Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 10.027 July 4, 2000 1) beyndl (Martin Green) 2) beyndl (Fay berger) 3) di zogerke (Martin Green) 4) di zogerke (Fay Berger) 5) di zogerke (Gershon Winer) 6) zay mir nit kayn feter.. (Chana Schachner) 7) Peretz's tsvey brider in English (Marvin Zuckerman) 8) opkirtzungs leksikon (Dovid Braun) 9) opkirtzungs leksikon (Itsik Goldenberg) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 20:51:01 -0500 From: Martin Green Subject: beyndl (A metaphor) The translation I am working on contains many references to topics that are raised in Mendele. With regard to Jack Berger's inquiry (10.024) about the use of bones in warding off the evil eye, I have the following passage. The author is describing an incident that occured when he was ten years old; on the way home from school one night, he was frightened by a wild boar and fainted: When I came to my senses, opened my eyes and looked around to see vu ikh bin in der velt, I saw myself lying in bed, oyf a hoykhen barg kishens, with wet towels on my forehead. Around my stood di tateh, di mameh, di shvester Pesheh - alle mit blaykhe, tzeshrockene punimer - and a house full of neighbors. Someone was waving a bone back and forth over my head: op-geton mir a "gute-luft": another sh'kheyneh, armed with a bissel zaltz, was warding of the "eyn-horreh". Di mameh hot ibber mayn kop oys-gegossen bley un vaks. And thanks to all these refuos un segulos, which they administered to me, I was able to emerge from this near-calamity a leybe-dikker. (From "Oyf Fremder Erd", by Falk Zolf, Winnipeg, 1945). Martin Green 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 21:06:22 -0400 (EDT) From: JuniperViv@aol.com Subject: beyndl The beyndl could be a thread (bendl). To do away with the "ayin hara" a red thread was used. Fay Berger 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 20:56:39 -0500 From: Martin Green Subject: di zogerke Nokh Charlotte Honigman-Smith's frage vegn di role fun der "zogerke": Di dozike kleyne maysseleh iz genummen fun der bukh "Oyf Fremder Erd", vus iz geshrieben fun an amoliker Winnipeger, Falk Zolf, vegn zayn yugent in Vays-Rusland in di yohren far der Ershter Velt-Milkhomme. Der mekhobber bashraybt do zayn eygenne muter: In the women's shul, she was the leading "zogerkeh"...every shabbos un yontif, all the wives would gather around her table...di "shtumme neshumos", nebbekh, who weren't blessed with the learning to be able to read on their own the holy letters (heylike oysyos'lekh), and they would therefore hang on the mameh's every word. Every Tisha-B'av in the evening, our little shtibeleh would be filled with those women, who had come to hear a "gruss" (greeting) from far-away Yerushalayim, and to weep together over the destruction of the heylikn Beys-Hamikdash, and also over their own "khurben", their own sacrifices, which continued unabated through their daily lives. The women sat on the ground, or on the lange, ibber-gekehrte kheder-benches, as though they were sitting shiva for a dear, departed family member, while the mameh, mit a veynen-dikker, tze-brokhener shtimmeh began to read for them the "Megillos Eykheh" (Book of Lamentations), the story of the khurben Yerushalayim, and the story of the "asareh herugei malkhut" (The Ten Martyrs). The tiny shtibeleh would soon be filled with tears, mit yellolos, mit krekhtzen un mit geveynen, as though they were takkeh mourning someone who had just died. And we "kleynvarg", sitting together in our corner, held tightly to one another, un' hobben oykh (also) mit-geveynt... Di dozike mayssehs zeynen genummen fun der bukh "Oyf Fremder Erd", vus iz geshrieben fun an amoliker Winnipeger, Falk Zolf, vegn zayn yugent in Vays-Rusland in di yohren far der Ershter Velt-Milkhomme. Martin Green 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 21:12:57 -0400 (EDT) From: JuniperViv@aol.com Subject: di zogerke There is a photo of a "zogerke" in a small red brochure from the Jewish Museum in NY. Perhaps there is such a painting in the Jewish Museum. Fay Berger 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 04:29:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Winer Subject: di zogerke Mention of the "zogerke" is to be found in Chaim Grade's book "Der Mame's Shabosim". Page 33. Relevant information can be deduced from pages 33 and 34. Gershon Winer 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 15:54:54 -0400 (EDT) From: CSJFERN@aol.com Subject: zay mir nit kayn feter... In response to Lilian Dubb (10.025), the expression as I know it from years ago is: Zay mir nit keyn feter un koyf mir nit keyn shikh. The closest idiomatic English translation would be: Don't do me any favors. I don't know why it would be used in payment of a debt unless there was ill will between the lender & the debtor. It literally means: Don't be my uncle (buddy) & don't buy me any shoes. Along w/don't do me any favors is the implicit -- or explicit -- admonition, keep your distance; you're not my intimate. I hope this helps. Chana Schachner 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 16:49:55 -0400 (EDT) From: "Marvin S. Zuckerman" Subject: peretz's tsvey brider in English translation In answer to Ron Biderman's query as to where there exists a translation of Peretz's "Tsvey Brider," there is one in "Volume III: Peretz" of the 3-volume set called "The Three Great Classic Writers of Modern Yiddish Literature" edited by Zuckerman and Herbst, published by Joseph Simon; also it can be found in Leftwich's anthology called "The Golden Peacock." Marvin Zuckerman 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 06:24:49 -0400 (EDT) From: David S Braun Subject: kirtsungen -- abbreviations A reference article on Yiddish abbreviations, compiled by yours truly, is to be found in the last issue of the YIVO publication _Yidishe shprakh_. I put it together in 1984 and the volume was published in 1986/88, I think. It doesn't include acronyms, notwithstanding the erroneous English title of the article (e.g. YIVO, TsIShO, etc.), but it is a fairly complete collection of Yiddish-only abbreviations (i.e. ones which Yiddish and Hebrew share and may thus be found in Hebrew collections). Dovid Braun Jerusalem 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 11:00:57 -0400 (EDT) From: robert goldenberg Subject: On Mendele 024, Zisel Sterlin asks about a list of yiddish abbreviations, such as "alef, alef, tsvey vovn" (romanizes as u.a."v, (i.e. un azoy vayter, or etc., and so on). You will find many such abbreviations within the text of Harkavi's 1928 Yiddish-English-Hebreyish Verterbukh, listed alphabetically. e.g. beys hey (b"h - abbrev. for borukh haShem) is listed on p.113, not on p.100 where you might expect it to be. Weinreich's dictionary also gives abbreviations within the text. Some entries are differ from those in Harkavy, e.g. instead of u.a"v he uses u.az"v, but they are also within the text rather than listed on a separate page of abbreviations. Interestingly, in his 1898 English-Yiddish/Yiddish-English Dictionary, Harkavy includes a separate page of English abbreviations (p. xvi), but I could not find a corresponding page of Yiddish abbreviations. Itsik Goldenberg Fort Erie, ON, Canada ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 10.027 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