Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 09.079 April 22, 2000 1) A Talk by Dina Abramowicz (Louis Fridhandler) 2) Dina Abramowicz (Sam Kweskin) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 14:10:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Lfridhan@aol.com Subject: A Talk by Dina Abramowicz I, too, remember, with admiration, pleasure and feelings of loss, Dina Abramowicz: her brilliance, her energy in her mid-seventies as she frisked up and down a step ladder to quickly find an answer to some question from a reader or from someone on the phone. In firm and authoritative voice, blue eyes flashing with intelligence, she switched easily (it seemed) from language to language. I was intimidated at first as I could tell she brooked no idle talk from anyone. She had no time for that. I soon found out how kind and helpful she was. Once she referred me to one of her Yiddish publications, a talk accepting an award. Reading it, I felt that this important piece, alternately charming and informative and pain-filled, should be more widely available to an English-reading audience. I have translated it. In it, she quotes a poem by Sutzkever. Parts of it are beyond my translation skills, so I have omitted those few parts. I believe, however, that the meaning she intended by her quotation is transmitted. Here is my translation of her piece in Yidishe Kultur, 8:37-43, Nov.-Dec., 1982. LET NOT OUR ROOTS BE OBLITERATED... by Dina Abramowicz Dear friends: It is a great honor to receive the Zhitlovski prize, and I must admit I do not feel worthy. But friend Itshe Goldberg would not be dissuaded, and I had to yield. I humbly accept this honor and understand that I am simply an instrument through which is expressed recognition of the work I do and the institution with which it is linked: The Institute for Jewish Research, YIVO, and its library. Friend Goldberg (who probably breathes ink and paper rather than fresh air), and people like him, understand very well the significance of libraries; that a library houses the treasure of a people's culture. Its absence would make it impossible to forge the spiritual connection between generations, that golden chain that links past, present and future. This applies to all libraries, but a Yiddish library of the post-Holocaust era bears an even greater mission. The enemy not only wanted to destroy our people, but also attacked its culture. They began with burning books, and when the war broke out, ordered its Ministry of Culture to confiscate and destroy all Jewish books in occupied territories. The effort largely succeeded: Nowadays, there are almost no Yiddish books in all of Europe. In America, too, where the Jewish culture is a transplanted one, a Yiddish book (especially an old one) is quite rare. Therefore, a Yiddish library (especially one representing the creativity of Eastern European Yiddish culture) bears a double mission: to give pleasure and contentment in the written word, and to rescue the written word from the storm on a kind of Noah's ark. Often, only one copy of its kind could be saved. My acquaintanceship with Jewish/Yiddish libraries began during my years in the Vilna of former times. Known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania, Vilna could take pride in her libraries which were famous in all the Jewish world. One of them was the Strashun library, founded by the maskil, Matthias Strashun, at the end of the 19th century. The library, which represented Torah and Lithuanian Jewish scholarship, was very rich in rare books (even incunabula), and was a typical Vilna phenomenon: besides religious books, it included the great achievements of the haskole era as well as modern Jewish/Yiddish literary creativity. Students of the secular Jewish schools (I was one of them) could and did benefit from the library. Another great communal library in Vilna was the lending library of the Society for the Dissemination of Enlightenment [St. Petersburg], which contained Jewish books in various languages. The YIVO library, founded together with YIVO in 1925 made its own contribution to the richness of character of the Vilna library-ambience. It was designed to be an academic and research library whose aim encompassed (exhaustively and systematically) the whole gamut of Jewish/Yiddish creative activity from earliest times to the present day, from classic works to trash novels, from historical documents to fly-leaves, wall posters and creative activity of people in general. That was a rather novel undertaking, an effort to create a comprehensive collection to serve as a firm foundation for scientific research into Eastern European Jewry and its culture. In overwhelming measure, that was a culture in Yiddish. The effort succeeded quite well. In the 13-year existence of YIVO (until the outbreak of World War II), YIVO amassed a library of over 100,000 volumes, among which were extremely rare specimens. Let us cite a couple of examples. One of them was the original edition of Mendl Lefin's translation of "Proverbs" into Yiddish (Tarnopol, 1814). The language was innovative. Mendl Lefin did not employ the archaic, "canonized" mode of expression [ivre-taytsh: stylized archaic Yiddish. L.F.], but the spoken language of his time. This was a highly revolutionary advance. He used Slavisms and ordinary, every-day words. Many scholarly Jews of that time considered his work blasphemous, but Mendl Lefin's aim was to bring Holy Writ closer to the ordinary, toiling masses, and to teach them wisdom in their own language. Another rare specimen was a booklet with the sacred title, Tsafnat Paneyakh [Revealer of Secrets. L.F.]. As is known, it is the nickname of Joseph the Wise [given to him by the Egyptian Pharaoh: Genesis 41, 45. L.F.] who could interpret dreams and generally hidden matters. The booklet bore its fine name because it laid bare a secret: the existence of an unknown continent. The sub-title was "Discovery of America." According to Zalman Reyzen's information, this was the first book about America to reach the Jews of Eastern Europe. Besides books, YIVO had organized a comprehensive archival collection of newspapers. Organized and preserved were the press of Poland, Soviet Russia, and all countries of Jewish emigration including, of course, America. Remarkably, with regard to Poland, they collected not only the newspapers of great centers, but also the modest local press of provincial towns. Thus, one could find such newspapers as Byalistok Lebn (Byalistok Life), Lubliner Togblat (Lublin Daily), Palyesier Shtime (Voice of Palyesi), and others. Their significance was that they reflected local Jewish life, the life of Jewish masses right where they lived, as seen with their own eyes. Such an approach to materials (in modern scientific terms: primary sources) was very remarkable at that time, and bears witness to the pioneering spirit and far-sightedness of the founders of YIVO. In the first rank of its founders were Zalman Reyzen, the researcher of the Yiddish language and literature, and Dr. Max Weinreich, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of our time. The fate of YIVO, its library and archives in the Holocaust period is a special chapter in the long history of Jewish Martyrology. The same YIVO building that was built with so much effort and fine hopes, and was the center of work on Jewish/Yiddish culture for the whole world, was transformed by the Germans into a garbage dump into which they threw books and archival treasures from all Jewish libraries and museums in Vilna. Herman Kruk, supervisor of the Vilna Ghetto library, describes (in his diary of the Vilna Ghetto) what he saw when he visited the YIVO building. Papers, books, files with rare documents were scattered all over the ground, stepped on, dirty, mixed up, chaotic beyond description. Quite a large portion of the treasure was discarded by the Germans as garbage or used as pulp to make paper. However, after a time, even they perceived that their "culture-purification" was barbarous and worked against their interests: the materials could be used in their own research institutes, or sold for ready cash. They then ordered the Vilna Judenrat to appoint a committee of experts to select those materials of value. To that committee was appointed a group of learned people and writers, among them the scientific collaborator of YIVO, Zelik Kalmanovitsh, and the poet, Abraham Sutskever. This group truly displayed a spirit of self-sacrifice. Working under the watchful eye of the Gestapo who could have shot them to death on the spot for the slightest suspicion of illegal activity, they managed to rescue a number of rare books and documents, and smuggle them into the Ghetto. What the people of this group suffered (as well as those of the world of Jewish culture in general), as they witnessed the destruction of the treasures of their culture, can perhaps best be conveyed by a poet. Here are a few stanzas of Sutzkever's poem, "Kernels of Wheat": [Part of the poem in English] Before the bullet finds me, I bring you a packet of gifts: Old pages of Talmud. Words fashioned on parchment through thousands of harrowing years. As though I were shielding an infant, I run holding voices of Jews; I grope blindly; The soul shall not be slaughtered. O my arms, reach, reach into fire; Exult, for the essence endures! What anguish To witness a stray page of writing so sacred Borne off on a gust thick with smoke. I choke on secret poems. I dig, I plant manuscripts; When waves of despair dash over me, I think then of Egypt: the story of kernels of wheat. The poem is entitled "Kernels of Wheat" because the poet was reminded in the midst of his despair, of a story he had read somewhere: that kernels of wheat, found buried in an Egyptian pyramid for thousands of years, had again sprouted when sown in fresh earth. His prophetic vision was, in part, realized. The books and documents that the committee members had smuggled into the Vilna Ghetto were recovered after the liberation and transferred to YIVO. They are known as the Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection. The first edition of Mendl Lefin's "Proverbs" (cited earlier) belongs to that collection. Obviously, however, only a few items could be rescued that way. The other classified books and archival materials remained in German hands, and were exported to Germany. An act of historical justice may be read into the fact that the stolen Jewish/Yiddish cultural treasures were found in defeated, occupied Germany, and sent on to YIVO. This, of course, offers only partial satisfaction: no one can return to us members of the committee who were killed, and no one will replace the countless Jewish/Yiddish cultural documents that have been forever lost. The Vilna materials were handed over to the New York branch of YIVO in the early fifties. However, the YIVO library had already started to function on American soil in 1940 when YIVO headquarters were officially transferred to New York. The founder, creator and organizer of the New York YIVO library was Mendl Elkin, the first librarian. "The Central Jewish/Yiddish Library and Archives" had already been organized with his participation. In October, 1939, the library was incorporated into the American section of YIVO, and in 1940, it became the YIVO library. Mendl Elkin was a wonderful person, with great enthusiasm for Yiddish and Yiddish culture, with connections in all aspects of the world of Yiddish culture of his time. Thanks to his connections, he obtained for the YIVO library such important collctions as the Morris Vintchevsy Library, the great archives of Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky, and the Kalmen Marmor treasury of books. As he used to say, he was never too lazy to creep into attics and cellars, picking up Jewish/Yiddish books that no longer had a place in American-Jewish "living rooms." He was, indeed, properly proud of his achievement. I remember how he once remarked to a guest: it is now difficult to find a Jewish/Yiddish book that is not in the YIVO library. The Jewish books (more correctly, the books in Yiddish) are, indeed, the heart of the YIVO library. Dr. Eliezer Marvik has estimated that we hold the major portion of the Hebrew-Yiddish section of the Congress library in Washington [National Library of Congress? L.F.], the largest collection of Jewish/Yiddish books in our country. It is certainly not a complete collection (we strive to make it so), and we are grateful to every one who wishes to help us in the effort. The length of my talk is already, it seems to me, straining your patience. However, I would like to say a few words on what the YIVO library does, besides collecting. One other important task is preservation. Collecting is not enough. The paper on which the older books were printed has a life span of about 50 to 100 years. For a rather large number of our books, the limit has been reached. The books are falling apart, the yellowed paper crumbles. We can save these books photographically on microfilm. This is a costly procedure which the YIVO library is trying to advance little by little. We have microfilmed European Yiddish publications, a collection entitled, "Yiddish Classics on Microfiche." This includes the work of the classic writers (Mendele, Sholem-Aleichem, and Peretz) that were published during the lifetime of each, and are so-called authorized editions. We are now microfilming YIVO's rare collection of Yiddish children's literature, estimated to consist of over 1000 items. The third field in which the YIVO library labors is bibliography. For decades, we have contributed an annual list of Jewish/Yiddish books to the "Yearbook of Jewish/Yiddish bikherrat." On the basis of our collections, one of our co-workers has put together a list of Yizkor-books (hundreds have been published). This list is now heavily used for research in history and genealogy. A current project is preparation of a comprehensive bibliography of all Yiddish books, a catalog to be issued in book form. This is a rather ambitious project, involving tens of thousands of books. Still far from realization, we are working on it. Our fourth and last field is reference. The fundamental bibliographies of Jewish/Yiddish books concerning the Holocaust period have been based on YIVO collections. Work on "The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language" was in large measure carried out using YIVO materials. The same may be said for the eight volumes of the "Lexicon of Modern Yiddish Literature" which the Culture Congress has issued over the years. Professors, and young academic people visit us often. Besides them, we also serve all interested people. It may interest you to hear a couple of examples that may give you an idea of the scope of problems that can be resolved in a library, especially a Yiddish library. Among the many telephone calls in the course of a day, we received one in Russian. The woman apologized for speaking Russian. She had been in the country a total of just six months, still had no command of English, and knew no Yiddish. Her story was written up in a Yiddish journal issued in Soviet Russia, "Sovetish Heymland." She came from Odessa, and during the great war between the Soviet Union and Germany [World War II], she was an underground fighter, a Partisan. Besides her gun, she loved another instrument, namely the guitar, and she often used to appear with it to play at large and small gatherings. This combination of gun and guitar made her famous, and "Sovetish Heymland" had sent one of its correspondents from Moscow to interview this interesting personality: a plain woman of the people, who had selected for herself two such unusual occupations. Now she wished to show to her friends and neighbors here (as well as her grandchildren who had come along in the meantime) the issue that told all about her, and which included her picture. Could we help? The answer was yes. We had a complete set of that journal, and offered to make a copy of the article, but a Xerox copy was of no interest. She wanted the journal itself. (It is quite something else to see the original rather than a copy.) Luckily, we had a duplicate. The woman was happy, and for us it was very satisfying to help a Soviet Jewish woman who had arrived in a friendly, but alien land, and wanted to retrace her lost past. A second case, also quite meaningful, involved a young woman born in America. She, too, was searching (perhaps unconsciously) for her lost roots. Her father had died not long before, and during the unveiling of his gravestone, the Rabbi had recited a poem [in Yiddish]. Only a few words stuck in her memory. She knew no Yiddish, but two words she remembered were klang (sound), and gezang (singing). She very much wished to get the whole poem. Was it possible? These words were, indeed, suited to the occasion. They were from one of Abraham Reyzen's poems (Collected Poems, New York, 1951). Two stanzas of that poem are carved on his gravestone and read: Zing, neshome zing, Kurts der veg, tsi lang -- S'endikt say vi say Vi a vayt gezang.... Zing, neshome, zing Lebn heyst -- gezang, Un dernokh vet zayn Sheyn der viderklang .... [My translation, L.F.] Sing, my soul, sing! Be the trail short or long, No matter; it ends As a distant song. To sing is to live! Then sing, my soul, sing; And later, a beautiful Echo shall ring. The young woman could not read Yiddish. We read the poem aloud to her, and tears welled in her eyes as she stared at us, stunned. I have set forth this example which seems to me symbolic: we try to ensure that the sounds [of our culture] shall not be effaced without an echo; that our roots shall not become entangled and erased. Let us hope for success. Louis Fridhandler 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 20:54:10 -0400 (EDT) From: ESSAIKAY@aol.com Subject: Dina Abramowicz I am among the many hundreds--and even thousands--who profited from the kindnesses and culture and knowledge of Dina Abramowicz. In the years 1978-1981, while issuing the quarterly "Vilkija", the genealogical newsletter of relatives and friends who came from that beknighted village west of Kovno, that wonderful librarian was able to practically take me by the hand to show me where, how and which to search for information. She was a lighthouse among librarians, a mistress of her 'fach", and she will long be remembered and missed and honored. Sam Kweskin Boca Raton, Fl ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 09.079 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