Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.067 March 2, 2000 1) YIVO/Columbia Summer Yiddish Program (Rich Dikeman) 2) Symposium for Yiddish Studies in Germany (Erika Timm and Marion Aptroot) 3) Stencl and Manger (David Mazower) 4) bomtziktzak and klappteler (Gitl Dubrovsky) 5) bomzikzak and klapteller (Gerry "Yankl" Kane) 6) zhivitse-boym (Yael Chaver) 7) yiddish poem (steve sher and edith marshall) 8) Latinization of Yiddish (David Shneer) 9) khoyzek and currants (Mikhl Herzog) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 10:35:22 -0500 (EST) From: "Rich Dikeman" Subject: YIVO/Columbia Summer Yiddish Program Applications are now being accepted for the Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture, which will take place on the Columbia University campus from June 26 to August 4, 2000. The program, jointly sponsored by the Max Weinreich Center of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Columbia University, is a six-week, non-matriculating, three-credit college course offered on four levels: elementary, intermediate I, intermediate II and advanced. The program proper will be preceded by an optional two-week review session for intermediate and advanced students beginning on June 13. Elementary students with no reading or writing knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet are required to attend a one-day reading and writing workshop on Sunday, June 25. People worldwide have discovered the importance of Yiddish as a key to understanding a significant component of the Jewish heritage. Every summer since 1968, several dozen people from diverse backgrounds, professional pursuits and places as far-ranging as Argentina, Australia, Chile, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Slovakia make their way to New York City to study Yiddish in the world's first and most acclaimed, college-level Yiddish-language program. Many summer program students have gone on to become fellows of the Max Weinreich Center, an accredited institute for advanced study of East European and American Jewish history and culture. Others have entered graduate programs in Jewish studies offered by major universities throughout North America, Europe and Israel. The program has thus served as an essential stepping stone in the careers of such prominent scholars in the field of Yiddish as Janet Hadda, Irena Klepfisz, Jack Kugelmass and Michael Stanislawski. Participants in the program not only learn the fundamentals of Yiddish grammar and read Yiddish literary classics, but also explore the riches of East European and American Jewish culture through lectures in Yiddish and English, Yiddish films, Yiddish conversation groups and a variety of workshops in translation, theater, folksong and traditional dance. As a means of expanding the opportunities for verbal practice and creating a feeling of camaraderie, out-of-towners are given the option of staying in single rooms in Yidish-hoyz, a Yiddish dormitory suite on campus. Excursions to Jewish points of interest in and outside of New York City add depth and immediacy to subjects covered in the classroom. Dr. Rheins, YIVO's Executive Director, has called the program "an intensive, intellectually stimulating experience, whose rewards remain throughout one's lifetime." For an application including information on housing and partial scholarships, call, fax or write to Yankl Salant, Director of Yiddish Language Programs, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011, (212) 294-6138, fax (212) 292-1892, e-mail . The deadline for receipt of scholarship materials is March 22. Press Contact: Yankl Salant (212) 294-6138, fax (212) 292-1892 Rich Dikeman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 09:26:22 -0500 (EST) From: aptroot@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de (Marion Aptroot) Subject: 3rd Annual Symposium for Yiddish Studies in Germany Annual Symposium for Yiddish Studies in Germany 28-30 August 2000 The third Annual Symposium for Yiddish Studies in Germany will take place from 28 to 30 August 2000 at the Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf. With this symposium both programs in Yiddish Studies in Germany continue their combined effort to offer a forum for scholars and students of Yiddish where they can present their research and exchange ideas. Scholars and students from Germany and abroad are invited to attend and take part. Those who would like to present a paper (in Yiddish or German) should send an abstract to the organizers. We will post more detailed and regularly updated information on the internet (http://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/jiddisch/). We will also be happy to answer questions by fax (0211-81-12027) or e-mail (jiddisch@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de). Participants can register at the addresses below. There is no conference fee. Erika Timm und Marion Aptroot 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 17:20:03 -0500 (EST) From: David Mazower Subject: Stencl and Manger In response to Ross Bradshaw's request for details of AN Stencl's poetry in English translation and information about Itsik Manger's years in London: First, just in case modesty overcomes him, let me point the way to Leonard Prager's wonderful " Yiddish Culture in Britain - a Guide" (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), with detailed entries on both writers. On Manger in London, I particularly recommend one book mentioned there: Dan Davin's "Closing Times" (London 1975). In addition: Stencl was famously/notoriously a militant Yiddishist, and I suspect was little concerned with seeing his poems in English translation. However the critic and translator Joseph Leftwich was a strong admirer of his work and included a number of Stencl's poems in his anthology of Yiddish verse in translation entitled "The Golden Peacock" (London 1939). Decades later, Leftwich compiled "An Anthology of Modern Yiddish Literature" (The Hague, 1974) which contains a small selection of poems by both Stencl and Manger, again in Leftwich's own translations. Leftwich also knew Manger well during his years in London from 1940 until 1951. See his article "Margaret Waterhouse's role in the Mangeriade" (Jewish Quarterly, Summer 1980), where he pays tribute to the woman who befriended Manger in London. According to Leftwich: "It was in Margaret's bookshop in Swiss Cottage that Manger first met Arthur Waley and Dylan Thomas. "He can drink" Manger said to me about Dylan Thomas. "But I am the better poet". " There is also a generous selection of Manger's verse in the bilingual anthology "The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse" edited by Howe, Wisse and Shmeruk. Finally, Mendele readers might be interested in a remarkable (and unpublished) letter in my possession, written by Manger in London to my great-grandfather Sholem Asch in the United States on 11 March 1950. (Manger wrote in English, presumably because of continuing censorship regulations). The full letter is as follows: "My Dear Master, I remember our short meeting in London, and remember your proposal that you are ready to edit a selection of my poems on your account, because, as you told me "That is that" I understood that you mean real poetry. Now, I don't want your personal money for the publishing of a book of mine, but next year in May I am 50 years old; looking round me there is an emptyness for which even Edgar Allen Poe would really get mad, not drunk. I am afraid of that emptyness, and because of my fear I decided to celebrate the 50 years, shall they come, the great, the heavyweights, the small, the tiny, the beauties, and the ugly, the Madonnas, and the prostitutes, and tell me, on the 28th of May.... 'You are 50, what have you done in your life, apart of being a parasite, did you build a house? Did you build a home? Did you build up a business? A butchery, a solicitor's business? A synagogue? A Church? A Brothel?' All essentials of life, but I have not done any of these things; with my coming 50 years, I stand barren for myself, for my people and for the world. Apart from my dreams, and these are the hieroglypths of my poems, so simple, they are that everybody understands them, even in that accursed language in which I wrote them, they are so clear that I do not understand myself. My dear Master, in starting my letter to you I feel that I run away from the essentials, but it does not matter. Would you like to take part in that masquerade and that tomfoolery that next year will be called 'The Jubilee of Itzik Mangers 50 years'? If you like to do it you are invited for a Foxtrot between New York and London, or maybe, between New York and Jerusalem, and I am ready to dance with you that Foxtrot, cross my heart. Please inform me as to your attitude to this proposal, as soon as possible, to the address on the other side. Yours sincerely, Itzik Manger " (I've no idea whether Asch accepted Manger's invitation, or whether there was any sort of public celebration of Manger's 50th birthday along the lines of the largescale festivities marking Asch's own 50th jubilee. Certainly, Asch and Manger knew each other well in London, and later in the US and Israel). David Mazower [Moderator's note: Jacob Sonntag's translations of three Stencl's poems ("Below in the shadow of the deep-dark valley...", On My 80th Birthday, and To Josef Herman) were published in Jewish Perspectives, London: Secker & Warburg, 1980. - i.v.] 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 11:15:31 -0500 (EST) From: GDubrovsky@aol.com Subject: 'bomtziktzak' and 'klappteler' Yale Strom wonders about 'bomtziktzak' and 'klappteler.' I would venture a guess that 'klappteler' is a tambourine; the other probably is a drum. At least the word is onomatopoeic and mimics drum-beats. Gitl Dubrovsky 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 19:13:04 -0500 (EST) From: Gerald Kane Subject: bomzikzak and klapteller both are synonyms for cymbal. See Strutchkof's description of insturments under the section called "shlog instrumentn"...page 286. Gerry "Yankl" Kane Toronto 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 11:22:40 -0500 (EST) From: "Yael Chaver" Subject: zhivitse-boym?? Dear Mendelistn, I'm trying to identify a tree mentioned in a poem written in Palestine -- all I have to go on is this line, "der zhivitse-boym shmekt." I've found a "zhibyets" plant in a Russian dictionary, but the information on this plant doesn't fit the context of the poem. Any suggestions? A hartsign dank foroys, Yael Chaver 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 13:29:44 -0500 (EST) From: Steve Sher Subject: yiddish poem kathyrn hellerstein couldn't answer this but thought you might. we're trying to find the rest of and translation of the following childhood poem that seems to go "zaida, zaida vis dan tabac poushka, ich ville oich a smeck......" thanks for your time, steve sher and edith marshall 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 14:18:25 -0500 (EST) From: David Shneer Subject: Latinization of Yiddish Dear readers, I'm working on a dissertation chapter on Soviet Yiddish language reform and am writing a section on Latinization attempts. In some of my research, one Soviet linguist mentions two single-issue Yiddish journals that had come out in Latin letters, "Unser Shrift (NY, 1912)" and "Unhojb (Vilna, 1923" Does anyone have any information on these journals? My research, thus far, has not turned up much useful information. Thank you, David Shneer Berkeley 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 08:31:55 -0500 (EST) From: "mikhl herzog" Subject: 1) khoyzek 2) 'currants' Leslie Reich (9:062) asks about the derivation of 'Choizek' (khoyzek). At best, it is NOT of Hebrew origin, although it is spelled as if it were. It is among the words we might designate as "Hebreoid". I can't confirm my source for this, although I've tried. I believe the word has a North German origin and may be attested somewhere in Max Weinreich's _Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh_. My copy of the English translation (the version with an Index) has mysteriously disappeared. If anyone can find the source, I'd be grateful. Shaya Mitelman (9:062) is quite right: _porets(h)kes_ (also, variously stressed _po'zhetskes_ and _pozhe'tskes_) are 'currants', NOT 'peaches'! (Not to be confused with _po'zhemkes_ 'wild strawberries'.) Mikhl Herzog p.s. Since my earlier message, my copy of Weinreich's _Geshikhte_ has turned up, complete with 3 references to _khoyzek_, but NONE to its origin. I should say, of my own suggestion that the word is of North German origin, that its initial consonant [kh-] would preclude a German etymon. However, my still vague recollection is of an etymon in itial [h]. Can anyone help? M. H. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.067 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