Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 14.020 November 15, 2004 1) Esther Frumkin (David Shneer) 2) Table Tennis in Yiddish (Sidney Rosenfeld) 3) "The Yiddisha Rag" (Larry Rosenberg) 4) Haynt (Bob Becker) 5) "unter Sorele's vigele" (Paula Eisenstein Baker) 6) Bargisrol (Morten Thing) 7) "a balegole lid" (Avraham Chasid) 8) tsviyun (Sonia Kovitz) Visit Mendele on the Web: http://www.mendele.net 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 8, 2004 From: dshneer@du.edu Subject: Re: Esther Frumkin On Esther Frumkin, see also my new book _Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture_ (Cambridge, 2004). David Shneer 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 11, 2004 From: Sidney.Rosenfeld@oberlin.edu Subject: Table Tennis in Yiddish Jewish eminence in interwar European table tennis is, or was, a well-known fact. The list of national team members and national and world champions from Hungary, Austria, Poland, Romania, et al is long. At the 1930 World Championships, Lithuania, for example, was represented by M. Blumental, E. Glikman, M. Glikman, Khone Simensas, H. Urban, and Samuelis Vitkindas--with one probable exception all Jews. "Officially," i.e., as national team members, these players probably spoke Lithuanian (though they surely knew Yiddish). But could they have even talked table tennis in Yiddish? Did an established terminology exist? Are there sources for it? Sidney Rosenfeld 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 11, 2004 From: lrosenwald@wellesley.edu Subject: "The Yiddisha Rag" Tayere Mendelyaner, Recently my wife and I were at the National Yiddish Book Center (I was performing in a Yiddish art song concert); my wife, who's a pianist and is planning a concert that will include some ragtime pieces, saw on some wall of the Center the cover of a publication called "The Yiddisha Rag [sic]." The sheet music isn't available through the center, and YIVO doesn't have it either, but perhaps some reader of Mendele could help me get a copy? The piece is by "Jos. H. McKeon, Harry M. Piano [sic], and W. Raymond Walker," and the publisher is Harry von Tilzer. I'd be most grateful for any help - a hartsikn dank, al dos guts, Larry Rosenwald 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 14, 2004 From: bobbecker@kc.rr.com Subject: Haynt I am starting a project concerning Jewish-Polish History. Chaim Finklestein was the last editor of Haynt, the Jewish Daily newspaper in Warsaw, Poland. His book by the same name, chronicles Jewish life in Poland between 1908 and 1939. I am a friend of Yadviga Finklestein, Chaim Finklestein's widow. She is 93 and lives at Village Shalom in Kansas, USA. She gave me permission of reproduce Haynt and display it on this website: www.becker-ks.com/haynt. Haynt was never published in English and may contain historical information previously unknown to English-only historians . The website makes Haynt available to Yiddish readers and seeks volunteers to translate a few pages each into English. I will send a CD containing the complete book to any one who will translate ten pages. As I receive these translations, I will add the the English pages to this website and credit the translators for their contribution. I would live to correspond with anyone who would be interested in this project? Bob Becker 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 14, 2004 From: eisenbak@stthom.edu Subject: "unter Sorele's vigele" This is a textual-musical question; I hope I've made it intelligible to non-musicians! I have a musical score to an arrangement labeled "Unter Sorele's vigele" in which (a) there is no text indicated anywhere and (b) there is music for a second verse! Further, the musical notation for the beginning of the second verse makes it clear that the verse started NOT with eighth notes the way the song usually starts, i.e., four short syllables or two iambs ("Un-ter Sor'-le's"), but with quarter notes, i.e., two long syllables or a spondee. I don't know a second verse to "Unter Sorele's vigele." Does anyone know a second verse to the song in which the words in the first measure were set to quarter notes? The only second verse I have found is in a collection by Y.L. Cahan, but the words do NOT fit quarter notes. The arrangement, some of you will not be surprised to learn, is by composer Leo Zeitlin, after a setting by "J. Schejnin." I would also welcome information about "J. Schejnin"! The manuscript score was located at YIVO by musicologist Chana Mlotek. Many thanks and apologies for multiple postings. Private replies, unless you think they are of interest to the readership. Paula Eisenstein Baker 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 15, 2004 From: mthing@ruc.dk Subject: bargisrol In 1833 in Rendsburg (Schleswig) a book about Yiddish appeared with the interesting title: _Nothwendiger Einblick ins sogenannte Juden-Ebr„isch, oder W”rterbuch fr die Gojim, die lernen solle zu seyn Chochum, und wollen begreifen schmussen als a Bargisrol, Hrsg. von einem Occidentalen_ (35 pp). Does anybody know the meaning of the word: 'bargisrol'? Morten Thing Roskilde, Denmark 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 15, 2004 From: abchasid@netvision.net.il Subject: "a balegole lid" Does anyone out there have information about this yiddish song: "zol ikh zayn A rov", also known as "a balegole lid"? Who is the author? What are the words? yasher koyekh for any help Avraham Chasid 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: November 15, 2004 From: Sonia.Kovitz@admin.ohio-state.edu Subject: tsviyun I have come across the word 'tsviyun' in the essay "di kurlander litvakes" by B. Rivkin (Borukh Vaynroyb) . From the context I realize the word describes a person speaking a variant of Kurlander Yiddish, but I can't find the word in Weinreich or Harkavy. Rivkin gives Max Weinreich himself as a prime example of one who speaks this Yiddish. How best to annotatate this word? What is its origin? Why can't I find a reference to it anywhere? Sonia Kovitz ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 14.020 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu