Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.044
February 15, 2006

1) badkhonim (Michael Steinlauf)
2) badkhn (Joan Levin)
3) badkhn (Mikhl Herzog)
4) The Shadows of Berlin (Jan Jonk)
5) Acronym sought (Shimon Joffee)
6) grepser(Zachary Baker)
7) Heavenly Footstools(Goldie Morgenthaler)
8) Child's finger game/varnishkes (Leizer Gillig)
9) Abbreviations (Amitai Halevi)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: January 18
Subject: badkhonim

There are two articles on badkhonim, one focusing on late 19th century
Eastern Europe, the other on contemporary hasidic communities in 
Jerusalem, in Polin v. 16 (2003).

Michael Steinlauf

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 8
Subject: badkhn

For a portrayal of the role of the badkhn, see the CD Wedding Without a
Bride produced by Budowitz with the late Majer Bogdanski as the
vocalist in the role of the badkhn.

Joan Levin

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 9
Subject: badkhn

For a wonderful scene as a _badkhn_ _bazingt di kale_, see the classic
Yiddish film _der Dibbuk_.

Mikhl Herzog

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 5
Subject: The Shadows of Berlin

In Dovid Bergelson's The Shadows of Berlin (City Light Books 2005),
translated by Joachim Neugroschel, is a story titled  "For 1200 bucks." 
Who can tell me the Yiddish title of this story and where I can find it?

A sheynem dank,

Jan Jonk

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 5
Subject:  Acronym sought

I need the meaning of the Hebrew acronym heh, khet,'' resh.        ,
Can anyone help?

S. Joffe

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 5
Subject: Grepser - French for "to kvetch"?

The ongoing discussion about kvetching brings to mind the French film
"Voyages," directed by Emmanuel Finkiel, with a cast consisting in large 
part of non-professional actors, many of them native Yiddish speakers. 
One of the early scenes involves a group of tourists visiting Poland in 
mid-winter.  They are sitting in a tour bus that has stalled, and one 
passenger remarks to his dyspeptic neighbor, words to the effect, 
"Pourquoi grepsez vous?"  As I recall it, the English subtitle reads, 
"What are you kvetching about?"

Grepsn in Yiddish, of course, means "to belch."  But in French, the verb 
grepser appears to have wandered a bit from its Yiddish root - just as 
"kvetshn" has assumed a somewhat different hue in its English guise.

I am not a specialist in the French usage of native Yiddish speakers, so 
please take the foregoing with a grain of salt.  N.b., when I googled 
"grepser" I came up with a screenplay for a film by Sam Grabarski, "Le 
Tango Rashevski," where
the noun grepser is used in its more literal sense:

DOLFO - Tu sais, Sammy, pour moi, tu es ceci :
IL ROTE!
DOLFO (mechant) - Ein grepser.
[You know, Sammy, to me you are (he belches) a grepser!]

Zachary Baker

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 7
Subject: Heavenly footstools

I wonder if anyone can help me locate the origin of the belief that
after death virtuous women are rewarded by becoming their husbands'
footstools in the World to Come. The belief is mentioned in Peretz
and I have encountered it elsewhere as well, but I cannot discover
its source. Is it purely a folkloric belief, or does it have a
rabbinic or scriptural origin? Any help would be much appreciated.

Goldie Morgenthaler

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 8
Subject: child's finger game / varnishkes

A friend asked me the following.  As a point of info, his grandparents
were from Lemberg (Lvov/Lviv).

Ever see a grandfather play a finger came with a young child where they
count the fingers: siruka, verona, yitim, kasha, naverella?  My
grandfather did this all the time and now my brother does it with his
grandson.  After the count you go over each finger saying tamidella,
tamidella, etc. then you spit in the palm and say misalla, masilla,
misalla, masilla then tickle the kid up the arm. What is that?

He also asks if the word "varnishkes" is ever used without kasha.

Leizer Gillig

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: February 8
Subject: Abbreviations (Vol. 15 No. 40)

In response to Florette Lynn's query, the List of Abbreviations in
Ben Shoshan's Hebrew Dictionary relates shin"`ayin to Sholem
Aleichem, who published regularly in Hamelitz and may well have signed 
short communications or book reviews with the initials of his nom de 
plume.

The reference: `Hamelitz-nun, vov, 243, shin"ayen', is not clear.
The journal's issues are identified by year and issue number, and it 
survived for 43 years, not 50 (nun). On a hunch, I had a look at
issue 243 in the year "tav-resh-NUN-VAV" (November 20, 1895).
Unfortunately, the pages are not searchable with the "Find" option,
and I regarded reading eight pages of very fine print in search of 
shin"`ayin to be cruel and unusual punishment, particularly as I was not 
sure that I identified the issue correctly.

Amitai Halevi


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End of Mendele Vol. 15.0

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