Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 16.022 February 23, 2007 1) Yiddish audio stories (Morrie Feller) 2) Yiddish audio stories (Felicitas Payk) 3) Yiddish audio stories (Fishl Kutner) 4) Yiddish audio stories (Icek Mozes) 5) Yiddish audio stories (Vincent Homolka) 6) gut tsu zayn tsurik (Leybl Botwinik) 7) Opinion sought about book about IB Singer (Joel Hencken) 8) Song sought (Lloica Czackis) 9) Curses (Jules Rabin) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 5, 2007 Subject: Yiddish audio stories In response to the request by Michael Rener in Mendele 16.020, audio Yiddish can be found in Leonard Prager's "World of Yiddish." The best way to access this site is to go to www.derbay.org and, after opening it up, click on "Yiddish links." Scrolling down will bring up Prager's "World of Yiddish." There are many other Yiddish links listed there, and some of them may include audio Yiddish. Mottie Feller 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 5, 2007 Subject: Yiddish audio stories In Mendele (Vol. 16.020) Michel Rener inquires about readings of Yiddish literature on the net. Though I cannot give any answer to that, I'd like to say that, being fully blind from birth, I am equally interested in this subject. Meanwhile, I love to listen to the Yiddish Voice (www.yv.org). Great interviews, music, and also occasionally excerpts of books are read. Felicitas Payk 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 5, 2007 Subject: Yiddish audio stories As one who is visually impaired, I know what it means not to be able to read easily or not at all. [For Yiddish audio stories] contact Pearl Lam at the Jewish Braille Institute in New York City at plam@jbilibrary.org. mit frayndshaft, Fishl Kutner 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 5, 2007 Subject: Yiddish audio stories I hope someone responds to Michel Rener's post and at least tells him about this site: a dank, Icek Mozes 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 9, 2007 Subject: Yiddish audio stories In Mendele Vol.16.020, Michael Rener asks about internet sites from which he can download stories in Yiddish for his Yiddish-speaking grandfather who can no longer see well enough to read. A good site is http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/Stories.html, which has an excellent selection of stories read aloud. A useful site is also that of "The Yiddish Voice" at www.yv.org, which has many links to online Yiddish audio material, including regular radio programs. And for more stories read aloud, click on their link (in their section "Other Interesting Internet Audio Sites") to the National Yiddish Book Center's Audio Library, which has a few more stories. A good weekly Yiddish radio program is that of "The Yiddish Hour." They have a weekly broadcast, and an archive of their past radio broadcasts is available at www.yiddish.forward.com/oldarchive/radio/old.html. Vincent Homolka [Moderator's note: similar responses were received from Yaffa Glass, Florette Lynn, and Ben-zion Ronen.] 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 7, 2007 Subject: gut tsu zayn tsurik Tayere mendelyaner, S'iz gut tsu zayn tsurik mit aykh. Vi di tsayt loyft. Shoyn etlekhe yor vos ikh bin nit oyf der post-reshime. Geven farnumen, un deriker geshprungen fun eyn arbets-plats tsum tsveytn. Ikh hof, az zakhn veln zayn mer stabil in der noenter tsayt. Shoyn lang vos ikh vil tsurikkumen tsu der liste, nor keseyder es opgeleygt. Es hot mir motivirt zikh vider farshraybn di nokhfrage vegn mayn lid "aza regn" fun dem muziker profesor novotny. Nekhtn hot men mir telefonirt fun Haifa, az me zukht mir oyf mendele. Un haynt hot mir vegn dem geshribn mayn bruder. Vegn mayne lider iz azoy: Ikh hob nit keyn sakh poemes. Un gor veynik farefntlekht. Tsu di lider vos s'iz faran muzik, iz dos geveyntlekh aleyn-geshafene muzik oder a mitarbet mit mayn bruder sender. Ikh hob, dakht zikh, oykh amol mitgearbet mit mayn foter oyf eyn lid, un faran oykh ergets a lidl mit mayn bruder yankls muzik... Ven ikh zog mitarbet, iz dos derfar vos oft vern di verter geshafn tsu di melodyes, un nit farkert. [vi ir zet, zaynen mir a muzikalishe mishpokhe]. Azoy vi mir voynen itst vayt eyner funem tsveytn, iz di mitarbet zeltener. Ikh bin geven tsufridn tsu hern az prof. Novotny iz gefeln mayn lid un hot tsu dem geshafn muzik. Ikh kuk foroys tsu zen di notn. Interesant, vos dos lid "aza regn" hob ikh ongeshribn in Bat Yam mit punkt 18 yor tsurik, ven ikh bin nokh geven a frish-gebakener ole. Nokh interesanter iz vos mit etlekhe vokhn tsurik hob ikh oysgezukht dem tekst vayl ikh hob es gezolt forleyenen far a yidish-klub. Un eyer nekhtn, take getrakht vegn shafn tsu dem muzik... Leyder, muz ikh zogn, az andere mayne lider zaynen nokh nit geven farefntlekht. Leybl Botwinik 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 10, 2007 Subject: opinion sought about book about IB Singer Khaveyrim, I came across an unusual title today, one which I can't find in any of the local library databases, nor can I find reviews of it by googling. So, I'm wondering if any of you are familiar with it or have any thoughts about whether it is worth pursuing. Here is the publisher's description: Qiao, Guo Qiang The Jewishness of Isaac Bashevis Singer Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., New York, Wien, 2003. 272 pp. ISBN 978-3-906769-74-5 / US-ISBN 978-0-8204-5911-0 pb. Order online: www.peterlang.com US-$ 51.95 This book explores Jewishness in the writings of Isaac Bashevis Singer. The author makes a close examination of Singer's literary works, Judaism, Jewish history and related criticism to illustrate Singer's unique but ambiguous position in American Jewish literature. The book offers a discussion of Singer's modernity. Singer's Jewishness finds its major expression in challenging the notion of covenant and the concept of the coming modern consciousness of Spinoza's philosophy. The book also focuses on Singer's representation of Jewish assimilation in the past and present, both in Poland and in America and on the de-Americanization of the Holocaust. After an examination of Singer's narrative strategies, the author also discusses the similarities and diversities of four major American Jewish writers, Singer, Bellow, Malamud and Roth, in terms of Jewish identity and Jewish historical consciousness. Contents: Isaac Bashevis Singer's Ambivalent Modernity Assimilation: An Ineffable Tribulation De-Americanization of the Holocaust or, Indelible Shadows on the Jews Narrating Jewishness - Isaac B. Singer and His Jewish Contemporaries. The author, Guo Qiang Qiao, was born in Qingdao, China. He obtained his BA from Qufu Normal University, his M.A. from Shandong University and his Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham (UK). He is professor of American Literature at Shanghai University. A dank! Joel Hencken 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 13, 2007 Subject: I am looking for the name of the Yiddish lyricist of "Der gasn-zinger." The song begins as follows: "Orem, elend bin ikh geblibn On a tatn, mamen, on a heym." And the chorus is "Oys iz oys milyonen A kabtsn bin ikh tsurik Oys iz oys milyonen farloyrn hob ikh dos glik A gasn-zinger bin ikh elend aleyn tsulib a froy bin ikh gekumen tsu dem broyt" This song has the music of the Polish tango "Przy kominku" ("By the Chimney") by Artur Gold. It's *not* the song from "Der komedyant," as sung by Peysakhke Burstein. Many thanks in advance! Lloica Czackis 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 15, 2007 Subject: Curses A few question about Jewish curses: 1.) What is the literal meaning of "a khalatshke"? I've heard it spoken in the spirit of, "Oh, Hell," "darn it," etc., when a person broke or spilled or dropped something. But its literal meaning....? Is it a diminutive of "khalerye"? 2.) Is there a decipherable logic in the phrase "fardrey dayn kop un meyn az dos is mayner" ... literally "Turn (twist) your head and suppose/consider/think that it's mine." (This said to a child in the spirit of "Stop bothering me" or "Don't be such a pest.") Is the child being invited, ironically, to suppose and take satisfaction from the transfer of his perverse head to his mother? 3.) Almost all the Yiddish curses I heard in my boyhood home, 75 years ago, had to do with what we felt were clean matters, like plague and fire. Until just recently, I thought that my parents had never uttered "dirty" curses, in the Anglo Saxon style, that had to do above all with sex and excretion. So it was hard for me to accept the literal translation I obtained just recently of a curse I had heard now and then, many years ago, from my mother's lips: "Geh' kerbenye matri" [Moderator: k benya mat'] = "Go fuck your mother." In the context in which it was spoken, we kids took the phrase to mean something as innocent as "Go to Hell!" or some 1930's equivalent of "Bug off!" Because this curse was so out of character (Boiling anger: yes. But lewd remarks? Never!), I have wondered if my mother actually knew the literal meaning of that curse. No other curse she uttered went anywhere near that territory. Is it possible that having grown up as a girl in the restricted life of her shtetl, where Yiddish was overwhelmingly the language of daily encounter and worldly education didn't enter in, her knowledge of Russian could have been so meager that she didn't know the meaning of the Russian word "kerbenye?" And that she spoke it with ignorance the equal of ours, when we took the phrase to mean "Go be a pest somewhere else!" A last question now, on a different matter. Is there a Yiddish saying "Truth comes in blows" that preexists Ted Solotaroff's use of that phrase as the title for his memoir? I suspect that the phrase is Solotaroff's own creation, but would like to know if there is contrary evidence about that. Jules Rabin _____________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 16.022