Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.021 July 27, 1999 1) When Joseph Met Molly: new book (Ross Bradshaw) 2) More Words, More Arrows: new book (Shirley Kumove) 3) Rashi and snow (Moshe Taube) 4) A shprakh-shayle af Rashi (noyekh miller) 5) la"z in Rashi (David Herskovic) 6) Three cheers for Lucas Bruyn (Mikhl Herzog) 7) pedagogye, foylkeyt un kultur (anshl mihaly) 8) Sholem Aleichem and Charlie Chaplin (Louis Fridhandler) 9) Mirl Erdberg un Yisroel Shumakher (Gilles Rozier) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 05:28:53 -0400 (EDT) From: "rossbradshaw" Subject: When Joseph Met Molly: new book A few weeks ago Chaim Pevner posted a short note announcing a new reader on Yiddish film called When Joseph Met Molly. Listed below are full bibliographic details of the book. When Joseph Met Molly: A Reader on Yiddish Film 328 pages including 20 illustrations/stills, $25/GBP14.95, ISBN 0 907123 92 9, edited by Sylvia Paskin, with a Foreword by Arianne Ulmer Cipes. Available from Five Leaves Publications, PO Box 81, Nottingham NG5 4ER, England. The book will shortly be available from the bookstore at the National Yiddish Book Center. Contents: Yiddish Film and the American Immigrant Experience Joseph Cohen; The Jazz Singer and its Reaction in the Yiddish Cinema Eric Goldman; Joseph Green, Visionary of the Golden Age Chaim Pevner; Ost and West, Old World and New: Nostalgia and Anti-Nostalgia on the Silver Screen Jeffrey Shandler; Sunny Skies and Green Fields: The Making of a Yiddish Movie Classic Joel Finler; The Light Ahead Sylvia Paskin; Freylachs on Film: the Portrayal of Jewish Traditional Dance in Yiddish Cinema Michael Alpert; The Crooked Road to Jewish Luck Barbara Alikhani; Nosn Beker Fort Aheym: A Yiddish Film for a Soviet Homeland Laura Greene; The Only 'I' in the World: Religion, Psychoanalysis and the Dybbuk; The Devil and Beethoven: Convergent Themes in Yiddish Film and Literature Dafna Clifford; Uncle Moses Hannah Berliner Fischthal; The Celluloid Closet of Yiddish Film Eve Sicular; Gender Rebellion in Yiddish Film: Molly Picon, Drag Artiste; A Century in the Life of Sholem Aleichem's Tevye Ken Frieden; 'The Approaching Storm' The Goskinds on Jewish Life in Poland Bryan Burns; Descendant Dybbuks: Yiddish Cinema and the Hollywood Continuum Alex Gordon Nathan Altman Joel Finler. Mit grusn Ross Bradshaw 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 09:09:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Leon Kumove Subject: More Words, More Arrows: new book Khosheve mendelyaner, Ikh hob dem koved tsu lozn aykh visn az der tsveyter bukh fun yidishe folks verter, mer verter, mer fayln, iz ersht nisht lang aroys fun druk. Der farlag iz veyn steyt university pres. Ikh hof az der bukh vet oysnemen bay aykh un az ir vet hanoye hobn. Azoy vi ikh bin shtendik farinteresirt tsu hern meynungen legabe di iberzetsungen un vegn di oysdrikn bkhlal, hof ikh az ir di leyeners tsi ir zent tsufridn, tsi kholile nit, veln zikh teyln mit mir. A sheynem dank aykh un zayt gegrist. It gives me pleasure to announce that the second book of Yiddish folk sayings, More Words, More Arrows, has recently been published by Wayne State University Press. I hope you will enjoy it. I'm always interested in getting the reaction of my readers. If you have an opinion about the translations or can provide insight or context for any of these sayings, please let me know. Thanks and best regards, Shirley Kumove 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 11:08:34 -0400 (EDT) From: "Prof. Moshe Taube" Subject: Rashi and snow This gloss was noticed a long time ago by linguists. Moshe Altbauer in 1928 wrote a notule in the Revue des Etudes Slaves where he spoke of the knaanic (=Slavic, in this case Old Czech) snih and remarked the early testimony to the proces g>h (reflected in Rashi's guttural r), and he was not the first (there is another reference from the turn of the century which I do not recall off-hand). Roman Jakobson, too, has a paper (reprinted in his collected papers vol. 4 I think) on the early Knaanic = Slavic (Old Czech) forms reflected in Rashi's glosses. Moshe Taube 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 12:34:37 -0400 From: Norman Miller Subject: A shprakh-shayle af Rashi sholem berger fregt vegn Rashi (9.019): far vos taytsht er "snir" vi "shney" ven "snir" iz mit a sin un shney mit a shin? shoyn zhe iz Rashi geven a litvak? freg ikh: farvos nisht? "snir" (belaz Senir) iz der nomen vos di amoyrim hobn gegebn "khermon" (belaz Hermon). dos meynt nisht az "shney" iz der _taytsh_ fun "snir". fun vanet veyst men? fun onkelos, vayl dort shteyt: "veemoyrey kron ley tur talgo". un oykh in yekhezkel (27,5) brengt Rashi az "snir" iz a "tur talgo", dos heyst a barg tsugedekt mit shney. fregt vayter reb sholem "far vos brengt er [Rashi] di lazishe leshoynes?" ikh meyn az punkt azoy vi der posek iz a heore fun der "redaktsie" vegn loshn tzidon un loshn amoyri iz dos fun Rashi oykh a redaktors heore vegn tsvey leshoynes fun zayn tsayt. vos far a loshn iz loshn kenan, dos blaybt bay mir a retenish. tzi Rashi iz geven a litvak, dos veys ikh avade nisht. efsher gor fun sheyvet efrayim? :-) noyekh miller 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 19:27:10 -0400 (EDT) From: David Herskovic Subject: la"z in Rashi Following on from Sholem Berger's query (vol.9.019), where Rashi gives French translations is he using French or is is it a Jewish vernacular based on French similar to the relationship of our Yiddish to German? David Herskovic 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:20:02 -0400 (EDT) From: "Mikhl Herzog" Subject: Bravo! Three cheers for Lucas Bruyn Lucas Bruyn (9:020) is right on the mark. Still, I hesitate to enter this discussion lest I be considered guilty of bad-mouthing some of my good friends and colleagues. Let me be brave (if somewhat bitter) and, if someone at YIVO is listening, perhaps this will serve as a wake-up call. Copyright concerns have, indeed, been among the obstacles to the relatively simple but indispensible task of creating the comprehensive Yiddish Lexicon from existing works that Lucas proposes. Can these concerns be overcome in some fashion? Another obstacle has been, at best, sheer neglect. It's now some years since a Mendele subscriber, Meyer Wolf (formerly of Jerusalem, now of California), computerized the contents of Stutshkoff's _Oytser fun der yidisher shprakh_, for YIVO. Can anyone ascertain where, in the bowels of YIVO's archives, this treasure lies buried? (Incidentally, YIVO also houses computerized concordances of numerous Yiddish literary works (prepared by Dr. Wolf) for the now dormant _Groyser verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh_). There's no better person than Meyer Wolf to figure out how they, too, could be integrated into such an effort. Finally, _The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry_ (Volume III, in press), will also yield a lexical treasure (with an added geographic dimension) that can be incorporated into a comprehensive Yiddish lexicon; and, it still defies the imagination that, only a few years ago, the powers that be (or that were) at YIVO turned down the pro bono services, offered its Library and Archives, by the person who is central to the ATLAS effort--one of Europe's leading specialists in the computer manipulation of masses of linguistic data--who has proposed the creation of precisely the same tool as Lucas now proposes, with the addition of the easily available vocabulary of the present-day Yiddish newspaper and periodical publications. Is YIVO now in a position to rectify the situation? Or, perhaps there is another institution in the US, Europe, or Israel, that is prepared to provide the aegis for such an undertaking. Mikhl Herzog 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 06:27:23 -0400 (EDT) From: Alain Mihaly Subject: pedagogye, foylkeyt un kultur dos khiluke-deyes tsvishn khane kleyn un lukas broyn iz zeyer a vogiks. s'iz boylet az se felt gut-pedagogish lernvarg kedey me zol (zikh) lernen yidish. yidish tsvey, intensive yidish, katzes gramatik zenen vikhtike un nutsike zakhn; zey klekn ober nisht. me darf moderne metodn, enlekhe tsu di metodn vos ekzistirn in di andere shprakhn, mit mer konkrete situatsies, togteglekhn vokabular un azoy vayter, der iker metodn vos rekhenen zikh mit haynttsaytiker pedagogye. far di onheybers : gor nisht. College yiddish is altfrenkish un opgelebt. Dos bukh is muzeyish un past nisht mer tsu di yidish-kursn. leyendik kleynes entfer az college yiddish iz gut vayl nisht mer fargrayzt, halt ikh a kashe : vi azoy is es haynt miglekh tsu haltn azoy? undzer lererin hot nisht farshtanen az di studentn darfn epes andersh, az mit aza lernbikhl ken me nisht redn yidish. di yidn zenen (geven) yo a folk fun 13 milyon. un vi bet men zalts baym esn? derfar meyn ikh az dos iz nisht keyn frage fun foylkeyt. di frage iz a kulturele. di merheyt fun di profesionele yidishistn hobn nisht banumen dos pintele lernen. eyder (beser baynand) tsunoyftsushteln a nayem materyal, volt es efsher geven keday tsu farshteyn di kulturele sibes funem tsushtand. ot der tsushtand zol rekhenen zikh far a moment funem yidish-lernen : a nayer forsh-inyen? anshl mihaly 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 12:57:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Lfridhan@aol.com Subject: Sholem Aleichem and Charlie Chaplin Ester Vaisman (in 9.020, 2) provides welcome additional material about Sholem Aleichem and Charlie Chaplin compiled and edited by Belen'kii. Belen'kii's remark, "A surprising coincidence: the beginning of Chaplin's artistic career coincided with the date of Sholem Aleichem's second visit to New York, 1914," deserves just a bit more additional detail: Chaplin's first movie, "Making a Living" was filmed toward the end of 1913, but was released in early 1914. Sholem Aleichem arrived in New York City in December 1914, almost a year after Chaplin's Keystone Comedies became popular. Sholem Aleichem died 17 months after he arrived in New York the second time. Chaplin rapidly attained worldwide fame and popularity so that Sholem Aleichem may have seen Chaplin on the screen while still in Europe. In any case, Sholem Aleichem's keen, almost immediate, appreciation of Chaplin's genius is fascinating. As noted in my previous post (9.016, 1), Sholem Aleichem himself wrote scenarios adapting some of his work for the screen. Seeing Chaplin work must have stimulated further dreams of such scenarios, but nothing came of them. Louis Fridhandler 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 13:04:59 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gilles Rozier" Subject: Mirl Erdberg un Yisroel Shumakher A frage : Tsi emetser veys ven di yidishe shrayberin Mirl Erdberg iz geshtorbn ? Ikh hob dervayl nisht gefunen Shumakher's dates. Tsi emetser ken zey, zol er zayn azoy gut mir ibertsugebn di informatsye. Gilles Rozier ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.021 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://metalab.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html