Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.049 January 11, 2000 1) Abraham Brumberg's response (Allan Nadler) 2) in a gevisn zin (elye palevsky) 3) Ramblings on the Yiddish-in-Israel Thread (Bob Wilson) 4) Yosl Cutler (Edward Portnoy) 5) "pisem veramses" (Jack Berger) 6) "pisem veramses" (Herman Taube) 7) "pisem veramses" (Hugh Denman) 8) kolonial, Tsukunft, pisem veramses (itsik shteyn) 9) post-doctoral fellowships in Modern Israel Studies (Bernard Cooperman) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 15:45:14 -0500 (EST) From: Allan Nadler Subject: Abraham Brumberg's response (09.045) First, I'm glad Mr. Brumberg was able to get such comedic mileage from my typo (i.e. Blumberg), and I apologize for my error. But to be serious, his latest salvo only confirms Brumberg's insistence on dismissing the value and significance of Haredi Yiddish. So, the book I mentioned -- one of many being published in the Haredi world that can be found in the Yiddish sections of mokhrei sforim (bookstores) throughout the Haredi world -- is dismissed as being of "obscure origins." As opposed, I guess, to the non-obscure nature of secular Yiddish publications like Yiddisher Kempfer and Di Zukunft which one can find at the local seven-eleven and in the window-display of Barnes and Noble? Brumberg will not grant haredi Yiddish writers any quarter or legitimacy, ostensibly since the quality of their work does not approach that of Peretz or Singer. As opposed to whom exactly: the many contemporary secular Yiddish writers whose work IS of that quality ? He complains that the Haredim don't pay attention to the secular Yiddish literary canon. And they might well complain that Brumberg does not pay much attention to Tilim, Mishnayos, Gemoro and Shulken Orukh. The very literary sources out of which the Yiddish derekh ha-shas, celebrated by Weinreich, emerged, is virutally unknown in the secular Yiddishist world of today. That world will consequently never be capable of producing such works as Singer's Sotn in Goray or Grades' Tsemakh Atlas or Opotashu's In Poilishe Velder, etc. But writers who will emerge out of the Haredi community just might. In fact, they are the only hope for a future Yiddish literature of such quality, since at least they have the cultural background and Jewish vocabulary to read and appreciate the earlier classics. Of course, the primary literature for the haredim is in loshn-koydesh. But their quotidian language is Yiddish, and they have a growing body of Yiddish journals, newspapers and books that, to them, is not obscure at all. On my most recent anthropological foray into Borough Park, I discovered yet another Yiddish weekly -- only nine weeks old -- Der Blat, which contained more than one hundred "bletter", i.e. about five times the average size of the last surviving secular Yiddish weekly in America. That makes six vibrant Haredi Yiddish-language weeklies, all of which are enjoying a rapidly growing readership. We keep dismissing and disdaining this literature only to our own impoverishment. Allan Nadler Madison, NJ 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 12:10:54 -0500 (EST) From: EPalevsky1@aol.com Subject: in a gevisn zin kh'ruf zikh op af dem khaver katz' bikoshe - in response to B. Katz' request (09.048) I offer the following translation of the phrase in question: " In a sense, the very act of the translation into Yiddish was in itself a symbol of continuity, of cultural connectedness, as though one were thereby returning a favor to someone to whom one was much obliged." Indeed the evolving culture in Hebrew of a renewed Israel was much obliged to the culture in Yiddish of these story-telling "arbetorins" elye palevsky 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 23:02:35 -0500 (EST) From: "Bob Wilson" Subject: Ramblings on the Yiddish-in-Israel Thread I have lurked on Mendele for years now and break silence with nothing very important to say. Mechl Asheri's commonsensical remarks about the status of Yiddish in Israel captured what I had experienced in two and a half years of being an oleh hadash in the mid 1980's, before I became a yored hadash. I watched with dismay as my five-year-old son Seth became my best Hebrew dictionary and translator, and after about a year there I became painfully aware that one of the main reasons I was not becoming really competent in Hebrew was that I could speak Yiddish with impunity and be understood by most everybody around. I had R Asheri's experience, this time in an AA meeting of all places, where I was trying to express some pretty abstract thoughts with some primitive Hebrew tools, and they said "Redt Yiddish!" and it worked just fine. I was sponsoring a recovering heroin addict in his twenties -- Yiddish was our best common language -- and we had this wonderful animated talk on the No. 25 bus going across Tel-Aviv where he told me at full volume how he and this "Teymanishe meydl" had stolen a pound of gold and run away to Germany, and how the police had marched them into the courtroom handcuffed together and there stood his wife.... Hevra, this is not the behavior of a dying language. Just a few remarks about secular Yiddish and Ladino -- I am a linguist and have some observations to make about them. I spent some time in Istanbul and Izmir and in the islands in the Marmara Sea, speaking Hebrew with the men and Ladino with the women (they spoke Ladino and I spoke my Texas Spanish with all the adjustments I could manage on the fly). And don't fuss at me for calling it Ladino. You know what I'm talking about. And I found a lot more Yiddish there than you could imagine. A couple in their seventies invited me to their home and we began to talk. I told the gentleman where I thought he was from -- galitz-somewhere -- and he drew himself up and said proudly "Ikh bin geboyren gevorn un ufgelebt in Istanbul." He and his wife had finished middle school in Yiddish medium in Istanbul. Anyway, there was a difference between Yiddish and Ladino that I observed in Israel and in Turkey as well, which intrigued me and which I have not heard discussed. It is easy to find fluent Yiddish speakers in their twenties in Israel, and Yiddish-speaking families in Turkey seemed to pass the language on as well. More so than with Ladino. The pattern with Ladino was like this: Grandparents -- sixties/seventies -- spoke Ladino fluently, reported that they dreamed in it and when they did calculations out loud, it was in Ladino numbers. Their grammar preserved adjective-noun agreement, ser/estar/hay distinctions and irregular verb forms, honorifics, unchanged over centuries. The same was true of Yiddish-speaking grandparents. With the parents generation in their forties the pattern began to change some. The Ladino speakers were pretty fluent, used Ladino to speak to the old folks but were at least as comfortable in Turkish or Hebrew as the case might be, and their grammar was very conservative. Yiddish speakers of the same generation were at least as fluent but the grammar showed deterioration, creolization almost, in a lot of aspects. With young people the difference was pronounced, and you may take me to task if you think I am mistaken about all this. Both Yiddish and Ladino speakers had perfect passive understanding of what was being said by the old folks. But in the case of Ladino, when I would interview a young person either in Israel or in Turkey, they would seldom get through a whole sentence without a pause to search for a word or a way to put things. And the grammar was conservative, verb forms were historically correct and adjective/noun or subject/verb agreement were intact. Even items with counterintuitive gender like "el agua" or "la mano" were kept straight. With the young Yiddish speakers exactly the reverse was true. They were all very fluent and showed no discomfort with their language being grammatically as different from their grandparents' Yiddish as modern English is from Shakespeare's English. Gender/agreement, honorifics, hobn/zayn verbs, all out the window. "Di girets" means "You said." I have a lot of thoughts about the difference in the way those two populations lived through the past century, in connection with their very different styles of language preservation and evolution, but I had rather hear your thoughts about all that. Mit bestn, Bob Wilson Arp Texas 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 10:51:30 -0500 (EST) From: noy@panix.com Subject: Yosl Cutler I wrote my M.A. thesis on Yosl Cutler and his artistic partner Zuni Maud. Though I initially responded directly to Marti Krow-Lucal, I suppose I should share the information with the rest of the khevre. If anyone is interested in their Modicut puppet theater, there is an article on it in the most recent issue of The Drama Review (TDR), [Modicut Puppet Theatre: Modernism, satire and Yiddish culture, TDR, 43:(3), 115-134, Fall 1999] Yosl Cutler: Born in 1896 in Troyanets, Volin, his father was a butcher. He went to kheyder, but did not receive any further education. This was a result of the death of his father at an early age, poverty and the fact that he was not inclined to religious study. However, he showed great interest in drawing as a child. At age eleven, he was sent to relatives in Zhitomir who, upon the advice of a drunken attorney in their tavern, apprenticed Cutler to a sign painter in Berditshev. In 1911, he left for America with an older brother. He spent a year in New York, but then left for Athens, Georgia, where he had an uncle. Cutler worked as a signpainter in Athens for a few years, but apparently became bored by the provincial nature of the town. After painting a large pig on his uncle's truck one night, he made his way north to New York. Once in New York, he studied for a short time at the National Academy of Art and the Educational Alliance. He also worked for a short period in the Painters Club of Philadelphia. Mainly, however, he worked in a large sign factory from 1913-1921. In 1918, Cutler was remanded for refusing to serve in the army during World War One, as he "didn't want to kill anybody." He was later freed as it was found that he was not an American citizen at the time. During the summer of 1921, with the help of his friend and fellow artist Morris Pass, he found work as a waiter in Moyshe Nadir's summer resort. It was there that he first encountered writers discussing literature and reading their works together. He took to the idea of writing and wrote a short poem which Nadir enjoyed. Happy with the response, Cutler wrote more poems that summer, together with illustrations which, he discovered, made him a popular figure in the literary cafes upon returning to New York. This material was simply circulated among the writers and it was not until the following year that Cutler's first story appeared in print. This was "Di falshe velt geshikhte," which was accompanied by a note from Nadir extolling the young writer's work. Following that, Cutler contributed his work to Otem, Feder, Der groyser kundes, Kinderzhurnal and Morgn frayhayt, usually accompanied by his illustrations. Cutler also illustrated dozens of books of prose and poetry, most notably Moyshe Leyb Halpern's "Di goldene pave," among others. In 1934 he published a book entitled "Muntergang," much of which had previously been published in the Morgn frayhayt, along with new material and numerous illustrations. In 1923, Cutler, together with fellow artist Zuni Maud opened a studio from which they sold small works of art and painted furniture. In 1924, Cutler travelled to Europe as the set designer for Morris Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theater. Returning in 1925, Schwartz hired Cutler and Maud to create the sets for a new production of Goldfaden's Di kishefmakherin. Schwartz also had them fashion puppets for a particular scene, though decided not to use them. Cutler and Maud, however, began to play with the puppets, bringing them to parties and to the literary cafes they frequented. It was suggested that they found a Yiddish puppet theater, which they did by year's end. Their Modicut theater opened in December 1925 and lasted until 1933. They wrote and performed original works and plays created for them by writers such as Moyshe Nadir. Most of their texts were cultural and political satires. Enormously popular, they performed nine sold out shows per week before touring Jewish communities in the US and Canada in 1927 and 1928. In the fall of 1929, they toured Europe, playing in England, France, Belgium and Poland to critical and popular acclaim. Following their tour in Poland (they performed 200 sold out shows at the Literatn fareyn), a Modicut fan club was created in Warsaw and a puppet theater called "Maydim" was founded in Vilna. During the winter of 1931-32, they toured the Soviet Union, also to great acclaim. For reasons unknown, they disbanded their theater in 1933. Both Cutler and Maud continued to perform puppet theater on their own and with different partners, but without the great success that they had together. In early 1935, Cutler made a short film comprised of three puppet skits in preparation for an attempt to make a full length film of his version of Modicut's parody of Sh. Ansky's Der dibek. On the way to California, where the film was to be made, Cutler performed in various midwestern cities on a tour organized by the Morgn Frayhayt. While traveling from Minneapolis to Denver on June 11, his car was struck in Iowa Falls, Iowa, and he was killed. According to press estimates, between ten and fifteen thousand people walked in his funeral procession, testament to the joy he brought to the Jews of the Lower East Side with his art, stories and puppet theater. Edward Portnoy 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 10:48:59 -0500 (EST) From: Jack Berger Subject: "pisem veramses" It sounds to me like a Yiddish/Ashkenazic pronunciation of the two Egyptian cities 'Pithom and Rameses' referenced at the beginning of the Book of Exodus, which were built by Jewish slaves under Pharaoh. Regards Jack Berger 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 10:51:32 -0500 (EST) From: HTaube218@aol.com Subject: Pisom Ve'Ramses Olek Mincer is asking for the exact meaning of the words: "pisom veramses" (09.045). Pisom and Rames were to cities built by the Jews in slavery in Egypt. You will find the names of the two cities in the Bible, in the book of Exodus, Chapter I, p.11 : "Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." (" Hobn zai gemacht iber im tzinzharn, kedai im tzu painikn mit zaire lastarbet, un er hot geboit shpaichler shtet far Pahroh'n, Pisom un Ramses". The city was named after one of the 12 Egypian pharahos, of whom Ramesses II (c. 1301-1234 B.C.) was the most famous. Many scholars think that he was the pharaoh of the Exodus. Pison was a city built near the Pis(h)on River. Good Luck and Happy Chanukah! Herman Taube 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 11:05:53 -0500 (EST) From: Hugh Denman Subject: pisem veramses With reference to Olek Mincer's query [09.045:7] re 'pisem veramses' as mentioned in I.B. Singer's 'Mayse Tishevits', the phrase connotes the cities of Pithom and Raamses in ancient Egypt referred to in Exodus 1:11 and stands by analogy for any gradiose buildings. 'Mayse tishevits' was first published in _Forverts_ on 29 March 1959. I'm afraid I don't have the page number to hand. It was subsequently collected in _Gimpl tam un andere dertseylungen_, NY: Tsiko Bikher Farlag, 1963, 237-47. The English translation, 'The Last Demon' (tr. Martha Glicklich and Cecil Hemley), was first collected in _Short Friday and Other Stories_, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1964, 145-58. Hugh Denman London, England 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 11:48:28 -0500 (EST) From: shteyn@juno.com Subject: kolonial, Tsukunft, pisem veramses khosheve mendelianer, 1) freynd j. levitow vil yisen vos meynt kolonial. bej uns in bukovina fleygt men unrufn"kolonial"a gevelb fun produktn, a grocery store, vu unter andere skhojres, flejgt men farkojfn ojkh limenes, tejtlen, marantsn, tej und andere importirte skhojres, dos rov fun demoltige kolonies. 2) di tsukunft is a yiddisher kvartalnik (a journal vos dershajnt ejnmol in drej khadoshim) un zajn adres is:Zukunft 25 East21st Street, NEW YORK, NY 10010, tel(212)505-8040. nit lang is arojs a dopelter numer far 1999, gevidmet sholom alejkhem. 3) pisem veramses sajnen di "shpajkhlershtet far par'en" (lojt jehoesh), velkhe di yidn in mitsrajim hobn gemuzt bojen (shmos, 1-11). vert banutst vi a metafor far shverer, umnutslekher arbet. kol tuv, itsik shteyn 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 21:41:18 -0500 (EST) From: bc40@umail.umd.edu (Bernard Cooperman) Subject: post-doctoral fellowships in Modern Israel Studies THE JOSEPH AND REBECCA MEYERHOFF CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK Announces an on-going series of POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS The Meyerhoff Center seeks to appoint two post-doctoral fellows in the various fields of Modern Israel Studies for the academic year 2000-2001. Areas of specialty may include culture broadly defined, literature, film, sociology, urban studies, anthropology, politics, Zionist history and thought, and Palestinian and Israeli-Arab studies. The fellowship is designed to provide recent Ph.D.s with the opportunity to prepare their first major academic publication while benefiting from a strong intellectual community and gaining some teaching experience. The rich library and archival resources of the area-including the Library of Congress, National Archives, and National Library of Medicine-make the University of Maryland an especially attractive place for academic research. The Fellowship provides a stipend of $30,000, renewable once, as well as health benefits. The Center will help pay moving costs to Maryland and will provide travel funds to participate in academic conferences. Fellows will be provided with office space and a computer. Fellows will be expected to teach one course in their area of specialization during the spring semester, 2001. To Apply, please send: letter of application, describing field, research interests, and dissertation graduate school transcript two letters of recommendation, one of which must be from the major advisor reports about teaching experience Send Application to: Dr. Marsha Rozenblit, Director Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies 0113 Woods Hall University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 For best consideration, please submit applications by March 17, 2000 Bernard D. Cooperman, College Park MD ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.049 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