Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 12.003 July 4, 2002 1) Dermonung farn tseforn zikh afn zumer (Joshua Fishman) 2) A new website (Goldie Sigal) 3) Yidish-vokh 2002 (Binyumen Schaechter) 4) Yiddish Seminar (Mordehay Yushkovsky) 5) Yiddish programs at universities (Marla Dunn) 6) Zypora Spaisman (Harold L. Orbach) 7) Super-Yiddish (Morrie Feller) 8) Seeking information about Yiddish records (Larry Rosenwald) 9) A Yiddish Communist Manifesto? (Barry Goldstein) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 22:31:37 -0400 (EDT) From: JoshuaAFishman@aol.com Subject: Dermonung farn tseforn zikh afn zumer (fun der fishman-fundatsye) Der termin far aplikatsiyes, in shaykhes mit proyektn af tsu shtarkn yidish tsvishn kinder un yugnt (bemeshekh funem yor 2003/tashna"g) iz oktober 15, 2002. Aplikatsyes muzn zayn af yidish un muzn farmogn a pinktlekhn budzhet (biz $2500) un a haskome-briv fun der amerikaner fun-shtayern-bafrayter-organizatsiye vos volt ufgepast af di bakumene fondn. Af tsu bakumen a kontolirke ("checklist") mit di detaln vegn dem neytikn inhalt fun an aplikatsye, zayt azoy gut un vendt zikh afn vayterdikn adres: fishman fundatsye, 3616 Henry Hudson Pkwy, Apt. 7B-N, Bronx, NY 10463. Dos iz oykh der adres tsu velkhn men darf lesof shikn di aplikatsiye gufe (3 kopyes). 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 20:05:25 -0400 (EDT) From: "gsigal" Subject: New website: Joe Fishstein Collection of Yiddish Poetry A GARMENT WORKER'S LEGACY: THE JOE FISHSTEIN COLLECTION OF YIDDISH POETRY is now online! [http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/fishstein] The Fishstein Collection, one of the finest private collections of its kind in the world, is housed in the Division of Rare Books and Special Collections at McLennan Library, McGill University. It consists of some 2300 Yiddish works, mostly poetry, and includes many rare volumes, most of which have been preserved in near mint condition by beautiful hand-made jackets fashioned by Joe Fishstein, the garment worker who amassed them. This extraordinary collection, which also includes unusual ephemeral items, such as albums of early 20th century postcards, photographs and trade union memorabilia, offers rich opportunities for research to scholars of Yiddish literature and 20th century social history. The catalogue of the Joe Fishstein Collection, A Garment Worker's Legacy, edited by Goldie Sigal, was published by McGill University Libraries in 1998 (ISBN 0-7717-0511-5). The book launch was accompanied at the time by a major exhibit of highlights from that collection. The new web site, an ambitious project of the McGill University Digital Collections Program, is both an electronic catalogue of close to 2300 entries, and a virtual exhibit of over 315 items (more than 800 images) from the Collection. The catalogue section enables the user to search and access the entries by electronic means, and includes other materials found in the published catalogue, such as its Preface by Ruth R. Wisse, a lengthy Introduction by the editor, the Indices, and the "Table of Name Equivalents" (from the Hebrew alphabet Yiddish to the accepted Library of Congress English version of an author's name.) The second section, the virtual exhibit, consists of the 1998 exhibit, augmented in content, and strengthened with hyperlinks and enlargement capacities. Photographs and video clips of the 1998 exhibition have also been included. It is hoped that the new website will serve as a rich resource for all those who are interested in Yiddish literature and the vibrant civilization that produced it. Goldie Sigal 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2002 22:58:48 -0400 Subject: Yiddish Event of the Year: Yidish-vokh 2002 From: Binyumen Schaechter The YIDISH-VOKH is an annual all-Yiddish event that has been going on now well over 20 years. It is a end-of-summer gathering of some 200 people from around the world for a week in Yiddish Land. Everything at the Yidish-vokh is in Yiddish. There's basketball, softball and volleyball in Yiddish, dancing and singing in Yiddish, lectures, discussions and workshops in Yiddish, concerts, campfires, game shows and films in Yiddish, swimming and boating in Yiddish, and even the children's program is run entirely in Yiddish. But equally important is that Yiddish is spoken in the dining room, on the porches, at the swimming pool, on the grass, everywhere. There are fluent and far-from-fluent Yiddish-speakers that come. Though the event occurs in New York State at the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the Yidish-vokh regularly attracts people from all over North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Japan !! Those that attend are observant and secular, singles and couples, parents with and without their children, spouses with and without their other half. All come in order to be in the place where one can live one's life - albeit for a week - entirely in Yiddish. This year the Yidish-vokh will take place from August 22 through August 28th, 2002. For more info, including FAQs, please check the Yugntruf website: www.yugntruf.org or call (212) 663-0433. __________________________ Di Yidish-vokh iz a yerlekh gesheenish vos geyt shoyn on hekher 20 yor. S'iz a sof-zumerdiker tsuzamenfor fun kemat 200 ire fun arum der gorer velt af a vokh in Yidish-land. Alts af der Yidish-vokh iz af yidish. Me shpilt koyshbol, netsbol un hilke-pilke af yidish, me tantst un zingt af yidish, me halt lektsyes, diskusyes un varshtatn af yidish, ale kontsertn, lager-fayern, shpiln un filmen zenen af yidish, me shvimt un shiflt zikh af yidish, un afile di kinder-program firt zikh in gantsn af yidish. Nor punkt azoy vikhtik iz vos me redt yidish in eszal, af di verandes, in shvimbaseyn, afn groz, umetum un iberal. Se kumen flisike un gor umflisike yidish-reders. Khotsh di Yidish-vokh geshet in shtat Nyu-york tsufusns fun di Berkshir-berg, tsit zi tomid tsu bateylikte het fun iber gants tsofn-amerike, dorem-amerike, eyrope, oystralye un yapan !! Se kumen frume un fraye, nisht khasene-gehate un porlekh, tates un mames vos kumen mit tsi on di kinder, bavaybte/bamante vos kumen mit un on di vayber/mener. Ale kumen kedey tsu zayn afn ort vu me ken zikh oyslebn - khotshbe af a vokh - durkhoys af yidish. Hay yor kumt di Yidish-vokh for funem 22tn bizn 28stn oygust 2002. Az ir vilt nokh protim, git a kuk afn Yugntruf-vebzaytl: www.yugntruf.org Az ir vet dernokh hobn nokh kashes, kent ir onklingen ba (212) 663-0433 oder shraybn yvokh@yugntruf.org . Binyumen Schaechter 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 16:13:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Yudenir Subject: Yiddish Seminar The 13th annual Seminar for Yiddish un Yiddishkayt will take place on 9 -30 July 2002 in the resthouse "Shrutborow" near Warshaw. The program includes: the Yiddish Language course (3 levels), the Yiddish Literature, Folklore, Singing and Drama . The cost of participation in seminar (accomodation, food, study tour in the area) is: 520$. With regards Mordehay Yushkovsky 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 11:02:02 -0400 (EDT) From: Subject: Yiddish programs at universities My name is Marla Dunn and I am an editorial intern at Moment magazine. I am currently working on a story about Yiddish programs at various colleges and universities. I was given this email address by Dr. Hellerstein at the University of Pennsylvania. I'm trying to find out if there's a complete list of colleges and universities that have Yiddish programs. If you could let me know, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks a lot and I look forward to hearing from you, Marla Dunn 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 06:40:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Harold L Orbach Subject: Zypora Spaisman, Lifelong Champion of Yiddish Theater, Dies at 86 From the New York Times Zypora Spaisman, Lifelong Champion of Yiddish Theater, Dies at 86 May 26, 2002 By DOUGLAS MARTIN Zypora Spaisman, who did everything to keep Yiddish theater alive, from producing plays to selling tickets to sweeping floors to her great love, acting (including not a few Jewish-mother roles), died on May 18 in Manhattan. She was 86. The Yiddish stage was the center of Mrs. Spaisman's life, from her girlhood in Poland to a Soviet labor camp to Paris and Montreal and finally to New York, where she became a principal force in maintaining the nation's only surviving Yiddish theater, the Folksbiene (People's Stage). She seems never to have made a penny for her efforts. "Nearly single-handedly, she led the pack in the fight to keep Yiddish theater going," said Eleanor Reissa, the artistic director of the Folksbiene, for which Mrs. Spaisman was once in charge of productions. In 1914 there were 14 Yiddish theaters in New York, and avant-garde movements like naturalism, expressionism and Stanislavsky's Method often found their first expression there. But the combined effects of the Holocaust, the diffusion and assimilation of American Jews and the aging of the immigrant population gnawed away at audience numbers. A bitter, often-quoted joke in Yiddish circles is that each time one of the Yiddish theater's remaining audience members dies, a seat is removed so it will not look empty. But dwindling numbers only heightened Mrs. Spaisman's determination. "My whole life has been about preserving the Yiddish language," she said in an interview. "Hitler didn't kill it. Neither did Stalin." Zypora Tanenbaum was born in Lublin, Poland, on Jan. 2, 1916. By the time she was 10, she was participating in town and school dramatic presentations in both Polish and Yiddish, a language that mingles Old High German and Hebrew, with Slavic and Romance elements. She graduated from nursing school, became a midwife in 1933, and married Joseph Spaisman in 1938. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, she saw her sister shot. The Spaismans fled to the Russian part of Poland, and from there were taken to a labor camp in the Urals. Mrs. Spaisman delivered more than 1,000 babies while in the camp. Each Sunday, she would organize a Yiddish theatrical presentation in a different barracks, said her son, Ben-Ami, who survives her, along with his two children. When Mrs. Spaisman returned to Poland after the war, she learned that all the members of her family were dead, as were most of the country's Jews. She acted in the Yiddish theater in Lodz, working with the great Yiddish comedians Shimen Dzigan and Yisroel Shumakher. In Paris and Montreal, where she waited with her husband and son for permission to enter the United States, she also worked in the theater. The Spaismans came to New York in 1955, and she sought stage work at the Hebrew Actors Union, but was rebuffed. So she went to the Folksbiene, which she had heard about from a Polish director. The company, which opened in 1915, is now the oldest continually performing Yiddish theater in the world. Although Mrs. Spaisman never worked with the renowned actress Molly Picon, she appeared with many of the other luminaries of the Yiddish stage. She often created characters that combined surface humor with inner wisdom. The publication Back Stage called her "the grande dame," and The Jewish Week referred to her as "a national treasure." Reviewing "The Land of Dreams" in The New York Times in 1989, Richard F. Shepard called her "the mistress of the glumly comic look and acerbic tongue." Mrs. Spaisman's fans seemed to respond to her performances as if the characters she played were real. Once when she portrayed a shabbily dressed town gossip, two women met her outside the theater with new stockings and blouses. "You make us laugh, you make us cry," they told Mrs. Spaisman, according to The Jerusalem Post. "You're so poorly dressed, we brought you these things." In 1989, Mrs. Spaisman appeared in the movie "Enemies: A Love Story," directed by Paul Mazursky and starring Anjelica Huston and Ron Silver. During her acting career, she won an Obie Award, a Drama Desk Award and a New York City People's Choice Award. Mrs. Spaisman, who lived in Manhattan, supported herself by working as a recreation director at the Jewish Institute for Geriatric Care, first in Manhattan and then in New Hyde Park, N.Y. On a typical day, she left for work at 7 and returned at 5 to cook dinner for her husband and son. Then she went to rehearsal. Performances were on weekends. Mr. Spaisman died in 1997. In 1998, Mrs. Spaisman was shocked when the Folksbiene board eliminated her position - executive producer - to hire younger producers attuned to younger audiences. She refused to retire gracefully. "They wanted to give me a nice party," she said in an interview in The Times in 2000, "to get money in my name and give it to the Folksbiene. And I should step down. I have to be such an idiot?" Ms. Reissa said she wanted Mrs. Spaisman to remain as a valuable consultant; Mrs. Spaisman refused. With her death, the three people who long steered the Folksbiene are now gone: Benjamin Schechter, managing director, died in 1994, and Morris Adler, president, died in December at 107. After what Mrs. Spaisman insisted on viewing as her dismissal, she took the Folksbiene's mailing list with her and started a new Yiddish theater company, the Yiddish Public Theater. She cast herself in a starring role in November 2000 in its first and so far only production: "Grine Felder" ("Green Fields"). A review in Back Stage said that in her role as a mother, she "proves that passing time cannot deter a real trouper." 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:42:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Morris Feller Subject: Super-Yiddish I have recently seen on the Internet that some Yiddish speakers are looking for apartments in close proximity to other Yiddish speakers so that they will have more opportunities to converse with each other. It may be a nice thought, but on a larger scale it is not likely to have a pronounced effect on the survival and spread of the Yiddish language. Some time ago I posted on this list a quote from a friend of mine who said: "a loshn muz hobn a gas". And I suggested at that time that the Internet can be considered to be a "gas". In fact, it may even be a "super gas", and it can give rise to "Super-Yiddish". Why do I say this? Because the Internet enables us to communicate in ways which were not even dreamed of in the past. We can exchange messages in real Yiddish with partners (almost) anywhere in the world. In English it is possible to "chat" with someone on the Internet. This is instant give-and-take much like a conversation. I am not sure if anyone has tried doing this with Yiddish, but I am sure that some day it will be possible. And who knows? It may not be long before there will be an audio component available which will allow oral conversation. Then the need to live close to other Yiddish speakers will be obviated. Morrie Feller Phoenix 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 12:39:05 -0400 (EDT) From: "Lawrence A. Rosenwald" Subject: Seeking information about Yiddish records Dear Friends, Tayere Mendelyaner - A colleague of mine came across some Yiddish and Hebrew records - and I do mean "records," vinyl disks, 10" - and is wondering whether the material recorded there is widely available, or is, perhaps, quite rare. Let me describe it briefly, and perhaps anyone who has knowledge about these things could get in touch with my colleague, Fran Malino, by direct email (fmalino@wellesley.edu). The records (mostly Columbia and Decca) include some Bialik songs sung by Bracha Zfirah; a Levin-Kipnis "Chanuka Song" called - sic - "Pancakes"; some cantorial material recorded by Moshe Rudin; a Sholem Asch biblical story for children called "In the Beginning," narated by David Niles (recorded at "Asch Recording Studios"); and a recital by Victor Chenkin that includes a number of songs "sung in Yiddish," incl. "Mai Komashma Lon," a kadish (Levi Yitskhok's?), "Bim Bam," "Scholoch S'Udes," "Freilachs," 'Der Rebbe Elimelech" etc. I know this is a bit outside Mendele's usual reach, but hope it has enough to do with Yiddish that Mendelyaner will respond to it with their usual generosity of spirit! A dank, Larry Rosenwald 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 17:30:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Barry Goldstein Subject: A Yiddish Communist Manifesto? On page 74 of _Yiddish, A Nation of Words_, Miriam Weinstein mentions a Yiddish translation, put out by the Bund, of the Communist Manifesto, with an introduction by Chaim Zhitlovsky (the intro was titled "Yiddish -- Why?"). Any leads towards a copy would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much. Barry Goldstein ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 12.0003 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