Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.041 November 9, 1999 1) Chasidim and secular literature (Sholem Berger) 2) replies to Fuchsman and Heschel (Abraham Brumberg) 3) Yiddish and Hebrew (Bernard (Borukh) Katz) 4) Yiddish and Haredim (Miriam Isaacs) 5) corrections (Itsik Goldenberg) 6) mischpoche (Octavian Mocanu) 7) foygl milch (Shmihl Yankl Royden) 8) Yiddish Press bibliography (Heather Valencia) 9) yiddish newspapers (Shimmy Silverman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 09:45:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Sholem Berger Subject: "[The Chasidim] have no need or purpose for secular literature"? The exchange by Abraham Brumberg and Abraham Joshua Heschel, while inaccurate on both sides, reveals something about today's religious Yiddish literature and the uses to which it is put. Brumberg states that the Haredim "have nothing to do with anything that smacks of secular Yiddish". This is false, of course, which is precisely why the situation is so interesting: Haredim are making use of secular literary forms ("scores of novels for young adults", "Yiddish [news]papers"), while denying their possibly Yiddishist, definitely non-Haredi provenance: "[we] have no need or purpose for secular literature"! On the other hand, Haredi and secular Yiddish literature do differ. Not in quality -- I would venture to say that dross dominates among the veltlekhe just as much as among the Haredi (perhaps less so in poetry) -- but in philosophy: the aesthetic of "art for its own sake" is (as far as I'm aware) not prevalent among Haredi writers. Whether this will change can be debated, but it does lead to a difference in emphasis: the Haredim do not approach literature the same way as the veltlekhe (they use it but are ambivalent), and Brumberg and Heschel faithfully reflect this difference. Sholem Berger 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 15:06:48 -0400 (EDT) From: abraham brumberg Subject: replies to Fuchsman and Heschel Mr. Fuchsman has a point about the number of schools: when they started, they had the full help, financial and otherwise, forom the state (that is, the republican governments), whioch is something the yiddish schools in Poland did not have. Yet after this immense efflorescence came the almost sudden and immense decline. Why? There were a numnber of reasons for it, not least the fact that gradually the parents began to realize that the future for their children lies not in the Yiddish schools, but in the Belorussian, Ukrainian and--primarily--Russian. In addition, Yiddish schools were being gradually denuded of Jewish content--something I observed in myh first piece. And then came gradually the attacks on Yiddish writerrs, the moratorium on any contacts with the Wesxt (not to speak of Palestine), arrests, and Stalinist antisemitism pure and simple. Mr. Fuchsman is shocked by the word "castrated." Yet that's exactly what happened--not overnight, and not without at first good intentions on the part of the authorities, central and Jewish, but step by step, finally culminatring inh arrests, executions, and phony truck accidents (Mikhoels). Mr. Fuchsman is obviously au courant on these matters. But he is wrong in thinking that the contrast betweern the 20s and 30's cum 40s was all that drastic. The seeds of much of what happened in the 30s were already sprouting in the 20s. To be sure, some poets continued to publish even after they had been vulgarly attacked by the Litrvakovs et al. But others were forced, already in the 20s, to engage in mea culpas and rewriting their works. That, my dear Mr. Fuchsman, is where the tragedy lay, and not in "the greatness and promise of the 20s." Regarding Zhitlovsky, I did say that he was close to the Bund, certainly in the early part of trhis century, so I don't see any reason to belabor the issue. As for my second critic, I submit my reply sent to him earlier : Dear Mr. Heschel, The information regarding gthe commopn Haredi attitude towards Yiddish as having no proper grammar or structure I take from Miriam Isaac's essay in THE POLITICS OF YIDDISH. As you may know, she has written a lot on this subject and is in no sense an enemy of the haredim. Neither, of course, am I, but if you have no use for Mendele , Sholem Aleichem et al, why do you expect the secularists to have much use for your literary output, impressive though it no doubt is, and how do you expect a fruitful collaboration between these two trends in the future? Seems a bit adonyne to me. Yes, one of these days I shall be happy to accept your invitaiton and come down to Brooklyn, and I will also attemptr to get hold of some of your novels (they are, I am afraid, not available here in Washington...) But do bear in mind trhat I am no "Yiddishist" in the sense in which it had been understood in the early part of this century. I think yours is indeed a very real culture, but quite divorced, as you yourself illustrate, from the traditions of secular culture which had the advantage of keeping the secular Jews close to kol yisroel and to the outside world at one and the same time., Indeed, it is likely that you will continue to develop, while secular culture, despite all the courses, conferences, festivals and klezmer concerts will decline. This is not a prospect that makes me very happy. Very sincerely, A. Brumberg 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 03:07:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Bernard Katz Subject: Yiddish and Hebrew Abraham Brumberg hot farentfert zeyn kritiker mit koyakh - kol kavod! Some of the details in his response prompted me to check my books - I collect travel accounts and descriptions of Eretz Yisroel pre-1925/30. Among many books of this type (mostly in English - a limitation of my own making), I have about 9 or 10 in Yiddish, most published between 1910 and the early 1920's and almost all published in New York. There are two that shed some interesting light on Brumberg's remarks. The first one: Rakhel Katznelson-Rubashov (ed.) Vos arbetorins dertzeylen: a eretz-yisroel bukh. Tel-Aviv, 1931. (iii, 371 p. illus.) This book about the experiences of Jewish women workers in Palestine is made up of pieces from about 70 individual contributors, and they seem all to have been written originally in Yiddish. There are no credits for any translators that I can see. Although printed in Israel and has a Tel-Aviv imprint, it was published by the Pioneer Women's Organization of New York. The second one is even more interesting, in my opinion: David Ben-Guryon, un Y. Ben-Tzvi. Eretz Yisroel in fergangenhayt un gegenvart: geografye, geshikhte, rekhtlikhe ferheltnise, befel- kerung, landvirtshaft, handel un industrye. New York, 1918. (kh"b, 478 p. illus., maps) The publisher is the Poalei-Tziyon Palestina Komitet of New York, and it is dedicated to the memory of "khvernu urenu Dov Barokhov alav hasholem". Again, there is no mention of any translator (other details of production are given, such as the person who drew the maps) and I am left with the distinct impression that the authors wrote it in Yiddish. The Komitet in a preface states that they felt duty bound to undertake this publication because there was absolutely no work of its kind available to the Yiddish speaking world (gehalten far zayn khoyv tsu geben dem brayten idishn oylem aza verk, vos iz lakhlutn nit geven benimtse in der idisher shprakh). Bernard (Borukh) Katz University of Guelph 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 16:35:37 -0500 (EST) From: Miriam Isaacs Subject: Yiddish and Haredim I would like to clarify some remarks attributed to me by Abe Brumberg in sometimes lively discussion over Yiddish in Haredi circles. The context was a review that he wrote of the Politics of Yiddish, edited by Dov Ber Kerler. My article in that volume was based on research I had conducted in Israel well over a decade ago now. In that article, contrary to what Abe Brumberg suggests, I go the other way to counter the belief among secularists that haredi Yiddish is weak or diluted. On the contrary, I did write and I quote myself "there is ample life in Yiddish as an oral language." and again "many haredi informants speak a rich, colourful and expressive Yiddish sprinkled with humour, proverbs and, of course, talmudic references" (p94). I do point out that literary Yiddish or Yiddish grammar per se were not emphasized in the schools I visited, but the fact of the matter is that there is no comparison between levels of Yiddish proficiency in the secular Jewish circles to what exists among many but not all Hasidim. I just came from reading to a group a story called "Ales vos men tut tut men far zikh aleyn" that was printed in Der Yid to a group. It is an ordinary but engaging story, well written, richly phrased and well paced. It was from a column that draws from old sources. Written Yiddish has been expanding. Since I wrote that article I have seen a rapidly evolving range of written works from hasidic sources. As to why some deny it, the emotions and reactions are complex. People sometimes go to war over an alef. There are bitter feelings and pain involved in losing that world of secular Yiddish. Many were once the discussions and resolutions over spelling conventions when the readership was in the millions. But the shift has happened and so if, in Der Yid they spell unzer differently from undzer, or Montik vs. Montog- all I can say is that some care more than others and I am pleased that I can turn to frum sources and happily do so. As a Canadian I learned to spell colour with a letter u. Does that make it bad? There are some who claim ownership over Yiddish. But I recall a Hasid once saying "Who gave them the hashgofe?" Languages are living things and grow where one nourishes them. So lets do so. Miriam Isaacs 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 20:06:50 -0500 (EST) From: robert goldenberg Subject: Brumberg: Risen from the Dead. Not having seen a correction for 2 names misspelled in the book review in Mendele 09.039, may I point out: (1) In the paragraph beginning "But this surely begs the issue." Avrom Goldfadn, not Goldfagen. (2) In the paragraph beginning "Though Isaacs is obviously impressed..." the last line should surely be Emanuel S. Goldsmith, not Goldstein. Itsik Goldenberg 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 15:56:47 -0400 (EDT) From: tavi@microelecb.uab.es (Octavian Mocanu) Subject: mischpoche A. In Vol. 09.025 (August 30, 1999) Deirdre Bourke asked about possible Yiddish sources. It would be perhaps of help the recent Yiddish-German Dictionary (Jiddisches Woerterbuch, Dudenverlag, Mannheim-Leipzig-Wien-Zuerich, 2. durchgesehene Auflage, von Ronald L=F6tzsch, 1992), with the format of a pocket dictionary. Beside the fact of being handy, its structure may fit with the needs of any freshman, for it: a) spans over a comprehensive vocabulary of all the (three) main dialectal forms, b) uses romanised letters, but it has a glossary of the Hebrew ones, plus the JIWO orthographical exceptions, followed by two entertaining Hebrew-written "homework" texts, with their complete transliteration, vid. translations, c) includes a short linguistic historical sketch prefacing the dictionary, and d) offers, more or less, a grammatical prompter scattered between the foreword and the appendix. Finally, the vocables have their etymology marked, for those from Slavic or Semitic sources. I think that it may be still purchased in Germany, Austria or Switzerland with a price that does not seem exorbitant (at the time, it costed about 16 SFr.). B. A very brief comment on mischpoche [family] is that when having read it, something triggered off my mind, and after some afterthought I realised that in fact we used it (in family) to spice our conversation, otherwise with many words that now I re-descover in Yiddish (actually we'd say "mischpjche", instead, with a more disparaging connotation, as for "gang, band"). Of course, the dialect, or actually pidgin we speak in the region of Timisoara/Temesvar/Temeschwar (as a mix of Romanian, German, Hungarian, Serbian, a.s.o.) was continuously permeable to every and all nationalities living there (the region is called Banat/Benseg/das Banat, and it means literally "principality", with a Slavic etymology). A gruss, Octavian Mocanu, Barcelona, Spain 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 12:42:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Mar397192@aol.com Subject: foygl milch I also must start my note with a disclaimer. My knowledge of Yiddish is currently weak, though Yiddish was my mother tongue until I was about 7 years old. I read with interest the piece on foygl khale. I do not know foygl khale is for a finial letter or not, but my shviger (of blessed memory) who was from the Ukraine used the expression,"foygl milch" to mean nonsense. It is possible that the appelation foygl+ was commonly used to create specialized dialect words to convey the ultimate(?) What is your thought on this matter? Mit hartliche gris fun a galitziyaneh, Shmihl Yankl Royden 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 12:55:49 -0400 (EDT) From: "Heather Valencia" Subject: Yiddish Press bibliography At the risk of appearing to blow my own trumpet, may I please add an item to Hugh Denman's bibliography of the Yiddish Press: Susanne Marten-Finnis und Heather Valencia, Sprachinseln. Jiddische Publizistik in London, Wilna und Berlin 1880-1930, (Koln: Buhlau Verlag, 1999). Heather Valencia, Stirling, Scotland 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 14:07:28 -0400 (EDT) From: silverman@cpol.com (Shimmy Silverman) Subject: yiddish newspapers In reply to Steven Jacobson: Having lived in Paris,France in the 50 and 60 I remember there being at least 2 daily yiddish newspapers "Unser Wort" socialist and "Die Naie Press" very left. I do not believe that these are still being publish but there is a jewish library in Paris called Medem available on the Internet and you may be able to communicate with them. Shimmy Silverman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.041 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