Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 14.019 November 7, 2004 1) bakfolyes (Heather Valencia) 2) Karaites (Yechiel Reisner) 3) Esther Frumkin (Troim Handler) 4) Yiddish geography (Troim Handler) 5) Yiddish geography (Hugh Denman) 6) William Edlin (Arieh Lebowitz) 7) Jacob Pat (Arieh Lebowitz) Visit Mendele on the Web: http://www.mendele.net 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 28, 2004 From: valencia@onetel.com Subject: bakfolyes I am currently translating the novel _brilyantn_ by Esther Kreitman into English (to be published by David Paul Books in autumn 2005). I have had some great help from various people in finding the correct English equivalent for words connected with the diamond trade, but so far nobody seems to know what exactly "bakfolyes" means. She describes the small-time, minor diamond dealers as being those who deal in diamond-powder and "bakfolyes", and at one point she describes one such dealer poking through a little heap of it, trying to find tiny diamonds in it. She says that it looks like a pile of loose tobacco. I think this is the waste or leftovers from the process of either digging out the diamonds, or cleaving a rough diamond, but I am not sure and would be absolutely delighted if someone could tell me a) what exactly it is, and b) what the correct technical term would be in English. Heather Valencia Stirling, Scotland 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 28, 2004 From: yechielwarsaw@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Karaites Joachim Martillo [http://shakti.trincoll.edu/%7Emendele/vol14/vol14.018] refers to "Karaite Jewish Tatars." It should be stated that Karaites are not, in fact, Jews, but rather a sect that parted company with Judaism centuries ago. Traditional Judaism does not view them as Jews; le-havdil, the Nazis did not even view them as Jews. I am not clear on how they view themselves. Yechiel Reisner 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 28, 2004 From: Troim@webtv.net Subject: Re: Esther Frumkin In answer to Aaron Taub's entry oct.22 [vol.14.017], there is section on Esther Frumkin on pp.261-264 and p.269 (plus 2 rare photos) in Prof. Dovid Katz's new book _Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish_. Troim Handler 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 28, 2004 From: Troim@webtv.net Subject: re: Yiddish Geography Regarding Raysn, [http://www.shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol14/14.017], Prof.Dovid Katz published 2 articles in the Forverts in 1996 summarizing his own research on the word (details at http://www.dovidkatz.net/bibliography/bibliography1996b.jpg) A map showing the region appears on p.55 of his _Lithuanian Jewish Culture_ (2004), and there is more discussion of the name on pp.54 and 254 of the same volume. Troim Handler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 28, 2004 From: h.denman@ucl.ac.uk Subject: Re: Yiddish Geography [A portion of Hugh Denman's post in http://www.shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol14/14.007 was inadvertently omitted. Mendele apologizes for the error.] Reussen was the old German term for Russia, but in Jewish usage, and in its Yiddish form "Raysn", it's meaning was restricted to those parts of Russia accessible to Jewish migration since they lay in the the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and not in the Muscovite lands from which Jews were excluded, i.e. White Russia (meaning Western Russia, according the the scheme of chromatic designations of points of the compass which the Slavs had borrowed from the Mongols. n.b. this has nothing whatever to do with the political terms "White Russian" and "Red Russian" that came to designate the opposing sides in the Civil War). Hugh Denman 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 2, 2004 From: ariehnyc@prodigy.net Subject: William Edlin Can anyone help me ascertain the birth and death dates for William Edlin, editor of `Der Tog' in the 1930s? Please cite your source[s] in any response. Thanks! Arieh Lebowitz 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 7, 2004 From: ariehnyc@prodigy.net Subject: Online Guide to the Papers of Jacob Pat, 1935-1948 Back in 1994 [http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol04/vol04.030], a regular contributor mentioned and excerpted from the 1954 book by Jacob Pat, _shmuesen mit yidishe shrayber_, as part of an ongoing discussion on Y. Y. Trunk. At that time, a decade ago, relatively little was known about Pat outside of small circles. I am happy to report that at the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, at New York University, there is now a collection of Jacob Pat's papers. A rather decent finding aid can be found online at -- http://dlib.nyu.edu:8083/tamwagead/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=pat.xml&style=saxon01t2002.xsl Arieh Lebowitz ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 14.019 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu