Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.054
April 7, 2006


1) balebesl (Ben Sadock)
2) nemen fun yidishe kinderlekh (Faith Jones)
3) nemen fun yidishe kinderlekh (Margie Newman)
4) Call It Sleep (Goldie Morgenthaler)
5) farfl (Maurice Wolfthal)
6) farfl (Martin Jacobs)
7) kashe varnishkes (Meyer Wolf)
8) kashe varnishkes (Irwin Mortman)
9) mayne yingele (Lazar Greisdorf)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: March 27
Subject: balebesl

Leon Perlman asks about the meaning of the nickname "balebesl" as applied
to the legendary cantor Yoyl-Dovid Strashunsky. The explanation I heard was
that the Jews of Vilne wanted him to be the cantor of the Great Shul when
he was still a child, and since a cantor is a kle-koydesh and can't be
unmarried, they married him off at a very young age. Thus the ironic
nickname "balebesl" plays off the already ironic meaning of "newly married
man" as well as Strashunsky's youth. As for the word "balebesl" itself, it
can also mean "fool," though it obviously doesn't in this case.

As I remember the film, though, he isn't lured away from a small town, but
from Vilne.

Ben Sadock

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: March 27
Subject: nemen fun yidishe kinderlekh

If memory serves, Mikhoyel Basherives is looking for "A kholem nokh
Maydanek" by Arn Tseytlin.

Faith Jones

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: March 26
Subject:  nemen fun yidishe kinderlekh

Maybe the writer is thinking of the poem "Kinder fun maydanek?" It begins,
"Blimeshi, Toibeshi, Rivele, Leyenyu, Feygenyu...."

If so, the author is Aaron Tzeitlin.

best regards,
Margie Newman

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 4
Subject: Call It Sleep

In answer to Bernard Dov Cooperman, the phrase "call it sleep" is no more
echoing a Yiddish expression than it is echoing an English one. The novel's
title comes from the last paragraph of its last chapter. The boy David has
been put to bed after having been nearly electrocuted. He has had the
satisfaction of hearing his father finally acknowledge that David is his
own son. David's mother asks if he is sleepy. He answers "Yes, Mama," and
the final paragraph then launches into a poetic description of David
falling asleep after a very traumatic day. The paragraph beings: "He might
as well call it sleep" and this phrase is then repeated a few times.

Goldie Morgenthaler

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 5
Subject:  farfl

A. Krishtalka asks about the relation between Yiddish "farfl" and Italian
"farfalle." The word may not have crossed the Alps from Italy into central
Europe.  It may be of Middle German origin, brought into Italy by
Ashkenazic Jews who settled in northern Italy during the Renaissance. For
more on the culture of these Yiddish-and-Italian speaking Jews, see Diane
Wolfthal, "Picturing Yiddish" (Brill).

Maurice Wolfthal


6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: April 4
Subject: farfl

Italians do indeed call bow-tie pasta "farfalle," and the word does seem
close to "farfl", but Ignaz Bernstein ("Juedische Sprichwoerter und
Redensarten", the Yiddish-German edition, Warsaw 1908, reprinted 1969,
Hildesheim, Germany) states that the word is possibly from the German
"Wuerfel," a die or cube. Bernstein's farfl were "viereckig", square, not
the little spheres I remember.

Martin Jacobs

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: March 27
Subject: kashe varnishkes

Yankev Berger might want to have a look at Sholem Vasilevski's paper "mayn
mames maykholim" as an introduction to the varieties of names for the
maykhl (Yidishe shprakh 25:1-3, 1976, pp. 76-79. Mr. Vasilevski's mother
called it varnitshkes mit kashe.

Meyer Wolf

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: March 27
Subject: kashe varnishkes

I grew up with the term "kashe un varnishkes" and still use it today and it
happens to be one of my favorite foods. In addition, varnishkes are bowtie
noodles also called farfalle.

Irwin Mortman

9)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  March 27
Subject:  mayn yingele

This song was recorded by Leon Lishner many years ago on Vanguard VRS-9068.
I saw it listed on the internet for $14.00.  To find it enter the record
number "VRS-9068" into Google and take it from there.

Lazar

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End of Mendele Vol. 15.054


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