Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.059 February 2, 2000 1) Introduction (Maurizio Brizzi) 2) Introduction (Dora Rytman) 3) litvish feminine (Meyer-Leyb Wolf) 4) Esther Kreitman (Faith Jones) 5) "The Gentleman from Buenos Aires" (Frank Handler) 6) jabberwocky (Itsik Goldenberg) 7) "The vanished shtetl" (Ross Bradshaw) 8) Yiddish program in Vilnius? (Seth Brown) 9) pukankes (Mel Goldstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 12:10:16 -0500 (EST) From: Maurizio Brizzi Subject: Introduction Dear Mendele, my name is Maurizio (Maurice), I am an Italian statistician working at University of Bologna, Italy. I am really fascinated by Yiddish culture, and I am very glad to have found this mailing list. I was born in 1961 in Bologna, but my mother came from Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia), a town which changed Country 5 times during the XX Century (Hungary, Free State, Italy, Yugoslavia, Croatia). My mother always spoke about her multi-cultural environment, and I always loved such "diversity". I know that Yiddish world and language contain one of the richest mixes of cultures ever existed. I have a working knowledge of German, so I can understand a certain number of Yiddish expressions. But I would like to improve my contact with this charming world. First of all, can someone write me the Yiddish translation of my name, if exists? Shalom aleichem, Maurizio Brizzi 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 09:58:20 -0500 From: "aLLIE rESNIK" Subject: Introduction My name is Dora Rytman. I earned my PhD from Brown Univ. in the Dept. of Slavic Languages I was born in Poland. During W.W.II I was exiled in the Soviet Union. When the war ended I was in D.P. camps in Germany. I arrived in the U.S. in 1949 with my husband and eldest child. We moved to our current Home in Preston, CT shortly after our arrival. A native of Poland I was raised in Volozhyn (home of the famous Yeshiva) near Vilna where we frequently visited. My Yiddish is native and as an adherent of Yivo and the Max Weinreich tradition, fairly intellectual. I have taught Russian at Brown Univ., Connecticut College and the Univ. of CT. Presently, I am on the faculty of the Greenberg Center Judaic Studies at the Univ. of Hartford. As well as Yiddish of all levels I teach, in rotation, Yiddish Lit. in translation, The American Jewish Novel and east European writers of Jewish origin. Included are: Pasternak, Mandelstam, Babel, Kafka, Celan, Nellie Saks and Appelfeld. Dora Rytman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 14:29:23 -0500 (EST) From: Meyer Wolf Subject: litvish feminine Both Mikhl Herzog's posting and Dovid Braun's response on the tsu DER mamen/tsu DI mamen in "Litvish" idealize "Litvish" a bit too much (09.053). In so far as the Litvish case system is concerned, "Litvish" included not only the Baltic states and Belarus but the Ukraine as well (at one time this inclusive area is what _Lite_ meant). By the the beginning of the First World War, "Real" Litvish was found only in the area to the north of Vilna -- Yes, even Vilna was no longer "Real" Litvish. The rest of the "Litvish" area shows the almost complete loss of Litvish case features in the southern Ukraine with increasing retention northward. The "Real" Litvish in the north has _tsu DI mamen_, as Mikhl Herzog noted. To the south, Litvish has _tsu DER mamen_, as Dovid Braun tells us. But this latter usage is pretty inconsistent north of the Ukraine. And it is often found among speakers who also have "ikh ze der mame(n)", that is, _der mame_ is both accusative and dative. Meyer-Leyb Wolf 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 14:59:20 -0500 (EST) From: "Faith Jones" Subject: Esther Kreitman I am looking for articles about Esther Kreitman. I would particularly be interested in items with a feminist perspective. If you respond to me off-list I'll post a summary of responses. Thank you, Faith Jones 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 09:21:34 -0500 (EST) From: Troim@webtv.net (Frank Handler) Subject: "The Gentleman from Buenos Aires" I am doing research on bertha pappenheim and her struggles against Jewish prostitution. Sholem Aleikhem wrote a story, published long after his death (in 1937), called "The Gentleman from Buenos Aires" (Tsugenumen: A Mentsh fun Buenos Aires) published in Dortn, 1937, 36 pages. Does anyone have a copy, or its availability or familiar with its plot? Mit hofenung. Frank Handler 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 08:26:29 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Goldenberg Subject: jabberwocky Does anyone happen to have yiddish words for Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky," from Alice in Wonderland (or is it Through the Looking Glass)? I have them in German and Latin, but they would be delightful in yiddish! Itsik Goldenberg 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 14:45:18 -0500 (EST) From: "rossbradshaw" Subject: The vanished shtetl Dear friends I thought some of Mendele's readers may be interested in a new book published by Five Leaves. It is The Vanished Shtetl: the Paintings of Stanislaw Brunstein. Brunstein worked as a stage designer with the Scala, Nowosci and Ida Kaminska Yiddish theatres, and was a scenic artist with the Dzigan and Schumacher review. He fled to Russia to escape the German invasion, but was arrested and imprisoned in the Vorkuta slave labour camps. Brunstein was released to join the Polish (Anders) army, coming to Britain after the war. He worked with the New Yiddish Theatre in London, but could not make enough of a living as a scenic artist and became a designer of children's clothes. From 1962 until his death in 1994 he painted many pictures of "The Vanished Shtetl". Brunstein's shtetl was not romanticised - the prayer houses and homes were poorly furnished. His shtetl was peoples by rabbis, farmers, street traders, workers, water carriers, klezmorim, shokhtim, shnorrers - a reminder not that six million died, but that these people lived. As well as the paintings, there is a biographical note, a further essay on Brunstein as a Jew and a Pole by Dow Marmur and an essay on pre-war Poland by Rafael Scharf. Order details: The Vanished Shtetl is available from Five Leaves Publications, PO Box 81, Nottingham NG5 4ER, Britain for #10.99/$18 or from bookshops (0 907123 87 2). Thanks Ross Bradshaw 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 21:14:15 -0500 (EST) From: Seth Brown Subject: Yiddish program in Vilnius? Dear Mendele list: Last year I heard about a Yiddish immersion program that took place in Vilnius, Lithuania, headed by Dovid Katz (formerely of Oxford). Does anyone know if the program is going forward for the summer of 2000? And how to enroll, if the program is taking place? Thanks so much, Seth Brown 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 04:42:10 -0500 (EST) From: Melvin Goldstein Subject: pukankes Jeffrey Shandler asked about pukankes (09.050). My ex-Moldavian wife translates "pukankes" as popcorn. Mel Goldstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.059 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