Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 6.259
March 9, 1997

1) Di Yidishe Gas (Andrey Bredstein)
2) _Yidishe shprikhverter_ (Leonard Prager)
3) Yiddish and yiddishkayt (Arnie Kuzmack)
4) Folg mir a gang (Gitl Dubrovsky)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 01:05:47 +0300
From: anbredstein@glas.apc.org
Subject: Di Yidishe Gas

N.J.Katz & L.S.Blichstein have noticed in their message [6.258:6] "the
site of Moscow's Yiddish newspaper 'Di Yidishe Gas' which can be read
in Yiddish and Russian at http://www.judaica.ru". Being the author of
this home-page, I would like to say a few words about it.

The title of the site is Keler-shtibl and the correct URL is
http://www.glasnet.ru/~anbredstein (www.judaica.ru is no doubt worth
visiting, but it contains only a link to my site, so in order to save
time you should better access it directly).

I do give there some information about "Di yidishe gas" (former
"Sovetish heymland"), including the contents of the last published
issue. However it is not the official site of the magazine (and so the
editors are not to be blamed for its poor appearance), although Arn
Vergelis, the balabos of "DYG", is aware of my project and approves
it.

The visitor will find other Yiddish related materials as well: some
poetry (Manger, Yehoash, Halpern, Tseytlin, etc.) and a number of
proverbs from I. Bernsteins collection with a small
bio-bibliographical report and a kind of preface.

Keler-shtibl was launched in December 1996. Most of the comments that
I have received are from Russia and it is a real pleasure to state
that there are people who need it.

Agev, does anybody knows how to make web-documents in real
right-to-left Yiddish?

Andrey Bredstein
Moscow, Russia

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 97 23:52:32 IST
From: rhle302@uvm.haifa.ac.il
Subject: _Yidishe shprikhverter_

With regard to Meyshe-Yankl Sweet's note (vol6.256) regarding Ignatz
Bernstein's _Yidishe shprikhverter_ (Warsaw 1908):  it was not
originally issued with the "Erotica and Rustica."  The latter appeared
as a separate brochure (Warsaw 1908, from the same printer and using
the same matrices).  I photographed the Hebrew University copy many
years ago (then cataloged under 296.783/BER (SPRI).  In 1969, Olms of
Hildesheim published an edition of Bernstein's 1908 work which
included an appendix, "Erotica and Rustica."  This volume was edited
by Hans Peter Althaus.  The Yiddish title page translates "Erotica and
Rustica" as "Oysgelasene un grobe shprikhverter."

Bernstein's volume is invaluable, but it is not a dictionary of idioms
and fixed expressions (see Leybl Botvinik's query in vol6.240).  More
than two decades ago the talented linguist Richard Zuckerman wrote a
proposal for a Yiddish-English phraseological dictionary.  I don't
recall how he defined _phraseology_ and what the proposed compass of
his work was, but dictionaries of more-than-isolated words remain
desiderata for students of Yiddish (see _Yiddish_ 1:3 (1973-4),
93-100).  I believe that Zuckerman completed a large part of his
project, but it was never published.  Perhaps it has been lost.

We can find the most varied bits and pieces of a dictionary of phrases
in such places as _Yidishe shprakh_.  A half-century ago Yudl Mark
edited an alphabetized collection of over 40 pp. of _Folksfarglaykhn_
('similes') collected by students in Kovne and Vilkomir, 5:4-6 (1945),
99-140); in "Oftste farglaykh-obyektn," Mendl Mark added to this list
(7 (1947), 80-86); there are valuable lists in Kh.-Sh.  Kazdan's
"Bilderishkeyt in der yidisher folkshprakh" (9 (1949), 34-50).
Proverb collections are not a substitute for dictionaries of
idioms/phrases/similes/etc.

Leonard Prager
Haifa

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 01:25:17 -0500 (EST)
From: kuzmack@cpcug.org
Subject: Yiddish and yiddishkayt

Mechl Asheri [6.248] refers to the people some time ago who called
Yiddish "Jewish" in English.

At least as far back as the late '40's, when I started Arbeter Ring
school, the distinction was well in place.  Occasionally, though, a
friend of my grandparents would use the word "Jewish" to refer to the
language. It always seemed to be a sign of lack of education.

Nowadays, the idea seems very out of place, since we are well aware
that there are large numbers of Jews whose ancestors did not speak
Yiddish at all, such as sephardim.  I don't know how far back this
goes, though.  I suspect that, in the alter heym, most people could
live their whole lives without being aware of non-ashkenazic Jews.

Gut vokh, y'all.

Arnie Kuzmack

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 17:19:28 -0500 (EST)
From: gdubrovsky@aol.com
Subject: Folg mir a gang

Tsi ken emetser iberzetsn "folg mir a gang" oyf English. Es iz shoyn
yorn vi ikh trakht un trakht un ikh kon nisht  trefn.  A shaynim dank,

Gitl Dubrovsky

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End of Mendele Vol. 6.259