Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 10.021 June 19, 2000 1) Leon Blank (Henik Sapoznik) 2) Leon Blank (Reinhard Hahn) 3) Leon Blank (Peter Gutmann) 4) Leon Blank (John Burke) 5) Leon Blank (Itsik Goldenberg) 6) Yiddish in the camps (Ellen Prince) 7) Yiddish in the camps (Miriam Isaacs) 8) orl v. goy (Aaron Krishtalka) 9) "shikt arayn a boyer" (Yankev Berger) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 14:43:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Sapoznik@aol.com Subject: Leon Blank; Volhynian dialect As to the query about Leon Blank. He was a renowned deklamirer, singer and dramatic reader who was influenced by the staged readings of people like my great uncle Elihu Tenenholtz. His repertoire included works by Jacob Gordon and Sholom Aleichem. Interested Mendelyaner can hear some of his 78 rpm recordings which are in the YIVO (his recording careeer included 8 discs made for Victor and Columbia from 1917-1928.) The best known of these was his 1917 recording "Der Fuks un di Zayg b/w Der Yidisher May written by Morris Rosenfeld.) Also: when talking about the Volhynian dialect don;t forget some truly unique variants used in my parent's shtut Rovne, such as "nivint" for "noyent". Henik Sapoznik 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 18:37:01 -0400 (EDT) From: "R. F. Hahn" Subject: Leon Blank Bob Poe asked, "Who is Leon Blank?" I assume that Blank was the one-time famous singer/songwriter and vaudeville actor who lived in Boston in the early 20th century. I understand _libling_ as 'darling', 'beloved', 'famous and favored', here in reference to a public figure, thus ... der grester libling fun boston The foremost darling of Boston kumt tsu un[d]z oyf yontef will be joining us for the holiday der velt barimter kinstler, der grester the world-famous artist/performer, the greatest kharakter sh[u]shpiler oyf der yidishe bihne character actor on the Yiddish stage der alter - imer yunger leon blank the old and always young Leon Blank Two web references: (http://www.neystadt.org/moshkow/lat/DETEKTIWY/STAUT/cooks.txt) Reks Staut - Rex Stout (1896-1975) _Too Many Cooks * Slishkom mnogo povarov_, 1938 [cut] Vy znaete Leona Blanka, nashego lyubimogo Leona, odnogo iz luchshih? Vy znaete, chto on sejchas prebyvaet v zabvenii, bez dela i bez reputacii, v malen'kom klube v gorode pod nazvaniem Boston? [cut] "You know Leon Blank, our beloved Leon Blank, one of the best? Did you know that he currently lives forgotten, without occupation and without fame, in a small club in Boston, a city of ill repute? ..." [my translation from Russian (a Russian translation from English, I assume)] (http://www.hollanderbooks.com/cat7mus.htm) One of Blank's publications: "Dos Zweite Vayb / The Second Wife." Words by Leon Blank. Music by Perlmutter and Wohl. 1. Avi Yesomim. 2. Kadish. 3. Der Shidach is geshlossen. 4. Nor Fun Fun. NY, Hebrew Publishing Co., nd. Bifolium wraps, 8 pp. Regards, Reinhard "Ron" Hahn Seattle, USA 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 13:45:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Peter Gutmann Subject: Leon Blank Bob Poe asks about words in a flyer advertising a performance by a Leon Blank(?) (10.019). "libling" is "darling", in the sense of "everybody's darling" still in use in modern German 'Liebling', so der "grester libling fun boston" is "Boston's most favourite / best loved ___" the [u] in "sh[u]shpiler" should probably be an [oy] so that the word is today "shoyshpiler" (actor, German: Schauspieler). Neither Lockwood (Lehrbuch der modernen jiddischen Sprache, 1995) nor Weinreich (College Yiddish, 5, 1971) account for a spelling of the diphthong /oy/ using only one letter - they only list vov yud. However, Birnbaum (Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache, 5, 1988) mentions a spelling of /oy/ using what he calls a "choilem" (khoylem), a vov with a diacritical dot above. The first edition of this Yiddish grammar appeared in Leipzig and Vienna in 1918; the flyer is dated 1928 and appears in a daytshmerish spelling ( in 'bihne' to indicate long /i/, etc.), so Birnbaum's description seems to me to be closer to the author of the handbill than more the more recent ones. A "kharakter shoyshpiler" would then be the Yiddish equivalent of the German "Charakterschauspieler", i.e. an actor who is good at acting out the traits of character of his/her part. So I guess the event was either a reading or a theatrical performance of more or less literary texts ('_kharakter_ shoyspiler' suggests poetic or even tragic texts). Peter Gutmann 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 14:13:09 -0400 (EDT) From: john burke Subject: Leon Blank What is the word I've written as "sh[u]shpiler"? This has to be cognate with German "Schauspieler", i.e. "stage-player" or actor. > What would "libling" mean in this > context? My guess would be that the actor is being described as "Boston's favorite." John Burke 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 12:17:29 -0400 (EDT) From: robert goldenberg Subject: Leon Blank In response to Bob Poe's query about Leon Blank (V. 10.019), Blank was a prominent actor on the Yiddish stage, in Rumania in the 1880s, and in America into the 1920s and likely later. Born in 1867 in Kishinev, his family soon moved to Rumania . He sang in synagogue choirs as a child, but was attracted to Yiddish theatre. In 1886, he joined Mogulesco's travelling troupe and emigrated to America. He started as a member of the chorus, but soon became an actor. He was one of the founders of the Hebrew Actor's Union in 1899.In the 1920s he starred in many of Gordin's plays at the National Theatre, Liberty Theatre and Public Theatre in New York. For a time he was a member of a Yiddish theatre company in Philadelphia, and was often on the road performing across America (which perhaps accounts for the 1928 handbill from Boston). His memoirs were serialized in Der Forverts (Oct 5/28 - Jan. 29/29). (Most of the above information was gleaned from Zilberzweig's Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater. Nahma Sandrow in "Vagabond Stars," relates interesting anecdotes involving Blank.) Itsik Goldenberg 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 21:19:17 -0400 (EDT) From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Yiddish in the camps Miriam Weinstein (10.020) writes: I am assuming that Yiddish functioned as a common language among inmates, and that Nazis spoke German only. Is this correct? While Yiddish functioned as a common language among many inmates, one should keep in mind that the camps contained many non-Yiddish- speaking Jews (and who didn't speak German either) -- those from North Africa, Greece, Corfu, Italy, etc etc. Primo Levi discusses some of the language problems in Auschwitz in his works (tho he spoke German, unlike most of his Italian Jewish inmates). And there's a superb movie, Triumph of the Spirit, about a young Greek Jewish boxer, also in Auschwitz. Also, if you include the Slavic and Baltic camp personnel among 'the Nazis', then I'm sure they spoke their Slavic or Baltic language (Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian...) and probably didn't speak much German at all. Ellen Prince 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 01:47:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Miriam Isaacs Subject: Yiddish in the camps To Miriam Weinstein's question, yes, Yiddish was the Jewish lingua franca and because German is so close there was a whole lingo and use of the Semitic component so that the enemy would not understand. There is a lexicon of these code words that was published. The Italian Jewish writer, survivor, Primo Levi actually learned at least some Yiddish in the camps and later studied it in Italy. Yiddish was also the lingua franca of the post war refugeee DP camps with many publications in Yiddish that came out there. Miriam Isaacs 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 21:35:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Krishtalka Subject: orl v. goy Unz hot men gelernt az ven der goy farshteyt vos 'goy' meynt (un ver farshteyt es nisht? Martin Luther hot es gut farshtanen in zayne antisemitishe shriftn in 16tn yorhundert), zogn kluge khevre 'orl', kdey der orl zol nisht visn az eem meynt men. Mayn tate fleg oykh zogn 'krist' un 'kristn' (far a froy). 'Der orl' badayt a spetsifisher mentch; 'der goy' ken ondaytn dem klal nisht-yeedn. Kimat dos enlekhe hob ikh gehert do (in Montreal): onshtot 'shvartser' - ontsudaytn a neger - zogt men 'royter', er zol nisht farshteyn as vegn eem redt men! We were taught to use 'orl' out of politeness when the non-Jew present is likely to know what 'goy' means (and 'goy' is widely known: see Martin Luther's 16th c. antisemitic pamphlets). My father would also use the yiddish masculine or feminine for 'Christian'. In usage an 'orl' is always an individual; the 'goy' can denote the general category of non-Jews. Similar in purpose is the use (heard here in Montreal) of 'royter' (red) instead of 'shvartzer' (black). Aaron Krishtalka 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 20:28:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Jack Berger Subject: shikt arayn a boyer If fraynt Gusoff believes that reference is made to a peasant, is not the word 'poyer' rather than 'boyer?' A 'boyer' sounds like someone who builds things. A 'poyer' is a peasant, for sure. Regards Yankev Berger ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 10.021 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