Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.037
December 19, 2005

1) Poems of Anna Margolin (Shirley Kumove)
2) Snobbery in Yiddish Literature (Sam Guncler)
3) megayer zayn (Leizer Gillig)
4) 'faher' (Yaffa Glass)
5) kvetch (Norman Buder)
6) kvetch (Allan Nadler)
7) khattess (Arnold Abramovitz)
8) Early Yiddish Medical Writings (Cheryl Tallan)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 7
Subject: Poems of Anna Margolin

It gives me great pleasure to announce that:

_Drunk from the Bitter Truth_
The Poems of Anna Margolin
translated, edited and introduced
by Shirley Kumove
is now available in a bilingual edition, published
by SUNY Press, Albany, N.Y.
http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=3D61173

Anna Margolin (1887-1952) settled permanently in New York City in 1913. A
brilliant poet, her reputation rests on her volume of poems published in
Yiddish in 1929.

Although written in the 1920s, Margolin's poetry is remarkably fresh and
contemporary, dealing with themes of anxiety, loneliness and the search for
artistic and spiritual identity and meaning.

Translated here by Shirley Kumove, the poems appear in the original Yiddish
and in her careful translations into English. Shirley Kumove's literary and
biographical introduction highlights Margolin's tempestuous, unconventional
life and her literary achievements.

Shirley Kumove

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 8
Subject: Re: Snobbery in Yiddish Literature

On the subject of snobbery, Goldfadn's "Di Kaprizne Kale-moyd: oder
Kabtsnzohn et Hungerman," ably adapted by The Folksbiene a couple of
seasons ago, humorously details what happens when the title character
spurns all Yiddish-speaking suitors, preferring a groom who can speak
"daytsh."

Sam Guncler

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 8
Subject: Re: megayer zayn

To respond to Felicitas Payk's inquiries. A female ger is called a giyoires
in Yiddish and one says "zi hot zikh megayer geven" i.e.  the verbal
construction does not change vis-a-vis gender.

A female "goy" is sometimes called a "goyte", and sometimes a "goye". That
term is often used to refer to the (nonjewish) cleaning lady. It is not
pejorative, like "shiksa", which is the feminine form of "sheygetz". We
usually had Jewish help in the house, but in the odd case that we had
someone who wasn't Jewish, my children were taught to refer to "di goye" as
"Mrs. Jackson" and if speaking about Mrs. Jackson, (unless they wanted tsu
veren geshmissen) they would not have said "Mrs. Jackson iz a goye"; they
would have perhaps said "Mrs Jackson iz nisht keyn yiddishe." (Since
"yiddishe" is not a noun, perhaps this is technically incorrect in
'klal-yidish' but that's how we say it.)

Regarding the use of Hebrew verbal constructions in general, based on the
people with whom I am acquainted,  I think that anyone who actually speaks
fluent Yiddish as their native language or learned it among religious Jews
vs. in an academic setting, and certainly anyone - religious or not - who
spoke yiddish as their native language in pre-war Europe will understand
the Hebrew expressions used in everyday speech by religious people. Some
older people who grew up in America in secular homes may not understand
these terms.

To clarify: "khasene hobn" means "to get married", "mekadesh zayn" has to
do with a specific part of the marriage ceremony when the khosn gives the
kale the "kedushin ringl".  You wouldn't say "Er hot zi mekadesh geven" if
you meant "er hot khasune gehat" - I'm sorry that what I wrote led to
confusion.  (and furthermore, Ven der chosn is mekadesh di kale; di kale
vert mekudeshes; ober di kale is NISHT mekadesh dem khosn. - the
traditional Jewish marriage is a one-way deal.)

In talmudic times, the "kedushin" part of the marriage took place fully a
year before the marriage was consummated under the khupe (nesuyin), so it
would be possible when discussing Talmudical topics to say something like
"Der chosn hot mekadesh geven di kale a gantz yor eyder zey hobn khasune
gehat."

Leizer Gillig

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 8
Subject: 'faher'

Do you know the word 'Faher'? It was spelled (wrongly I think) in Yiddish
fey, hey, reysh. I could not find it in the dictionary but deduce that it
just may be a shorter way of saying 'a farheren,' which is a listening
(literally)- in this case to a boy Am I right? Please reply as soon as you
can, as my son will have one of 'them' next week and it would be nice to
know what they are in advance.

Yaffa Glass

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 8
Subject: Re: kvetch

Faith Jones (December 2, 2005) reports that she "cannot find anywhere in
Born To Kvetch where Mr. Wex claims the usage of "kvetsh" to mean complain
is anything other than English."  Unfortunately, the mere title is enough
to spread the falsehood that "kvetsh" does mean complain in Yiddish and
that Jews complain inordinately and inveterately.

I take with a ton of salt Mr. John V. Burke's claim (December 2, 2005)that
his mother and grandmother used "kvetsh" in Yiddish to mean complain.  To
be frank, I think his mother and grandmother have been deceived by the
influence of English.

Of course, "farzindikn" in the phrase "nit tsu farzindikn" is cognate with
the German word for sin.

Norman Buder

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 8
Subject: Re: kvetch

While agreeing with Faith Jones' defense of Michael Wex's wonderful book,
Born to Kvetch, and adding the suggestion that Leonard Prager might have
been wise actually to have read the book before kvetching about it, I take
exception to her observation that those reading my own review of Wex "could
easily come away with impression that the book is a 300-page tirade against
klal-shprakh and those who speak it." In fact, I deal (approvingly) with
Wex's criticisms of the klal-shprakh phenomenon in a single paragraph
towards the very end of my review, after having discussed, in significantly
greater detail, his hilarious discussion of the culture of the kheyder, as
but one example of Wex's many humorous, but learned, treatments of his
subject. My review's major focus is Wex's fresh approach of tracing the
great varieties of Yiddish kvetching back to Biblical and Rabbinic sources
and it refers by name to his chapters on both death and sex.

That said, I cannot quite undertand why Faith finds it "increasingly
bewildering" that the book's appearance has generated yet another round of
kvetching and petty in-fighting among the Mendelistn -- a quintessentially
Yiddish carnival that I'm delighted to join with this posting. Does not the
current exchange just confirm the central thesis, indeed the very title, of
Wex's work? Specifically, does it not re-enforce Wex's chartacterization of
the Klal-shprakhniks as humorless "strident nudniks?" Therefore, I propose
-- contra-Faith Jones' appeal to "please stop bickering" -- that this
bickering is proof that the essential spirit of Yiddish, precisely as
described by Wex, is still alive. We continue to kvetch, therefore we still
are, and that is cause for celebration, not distress. Only when, khas
ve-sholem, the bickering and kvetching come to an end, will I begin
seriously to worry about the future of Yiddish culture.

Allan Nadler

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 7
Subject: khattess

There are many terms of opprobrium for gentiles: goy, yok, sheygetz, poyer
are some which I believe are known internationally.that seems to be
peculiar to South African Yiddish.carefully, I have not yet heard of its
being used by non-South African Yiddish speakers.pejorative term applied to
a working class Afrikaner.Hebrew is khattat, which I think was a biblical
term used to describe the sin to be "transferred" to a scapegoat, after
which the beast would somehow "contain" sin loaded into it by human
sinners, and hence would itself be (in a sense) an innocent or unknowing or
ignorant sinner.

Arnold Abramovitz

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 7
Subject: Early Yiddish Medical Writings

Thanks all who sent information in reply to my query to this list on this
subject a few months ago. Here is info on the published writings on this
early Yiddish medical writings:

Baumgarten, Jean.  2005.   Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature.  Ed. and
trans. Jerold C. Frakes. Oxford -- New York: Oxford University Press has a
section titled "Yiddish Medical Texts (Fourteenth - Eighteenth Centuries),
pp. 341-359.

Frakes, Jerold C., ed.  2005.  Early Yiddish Texts 1100-1750.  Oxford - New
York: Oxford University Press. Frakes arranges these texts in chronological
order, but in the front of the book he classifies them according to genre.
On p. xxvi he lists the "Medicine and Magic" texts.

Cheryl Tallan

----------------------------------------------------
End of Mendele Vol. 15.037



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