Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 16.023 March 18, 2007 1) shpiltsleve (Dagmar Mirre) 2) Itche Goldberg's "Eseyen" (Hy Wolfe) 3) kunst/kunts (Paula Teitelbaum) 4) last Yiddish film in Poland (Beth Kaplan) 5) last Yiddish film in Poland (Eve Sicular) 6) Yiddish film in the USA (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 7) akht un akhtsik (Elye Palevsky) 8) akht un akhtsik (Lyuba Dukker) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 14, 2007 Subject: Shpiltsleve In undzer yidishn leyenkrayz farnemen mir zikh mit Kulbaks "Zelmenyaner" (Farlag Sovetsky Pisatel, Moskve, 1971). Inem tsveytn bukh, kapitl tsvey (z' 125) banitst er zikh mitn vort "shpiltsleve" (shin pey yud lamed tsadik lamed ayen tsvey-voven ayen), un mir kenen dos nit gefinen in ergets. Der kontekts iz: Er bashlist tsum tsentn mol, az er vet shvaygn. Er iz ober shpiltsleve, tut er plutsling kegn dem eygenem viln a freg, "Tsi ken emetser helfn?" Mit a hartsikn dank faroys, Dagmar Mirre 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 19, 2007 Subject: Itche Goldberg's "Eseyen" John Matthies asks where one can buy a copy of Itche Goldberg's "Eseyen," band tsvey. He is also interested to know where one can buy copies of recently published (i.e., new) books in Yiddish. CYCO Publishing and Yiddish Book Center sells the above title plus many new Yiddish Titles and over 40,000 other Yiddish Books. Hy Wolfe Executive Director CYCO Publishing House 25 East 21st Street 3rd floor New York, NY 10010 212 505-8305 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 23, 2007 Subject: kunst/kunts In Mendele, Vol.16.021, Moshe Taube writes 1. kleinkunst is of course a daytshmerizm, since in Yiddish proper the first element is kunts, not kunst. In German, Kleinkunstbuehne is the term for an intimate theater or a cabaret. In fact, kunst and kunts are both Yiddish words with different meanings. Kunst is art, and kunts a trick. Paula Teitelbaum 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 23, 2007 Subject: last Yiddish film in Poland In Mendele, Vol. 16, Feb. 23, it is stated that the last Yiddish movie made in Poland before the war was "Yidl mitn fidl." However, the last Yiddish film made before the war in Poland was based on a 1907 play by Jacob Gordin, "On a heym", and was adapted into a film called "Without a Home" or "Homeless." It was made in 1939, directed by Alexander Martin, and starred Ida Kaminska. My book about my great-grandfather's life and times, "Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: the Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin," published by Syracuse University Press, will be launched in early April. I will be speaking about the man and the book later in the year at the National Yiddish Book Center. Many thanks, Beth Kaplan 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 23, 2007 Subject: Last Yiddish film in Poland "Yidl mitn fidl" was by no means the last film made in Poland before the war. In fact, it was the watershed hit that encouraged more Polish-Yiddish film production for the rest of the 1930s until the Nazi invasion. Producer/director Joseph Green had been a distributor and saw the potential for Yiddish film popularity. "Yidl" was his first movie, and he made several more on location in Poland, including another Molly Picon picture ("Mamele") in 1938 -- which included her theme song, "Abi Gezunt." His last Polish-location production was "A Brivele der Mamen" in 1939. J. Hoberman's book "Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film between Two Worlds" is a great resource. I worked at the Yiddish film series at MoMA which was tied to the launch of that wonderful research volume, published in 1991. Many misconceptions are constantly repeated: "The Dybbuk" was the last Yiddish film made in Poland is another canard. This was in fact made in 1937, and has some of the same character actors in supporting roles who also appear in both Joseph Green films mentioned above. Unlike the Green pictures, "The Dybbuk" was a solely Polish Yiddish production rather than a Polish-Yiddish co-production. Dzigan and Schumacher also made (lower-budget) movies during this post-"Yidl" period: "Freylekhe kaptsonim" comes to mind. Another Green motion picture was "Der purimshpiler." Eve Sicular 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 24, 2007 Subject: Yiddish film in the USA In "A Cantor's Son," Moyshe Oysher returns from the Big Apple to Belz, where he was born, to honor his parents 50th wedding anniversary; the blurb tells us that all scenes in Belz were filmed in Stroudsberg, in the Poconos, U.S.A Peretz Hirshbein's "Grine Felder," which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign film in 1945, tells of a Warsaw big city yeshiva student who makes an intense search of the Polish countryside to find a true Jew. The rolling hills and scenes of greenery, where he discovers true Judaism and his wife-to-be, were filmed in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. We didn't do too badly in the States. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 28, 2007 Subject: akht un akhtsik Mir dakht zikh (farvos bin ikh nit zikher) az akht un akhtsik iz a kortnshpil; ven der geviner dergraykht dem tsil, "na dir akht un akhtsik" iz a sof tsu der shpil. I believe (not sure why) akht un akhtsik is a card game; when the winner reaches that goal, "na dir akht un akhtsik." The game or hand is over. Elye Palevsky 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: February 28, 2007 Subject: akht un akhtsik I have heard this expression. To me it means also something similar to "a-ha, my cards trump yours!!!" I think its origins are in card game rules or domino game rules. Lyuba Dukker ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 16.023 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. 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