Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 6.129
December 9, 1996

1) Not only Sholem Aleichem (Michael Steinlauf)
2) A freylekhn khaneke (Peter Kluehs)
3) Fartaytshn idiomen (Joachim Neugroschel)
4) Zschokke (Joachim Neugroschel)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 13:24:27 -0500 (EST)
From: yivo3@metgate.metro.org
Subject: Not only Sholem Aleichem

To the enlightening discussion about Sholem Aleichem and Yiddish, and
alongside Ellen Prince's comments [6.117] about the Bundist Victor
Alter's family, I would like to remind Mendelyaner about Peretz's
situation. Peretz, "der foter fun undzer literatur," spoke Polish at
home. His courtship of his second wife Helena was carried on in an
exchange of Polish letters. His only son Lucjan was an anglophile who
detested Yiddish. Lucjan's son, Peretz's only grandchild, converted to
Catholicism in 1928.

The whole subject of the "naturalness" of a modern literature in Yiddish
is rather a complicated business. I think it's important to remember
that for the so-called "klasiker" -- Sholem Aleichem, Peretz, Mendele --
the decision to use Yiddish was hardly "natural," but the product of a
difficult choice. The key work on this continues to be Dan Miron's "A
Traveler Disguised." If later Yiddish writers corresponded in Yiddish
and/or used Yiddish at home, this too was often the product of a
conscious decision, an assessment about the nature of Jewish identity in
the modern world.

The point I'm trying to make here is that from our post-Holocaust
perspective, we often tend to emphasize the difference between
pre-Holocaust Jewish Eastern Europe and ourselves, their greater
"naturalness" or "purity." Of course, both Peretz and even the young
Bashevis could always refresh their yidishkayt by leaving Warsaw and
visiting some remote shtetl (though even these were changing too). But
in other ways they and their world were as confused as we are. This
became particularly clear to me when, mourning the fact that my lack of
a yeshiva education kept me from understanding so much in Peretz, I
chanced upon a comment (in A. Litvak's memoirs?) that young Vilna
readers of Peretz circa 1900 had to go to their fathers and grandfathers
with questions about what they read. This, combined with what we know
about Peretz's home life, suggests some of the complexities and deep
ironies of that prewar "lost world," which makes me at least realize how
much, as both Jews and modern people, we continue to share with them.

Michael Steinlauf

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 08 Dec 1996 19:16:00 +0200
From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de
Subject: A freylekhn khaneke

tayere khaveyrim,

reyshes, zayt visn, az ikh vintsh aykh alemen a gezuntn un freylekhn
khaneke in eynem mit ayer mishpokhes!

vehasheynes, zayt ir gevis shoyn gevor gevorn, az ikh halt in leyenen
mit a sakh hanoe sholem aleykhems "menakhem-mendl, der shpegelant". un
makhmes ikh hob keyn tsayt nit iber di tsores funem baytn dem
internets-balebos maynem, makh ikh dos haynt bekitser. mirtseshem, inem
andern brivl vel ikh aykh aroysshraybn altsding barikhes.

mit hartsike grusn fun di taunus-berg

peter kluehs
wehrheim, germany

*iker shokhakhti*. s'iz zeyer sheyn vos me kon do gefinen alts mer
bayshtayerungen oyf yidish.

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 13:23:34 -0500 (EST)
From: achim1@cris.com
Subject: Fartaytshn idiomen

mit zellig bach [6.125] bin ikh maskim az di versheydene idiomen
(daytsh: Ein Tropfen auf den heissen Stein;  yidish: a lefl tsuker makht
nisht zis dem yam;  english:  a drop in the bucket) zenen nisht keyn
pinktlekhe ekvivalentn ven me kukt zi on durch a lupe.  un azoy iz tomid

ober 's iz do a groyser khilek tsvishn iberzetsn idiomen un
veltsvertlekh un iberzetsen, lomir zogn, lider:

in an idiom oder a veltsvertl iz di metafor a toyte, me hert zi
koym, me filt zi kemat nisht:

"she was green with envy" zogt men af english, nor af daytsh:
"sie war gelb [= gell] vor Neid [=kine]".

af yidish shlogt men emetsen "broyn un blo"--nor af english
"_black_ and blue"....

--un af italyenish "riempire di lividi" ["lividi" = "blase
flekn, flekn on kolir"].

Nor a "pegasus fun an andern kolir" iz di poezye:  di metaforn zenen
nokh lebedik--az me vartaytsht zi, vil me lozen filn dem impet, dem
shlog, dem nyuans.  dortn iz a verterlekhe vartaytshung oft a glatt
koshere--nor nisht bay idiomen.

un vi azoy zogt a frantsoyz az "it ain't kosher"?
geveyntlekh azoy: "ce n'est pas catholique" = 's iz nisht katoylish.

un vos zogt der ladino-reder ven er vil festshteln az emetser hot geredt
dem gantsn emes?  :

"todo lo ke disho salyo kasher" [in der ortografye fun "aki yerushalayem"].

Well, kosher is as kosher says, I guess.....i todo lo ke dishi salyo
kasher--alts vos ikh hob gezogt is der reynster, klorster emes (on my
word as a gentleman).

Joachim Neugroschel

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 14:10:02 -0500 (EST)
From: achim1@cris.com
Subject: Zschokke

in sholem-aleykhems "A vayse kapore" hot di mame fun der monologistn
"gelezn" nor daytshe mekhabrim--keyn rusishe un, kholile, keyn yidishe
nisht, l'havdil--un hebreysh hobn zeyer venig yidishe froyen gekent in
yener tkufe.  der mamens daytshish leyn-regiles iz a tseykhn fun a
gevisn "farmayrevn", a min "modernizirn" das mizrekh-yidishe leben--tsum
badoyern.

un benegeye Goethe un vayse khayes: tomer hot di mame oykh hanoe gehat
fun Goethes anti-semitisher karikatur "Der Judenschimmel" [Dos vayse
yidn-ferd]. Af daytsh (oyb a daytsh volt moyde geven az afile Goethe hot
gehat a por khesroynim) volt men af dem gezogt:  "die reinste
Judenhetze"

But I fear I'm beating a dead horse.... un keyn kapore (vayse,
nisht-vayse) vil ikh nisht shlogn

Joachim Neugroschel

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End of Mendele Vol. 6.129