Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.006 May 26, 1996 1) Introduction (Herbert Megel) 2) I.B. Singer's _In My Father's Court_ (Marion Aptroot) 3) Sholem Aleichem reading available for download (Mark H. David) 4) A blat Mendele (Peter Kluehs) 5) Yiddish desktop software (Michael Zylberman) 6) Robeson in Yiddish (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 14:29:09 -0400 From: hmegel@tso.cin.ix.net Subject: Introduction As an introduction, I was brought up at the periphery of the 'Borscht Belt' in a little town called Kerhonkson, New York in Ulster County during the period between the two World Wars. My father bought a hotel called the Granite Orchard Hotel. It had an orchard and the ground upon which it stood was granite rock. My Grandparents, who spoke no English, lived with us. My parents were the breadwinners and my grandparents raised me. Yiddish was my first language. It was during these formative years that Yiddish played a most important role in my life. I remember the bonfires where we roasted marshmallows and sang Yiddish songs; I remember the mock marriages in which the bride was a male that looked eight months pregnant, the groom was a pretty girl wearing a mustache, the wedding party was cross-dressed and my Grandfather was the rabbi who performed the wedding ceremony in Yiddish; I remember the Black singer wearing a red shirt and blue bandanna who sang songs in impeccable Yiddish; I remember the actors from Second Avenue who would perform in the round reciting Yiddish poetry and performing short plays after which they passed the hat; and I remember being excited when the hotel booked Aaron Lebedoff and his rendition of Romania, Romania. I am recording these memories for my grandchildren and would appreciate hearing from anyone who lived through that period and went to a hotel, rooming house (kokhaleyn} or bungalow colony and has a story to tell. Herbert Megel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 15:46:52 -0400 (EDT) From: aptroot@husc.harvard.edu Subject: I.B. Singer's _In My Father's Court_ Ikh hob nor vos bakumen a naye zamlung dertseylungen fun Yitskhok Bashevisn, ayngezamlt un mit an araynfir fun Khone Shmeruk, tsugegreyt tsum druk durkh Vera Solomon. _Mayn tatns bez-din shtub_ iz aroys in der oysgetseykhnter serye fun yidish-opteyl fun der hebreisher universitet in yerushalayim (in yivo-oysleyg un mit a glossar fun verter vos me ken nit gefinen in di verterbikher fun harkavin un vaynraykhn). der farlag iz: magnes pres, yerusholayim. I have just received a new collection of stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer in Yiddish. The stories in _My Father's Court_ have been selected by Khone Shmeruk, emeritus professor of Yiddish Studies in Jerusalem. He has also written the introduction (printed in Yiddish and English). The volume has been edited by Vera Solomon (in YIVO-spelling). The glossary provides a list of the words and expressions that cannot be looked up in the Yiddish-English dictionaries of Weinreich and Harkavy. This book is part of the excellent series "Yiddish Literature" published by the Yiddish Department at the Hebrew University and I.L. Magnes Press, Jerusalem. Marion Aptroot 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 00:33:06 -0400 From: yv@world.std.com Subject: Sholem Aleichem reading available for download The Yiddish Voice radio show in Boston is pleased to make available to the general public, via the internet, the recording of Sholem Aleichem reading excerpts from "If I Were Rothschild" and "A Happy Holiday" ("ven ikh bin rotshild" and "a freylekher yontev"), which were originally published on '78 RPM disks over 75 years ago. We obtained our copy from the YIVO Institute (New York) Sound Archive. We arranged for it to be professionally digitally remastered, and aired it on our program, 1 May 1996, in honor of Sholem Aleichem's yortsayt. To hear the recording, you need to point your web browser to http://world.std.com/~yv/ You will also need the RealAudio player, which is available for PCs and Macs from http://www.realaudio.com/ We hope to bring more exciting Yiddish sounds via our web site in the near future. We hope you enjoy this important link to the past. We would also appreciate your comments and feedback; see our web site for full contact information. Mark (Meyer) H. David 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 May 1996 19:53:00 +0200 From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de Subject: A blat Mendele leyendik mit a sakh hanoe dem yidishn don quijote fun mendele moykher sforim, dem *seydn fun der yidisher literatur* un avade oykh dem ov fun undzere khevraye, dakht zikh mir, az s'vet nisht shatn arayntsuleygn in undzer post-kestl arayn a por shures funem dozikn verk. kh'hof az ir vet oykh hobn a bisl fargenign fun undzere parshoynen binyomin (don quijote) un senderl (sancho panza). - herst du, binyomin! - hot senderl gezogt, nokhdem vos er hot farrisn dem kop un gekukt oyf di moyern mit derekh-erets, - ikh meyn, binyomin, dos iz epes a stambul! - gey shoyn, gey, narele, vi kumt es tsu stambul? - hot binyomin gemakht mit aza mine glaykh vi er iz a stambuler a gebirtiker, - stambul, narele, hot tov"kuf (=500, maskem zelig bach?) mol tov"kuf gasn, itlekhe gas hot tov"kuf mol tov"kuf fuftsn- tsvantsik- oder efsher draysik- gorndike hayzer un in itlekhs hoyz voynen tov"kuf mol tov"kuf mentshn! du meynst, az du bist shoyn fartik? neyn, vart nor, vart, narele eyner, haynt zaynen nokh do kleyne gasn, yurdikes, katshenivkes, motshenivkes, piskes, yarn un padoyln kekhoyl-hayam! - ay, ay, ay! - hot senderl gemakht far groys vunder - s'iz dokh epes gor a shrek, kh'lebn, aza groyse shtot! nor ikh bet dikh, binyomin, fun vanen kumen es ot-di ale groyse shtet? mentshn zoln zikh tsunoyfshtikn in eyn ort un lign eyner iber dem andern, glaykh vi di velt iz veynik un nishto mer keyn erd! es muz dokh avade drinen epes zayn, vos mentshn dervaytern zikh fun der erd un viln alts flien in himl, in di hoykhe, hoykhe fentster. zol es efsher zayn deriber, vos dem mentshns neshome vakst fun himl, makhmes dem zit es im, nebekh, alts aroyf, aroyf, un er hot zeyer shtark heyshek oystsushpreytn di fligelekh un zayn alts fun oybn? vos zogn dertsu epes dayne khakronim, binyonim? peter kluehs wehrheim, germany 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 May 96 21:16:33 1100 From: mzylberm@ozemail.com.au Subject: Yiddish desktop software Since the demise of the ostralishe yiddishe nayes last year a group of enthusiasts including myself have been preparing a new Yiddish publication to be called Oyfs Nay. We have however a technical problem. We require a desktop publishing program to produce the paper. Dagesh and similar are wordprocessors and are not suitable for what we want to do. We are aware of a Hebrew version of Quark Express for Macintosh. However we are seeking IBM PC based software. Michael Zylberman 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 May 1996 12:00:00 -0400 From: shirshan@aol.com Subject: Robeson in Yiddish In the newsletter distributed by the Circle of Yiddish Clubs, an umbrella organization for the Yiddish Clubs of South Florida, the following item of interest appeared: "A restored recording of a 1949 Moscow concert by the late American singer, Paul Robeson, recently discovered in the Soviet Union, is being released on CD in the U.S. and Europe. Robeson ended the concert, which was held during the height of Stalinist anti-Jewish persecution, with a passionate appeal against anti-Semitism, with a song he sang in Yiddish to a surprised and reportedly moved audience." Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.006 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.cis.yale.edu Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.cis.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele nomail b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu ****Getting back issues**** 1. Anonymous ftp archives are available. ftp ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files A table of contents is also available, along with weekly updates. 2. 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