Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 15.026 September 12, 2005 1) bikher-protim in Forverts (Zackary Sholem Berger) 2) The state of Yiddish (Lucas Bruyn) 3) Majer Bogdanski (Arieh Lebowitz) 4) Menke (Steven Lawson) 5) Yiddish micrographic portraits (Jeffrey Shandler) 6) How long does it take to be be Yiddish-literate? (Morrie Feller) 7) Vilnius YIddish Institute (Olga Bliumenzon) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 6, 2005 Subject: Re: Bikher-protim in Forverts Hugh Denman hot letstns [Mendele 15.025] bamerkt az di bikher-retsenzyes opgedrukt in Forverts vern legamre nisht bagleyt fun ken nutslekher informatsye farn potentsyeln koyfer/leyener. Ikh bin maskem, un faktish hob ikh aleyn shoyn ongeshribn mer vi eyn briv in redaktsye, betndik me zol tsushteln azoyne "luksusdike" protim vi der prayz un vu, lemanashem, me zol koyfn di bikher. Oyb ir (Mendelyaner) zayt maskem, zayt azoy gut un leygt dos fir der Forverts-redaktsye. Zol men aynshteln a shtendike rubrik in Forverts: "Vu me ken koyfn di yidish-bikher dermonte in dem numer." Zackary Sholem Berger 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 6, 2005 Subject: Re: The state of Yiddish Most Mendelyaner agree with Noyekh Miller that the future of Yiddish literature is bleak due to a lack of readers. I would like to disagree. It is not so much the lack of potential readers, but rather the lack of modern Yiddish literature. If I want to read something modern, in a type of Yiddish that does not require a series of dictionaries and encyclopedias I can read Internet blogs (see: Noyekh Miller Vol. 13.017). Most Yiddish literature is either old fashioned or of a very sad nature. Sholem Aleichem is hard to read and so is Bashevis Singer, in Yiddish. One does not pick up a volume of memoirs or a yizkor book for relaxation. Yiddish poetry can be excellent and of all times, but how much poetry does the average reader consume? I have no doubt that learning the language is not the problem. After all, it is an easy language when compared to Hebrew, Russian or Tagalog. But to keep learners interested in developing their basic reading skills an attractive, modern literature is necessary. Instead of more funding for translation projects and literary prizes for translations of existing poetry money should be invested in stimulating the writing of contemporary Yiddish. Lucas Bruyn 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 6, 2005 Subject: Majer Bogdanski I've not seen any obituaries yet on the passing of Majer Bogdanski - just heard of it from a colleague. Is it true that he has died? Have any articles appeared in the British - or other - media yet? My understanding is that he has [had] been a very prominent advocate in London of Yiddish language, culture and tradition, as well as a stalwart representative of the Jewish Labor Bund, which he had joined in Lodz, Poland, before the Holocaust years. Arieh Lebowitz 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 8, 2005 Subject: _Menke_ I am writing to add to the comments of Frank Handler to Prof. Prager's review of the English translation of Menke Katz's poems. I am not a Yiddish scholar, but have been a professor of U.S. history for the past 33 years, currently at Rutgers University in New Jersey. I have purchased the book in question and read the introduction by Dovid Katz, which I found informative and well balanced. I have not met Dovid in person, but recently established e-mail communication with him to discuss his father. From 1956-1958, I attended the Workman's Circle School #10 on College Avenue between 169th and 170th Streets in the Bronx. My grandparents, Abraham and Sarah Parker, along with their friends, had founded Branch 133 of the Arbiter Ring, which ran the school. For two years, Chaver Katz tried his best to illustrate the beauties of yiddish history, language, and culture to a tiny group of six ten-to- twelve-year-olds. He managed to do so, but through no fault of his own ultimately fought a losing battle against the forces of assimilation and secularization that kept us from pursuing further studies after we graduated, as he wished. But although my Yiddish language facility remains at about the first grade level, I have never forgotten what an inspiring and towering figure Menke was. He cared about his heritage, he cared about his students, he demanded excellence, and he was devoted to the State of Israel. Menke did not confine himself exclusively to Yiddish. He gave me Bar Mitzvah lessons and worked with me on my haftora in the Hebrew language, which he had also studied extensively. I knew nothing then of conflicts between Hebrew and Yiddish speakers or what the position of Israel was on the subject, but I remember vividly Menke's affection for the Biblical homeland. In fact, he brought in a man--I suppose a friend--to recruit us to go to Israel and live on a kibbutz. If anyone doubts that he was a Zionist or that anyone who writes about internal conflicts in Israel (as does Dovid) is anti Zionist, then I believe he is sorely mistaken. Menke was a citizen of the world--an American, a resident of Brooklyn, a sojourner to the Lower East Side and the Bronx, a Lithuanian, a Russian, an Israelophile. His work transcends geographical boundaries or rigid doctrines, that is why he was such a thorn in the side of the Communist left (linke). However, he never became an informer or a blacklister: he differed from his comrades, but he did not turn his back on them lightly. He finally did in the 1950s, when they refused to acknowledge the murder of fellow Jews in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Maybe he waited too long, he probably did for my taste, but Menke was never a blind partisan; he was an iconoclast. He had too much of a sense of humor (and a grim sense of reality as well) to be doctrinaire. And besides, as Dovid has told me, Menke was a fan of Little Richard and rock 'n' roll, which defied Communist puritanism. Menke is a hero of mine, though I never saw, spoke, or wrote to him after the two years I was in his class. He defies simple labels. To me he is a democrat with a small "d." He cared about the well being of ordinary people, not as some abstraction, but as individuals who should know their past and imagine their futures. He was a real mentch. My grandparents probably would not have liked Menke's politics, but they would have liked him as a man! Steven (Shimen) Lawson 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 11, 2005 Subject: Yiddish mircrographic portraits I am looking for examples of micrographic portraits of Yiddish writers--i.e., visual portraits that are made out of text (in this case, stories or poems by the authors) written very small and arranged in the shape of the author's face. I recall seeing these for Peretz and, I think, Leyvik a while ago but can't recall where. Any leads most welcome, Many thanks, Jeffrey Shandler shandler@rci.rutgers.edu 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 12, 2005 Subject: How long does it take to be be Yiddish-literate? After my last post in Mendele, my good friend, Carl Goldberg, responded by saying that it is impractical to plan for creating the readers who will read some of the vast number of Yiddish books which the NYBC has collected. He qualifies as a linguist, and he maintains that it takes thousands of hours of study to become proficient in a foreign language. Based on some responses I have had had on this subject, some examples of people who have mastered Yiddish in much less time have come to my attention. Of course, this is a very subjective thing which depends to a large extent on the motivation of the learner. So I want to raise the question: What would be the minimum amount of study time required for an average student to learn enough Yiddish to be able to read Yiddish literature? I have suggested that perhaps one- two hundred hours might be enough to get a foothold which would allow reading some simple literature, and then, with further practice, one could proceed to more advanced Yiddish pieces. Morrie Feller 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 12, 2005 Subject: Vilnius YIddish Institute As coordinator of the Vilnius Summer Program in Yiddish, I am very happy to let you all know that after missing (unfortunately) one summer, because of financial and administrative reasons (our institute was being integrated into the university long-term), we are now back in business in every sense of the word! Preparations have just been finalized for the 2006 summer program here at Vilnius University. The program will be held from 31 July to 25 August 2006. The teachers are Prof. Jerold Frakes (Los Angeles), Prof. Avrohom Lichtenbaum (Buenos Aires), Prof. Yitskhok Niborski (Paris), and Prof. Anna Verschik (Tallinn). The director is Professor Sidney Rosenfeld of Oberlin, Ohio. There will be a rich supplementary program of lectures, walking and bus tours, seminars, concerts and more, many led by bona fide Litvaks from the Jewish Community of Lithuania who have lived in the region their entire lives. The Vilnius Summer Program in a unique experience that complements rather than duplicates its fine sister programs in the West. This one-month summer course was founded at Oxford University in 1982, and moved by its founding director, Prof. Dovid Katz (now an advisor to the program) to Vilnius University in 1998. For further details as well as the new and correct address for Vilnius Program in Yiddish, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius Summer Program in Yiddish please visit http://www.judaicvilnius.com/course.php. Please feel free to contact me about any question you may have. It will be my pleasure to help in any way possible. Olga Bliumenzon ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 15.026 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead, choose one of these two: Messages for posting on Mendele Personal and other messages to the shamosim