkleren: ir kent
avade dos sheyne lid "a kholem" ("Mir trogen a gezang" 24, Y.L. Cahan No. 196,
Ginzburg/Marek No. 185). In alen strofes iz dokh der nomen fun der gelibte -
Lyube, to ver iz di Dushe in der tsveyter strofe? Iz zi epes ariber gekumen
fun dem nusekh fun Ginzburg/Marek, vu zi heyst azoy un nit Lyube?

A gut yontef Peysekh aykh un zayt mir gesunt,

Ruven Frankenstein

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 11:00:50 -0800
From: msafadi@ucla.edu
Subject: Formal/informal distinctions

In die faraynikte shtatn nitst men nit die formale address-forme 'aykh' - men
nitst kimat nor 'du'. Ikh volt gevolt vissn, oyb in andere lender vu english
iz di hoypt sprakh, men nitst nokh die formale un die umformale formen oder
nor die umformale forme 'du'.

In the US, the formal address form 'aykh' is not used - 'du' is used almost
exclusively.  I would like to know, whether in other countries where English
is the dominant language, the formal and informal forms are still used, or if
only the informal 'du' is used.

Miki Safadi

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 12:58:52 -1000
From: feller@indirect.com
Subject: Closing remarks

[Herewith the closing remarks of Ruth Barlas, Chair of the recently
concluded Third International Conference of Yiddish Clubs and Friends
of Yiddish.]

This is the last official session.  After lunch, we will part. But, this is
not the beginning, and it is not the end....it is only a continuation in the
serious tasks that lay ahead: to organize and carry out our resolutions to
further Yiddish education.

These last few days, we've heard a lot, we talked a lot....And just like you,
I've been doing a great deal of thinking about this matter.

Why are we doing this?

Most of us live in an open, comfortable environment.  We could probably lose
ourselves, our Jewish identity, in the large general community in which we
find ourselves.

What propels us?

Each one of us must find his or her own answer.

For me, there are two thoughts that keep rumbling through my mind.

First, I remember an unforgettable scene in a book by Mendele Moykher Sforim,
"The Wishing Ring".  After an absence of several years, the protagonist,
Hershele, returns home to the Jewish Pale, clean-shaven, stylishly dressed,
and finds his shtetl ravaged, his home gone.  Mendele doesn't recognize him
and wonders why this European stranger is so distraught by the Jewish
troubles.

Hershele answers, "I am a child of the people - a Jew like all my parents and
grandparents.  I am a little thread interwoven with them in the Jewish fabric
- from time immemorial - that goes under the name, "Jew".

And then, I recall the words of Yitskhok Leybush Peretz.  When the Haskole
movement, the Enlightenment in Eastern Europe, stirred up the Jewish
intelligensia and they wanted to escape from the ghettoes and assimilate,
Peretz wrote:

"I am not talking of enclosing ourselves in a spiritual ghetto. We should get
out of the ghetto, but with our own spiritual treasures,  and interchange:
give and take, not beg.

"Ghetto is impotence;  cultural cross-fertiliztion - the only possibility for
development of humanity."

In these two excerpts, I have found _my_ answer.

Tonight is Purim, a holiday in which we exchange gifts, "shalakh-mones", with
friends and relatives.

Let us learn, absorb, internalize our unique Yiddish cultural heritage and
offer it with love and pride as "shalakh-mones", as a gift to our children and
to the world.

Morrie Feller

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End of Mendele Vol. 5.294