Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.088 October 28, 1997 1) afn shvel (Ruvn Millman) 2) forverts (Ruvn Millman) 3) Yiddish tongue twisters (Rick Turkel) 4) Tongue twister (Max Appelbaum) 5) Figs (Michael Schein) 6) shlock (Yossil Weiss) 7) Yiddish-Hebrew dictionary and Superstitions (Ellen Prince) 8) davnen (Meyer Wolf) 9) Yiddisher Pinafore (Larry Mitchel) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 01:44:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Ruvn@aol.com Subject: prese-komunikat fun der idish-lige: afn shvel nayster numer afn shvel: s'iz nor vos aroys fun druk numer 306, der nayster numer funem gezelshaftlekh- literarishn kvartlnik afn shvel, aroysgegebn fun der idish-lige. der numer afn shvel iz opgegebn dem grestn mashulim-shrayber bay yidn, dem genialn elyezer shtaynberg, tsu zayn finef un zekhtsikstn yortsayt. tsvishn di shtaynberg-materyaln in dem numer afn shvel zenen do eseyen, opshatsungen, lider, zikhroynes, un forsharbetn vegn im fun: aleksander shpiglblat, sh" bastomski, d"r shloyme bikl, khayim gininger, m" gros-tsimerman, mayer kharats, leybl koheyn, d"r eliyahu lipiner, sh" niger, a" forsher, i" zinberg, berl royzn un yekhiel shraybman. "a kleyne elyezer shteynberg-antologye" (fir mesholim zayne) dergantsn dem numer. di tomid instruktive rubrik "laytish mame-loshn" funem filolog d"r mordkhe schaechter iz dos mol opgegebn azoyne verter vi: ile, ile mol...un...ilts eyns. faran oykh briv in redaktsye fun yosif burg, khonen kiel, yekhiel shraybman u"a"v... ot der interesanter numer iz a fargreserter (zz" 32). er kost akht dolar un me ken im bashteln loytn adres: League for Yiddish, Inc. 200 West 72nd Street #40 New York, NY 10023 Ruvn Millman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 01:43:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Ruvn@aol.com Subject: prese-komunikat fun der idish-lige: forverts tsum ershtn mol in der historye? se ker zayn a historish ershtmolikayt: dem ershtn oktober 1997 hot di idish-lige, a dank dem breythartsikn tsushtayer fun an anonimen un libn metsenat funem yingern dor, ibergegebn dem forverts - dem idishn "forverts" (Yiddish Forward) - di nemen un adresn fun 100 (hundert) naye abonentn, tsum grestn teyl hi-geboyrene, mit a tshek af a yor abonir-gelt: $3,600. lomir hofn, az dos vet zayn der ershter trot in a frukhtiker, lang-meshekhdiker tsuzamenarbet tsvishn dem banaytn, faryingertn, 100-yorikn forverts un tsvishn der idish-lige in der komisye durkhtsufirn dem eynheytlekhn idishn oysleyg. zol es zayn in a guter sho un mitn rekhtn fus! Ruvn Millman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 22:48:50 -0400 From: rturkel@cas.org (Rick Turkel) Subject: Yiddish tongue twisters My grandfather, a"h, who was from Bendin, Poland, had one: di post iz mit paketn bapakt Try that one five or six times quickly, and see what happens. :-) Zayt mir ale gezunt un shtark. Rick Turkel 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 01:21:46 -0400 (EDT) From: MAXA6423@aol.com Subject: Tongue twister My father taught us that tongue twister. As I recall it, the complete rhyme went - Fun Alesk biz kayn Brisk Trogt a fiks a biks in pisk. Max Appelbaum 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 17:15:47 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Schein Subject: Figs In my family, from Russia, the fig was always an obscene gesture. It was widely known as such by Jews; I recollect a story by Sholem Aleichem (unfortunately, I do not recollect its name), in which two professional card-swindlers, claiming to be grandsons of the Baal Shem Tov who have never before seen playing cards, cheat some Jewish youths out of their money one Hanuka. The last words of the story are that the swindlers, out of the window of a train leaving town, send to their victims a gesture "consisting of two and a half fingers." Michael Schein Pasadena 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 20:21:19, -0500 From: MCQE03A@prodigy.com (MR YOSEF WEISS) Subject: shlock I have heard the word shlock for the sukkah but I have not heard it used for roof. I think the suka shlock comes from the word shloksregn which means pouring rain (Harkavy). The shlock is a dakh in the case of a rain. The most simple shlock is a folded up plastic which you roll out on the sukakh when it rains. In a "shlock zol ihm trefn", shlock means a mishap should come upon him. Shlack, shleck (plural) means appolexy or a mishap (harkavy). A shlack zol eikh nisht trefn Yossil Weiss 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 20:46:41 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Yiddish-Hebrew dictionary and Superstitions Ada Holtzman asks for a Yiddish-Hebrew dictionary -- there is an excellent 2-volume (Y-H, H-Y) dictionary by M. Tsanin, published by (and presumably available from) Leivick House, Dov Hoz Street, Tel-Aviv. More superstitions coming back -- sorry, now that I've started, I can't stop! ;) Two (or more) people may not dress a person simultaneously -- this was explained to me as being something done to corpses and therefore mustn't be done to living people. (The question usually arose when dressing a child.) (The evil spirits sure have a lot of trouble distinguishing the living from the dead -- so many superstitions relate to this potential confusion!) If it rains on someone's wedding day, it means the bride likes sweets (or is a nosher, or is a freser -- depending on how much you disliked the bride ;) ). You must never take food from a house where they're sitting shiva. (A most annoying belief when we were racking up 30-50 cakes a day after my mother died -- there were only so many cakes the few non-Jews in the apartment building could handle!) If you give someone a purse/wallet, you must put some money in it. If you give someone something sharp (brooch, knife...), you will no longer be friends. And, lest you think my family was totally retarded, I must relate this memory. Don't know if this was the when the Kohanim went up but there was some point in the High Holy Days service when the men drew their taleysim over their heads and everyone had to look down and not look toward the ark. My father never mentioned blindness but he made it VERY clear that looking was strictly forbidden 'because there would be angels that came down to the ark and God didn't want us to see them.' Well, one year I looked. And then of course I was consumed with guilt and fear and, a few days later, finally confessed to my father: Me: Daddy, I did a terrible thing. You know, when you're not supposed to look in shul? Well, I looked. [Sob sob] Father: Nu, it's not so terrible. When I was your age, I looked too. [Characteristic lop-sided shrug indicating 'no big deal'] Me: But Daddy, I didn't see any angels! Father: Nu, I didn't see any angels either... [Wink] Finally, does anyone know where the Israeli superstition comes from that says you must never give someone an even number of flowers? Might that be Turkish? Or is it known in the Jewish Diaspora? (Flower-giving was not exactly big in my house, I must say, so maybe it was even known in Brooklyn but not by me.) Ellen Prince 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 20:34:08 -0800 From: Meyer Wolf Subject: davnen A. Manaster Ramer traces davenen (originally daven) to the Hebrew root D-B-B, whose primary sense is 'to move the lips', claiming that this etymology accounts for the meaning of davnen. I do not see how "lip moving" accounts for this. 1. The meaning of davnen in Yiddish, from its appearance in the works of Rivke Tiktiner in the late 16th century to the present is 'to recite the prescribed prayers' -- whether silently or at the top of one's voice. 2. Unless A. Manaster Ramer has some earlier known attestation than those in the works of Rivke Tiktiner, who writes "dvnin" [v = veyz], there is no reason to believe that the verb was originally "daven". 3. One of the things that Genesis teaches us is that even divine knowledge is no guarantee that you get etymologies right; if omniscience is no guarantee, how much less is knowledge of linguistics... Meyer Wolf 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 07:37:36 EST From: "Mitchell, Larry" Subject: Yiddisher Pinafore Does anybody know where I might obtain the libretto of Der Yiddisher Pinafore? Thanks very much for your help. Larry Mitchel ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.088 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://mendele.commons.yale.edu http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html