Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________

Contents of Vol. 17.014
November 1, 2007

1) Kadya Molodowsky (Judith M. Backover)
2) lokshn (Linda Jimenez)
3) Max Rheinhardt's stage (Martin Brandfon)
4) voliner yidish (Rebecca Joy Fletcher)
5) Yiddish and the internet (Morrie Feller)
6) phrase from a song (Sonia Baku)
7) Weinreich concordance (Al Grand)
8) [r] in songs (Monika Feil)
9) Ezra Korman (Ellen Kellman)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 2, 2007
Subject: Kadya Molodowsky

To Zelda Kahan Newman:

According to www.paradigme.com, "Twentieth-Century American Women's 
Poetics
of Engagement," Kadya Molodowsky wrote a column for the "Forverts" under
the name "Rivke Zilberg" in 1955. Her column concerned itself with "heroic
women":

"Molodowsky took the name of her character, Rivke Zilberg, as a pen name 
in
her 1955 column in the Forverts, which featured heroic women, ranging from
the biblical Miriam to Emily Dickinson to the Yiddish poet Miriam 
Ulinover.
..." (pg. 7)

I hope you find this useful.

Judith M. Backover

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 3, 2007
Subject: lokshn

Zevi Ghivelder wrote that Brazilian Jews use the word "lokshn" as a slang
to mean American dollars.  This is interesting because in Spanish "pasta"
is a slang term used to mean "money."  (I wonder if this is also the case
in Portuguese, and Brazilian Jews translated it into Yiddish...)

Linda Jimenez

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 3, 2007
Subject: Max Rheinhardt's stage

Anne-Marie Du Chatel asks about dimensions of Max Rheinhardt's stage in
Berlin 1905. F.y.i., there are numerous M.R. archives at Binghamton
University's (S.U.N.Y.) theatre department library.  Perhaps they can be 
of
help?

Martin Brandfon

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 4, 2007
Subject:

I am the author and one of two performers of a new theater and music piece
called _kleynkunst_!   After several performances last spring in NYC, this
piece is re- opening, in an expanded version, as a production of the
Folksbiene National Yiddish Theater, and will be running in November and
December (see www.folksbiene.org for details.)  The piece explores 
Warsaw's
lost world of kleynkunst, or Yiddish language cabaret in the tradition of
European cabaret.  The show explores this amazing world between Polish
independence, in 1921 and the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto.

When the piece premiered last January, I made a decision to locate all the
show's Yiddish in the Varshever dialect, since the piece completely 
focuses
on Warsaw.  Now that the piece is being rebuilt and deepened, I have had
occasion to re-examine this initial choice. I have thus become convinced
that the show's Yiddish needs to be, instead of in Varshever, in Voliner.
It has been explained to me, convincingly, that Voliner was the dialect
used for all Yiddish theater performances in interwar-Europe, wherever 
they
took place and however low or high culture they happened to be.  And that
even though the folks I am focusing on were performing primarily in 
Warsaw,
when they weren't on the road, they nonetheless would have performed in
Voliner.

So, here's my question -- how did Voliner come to be the standard dialect
for all Yiddish performance?  When did it achieve this prominence?  In the
early days of the Yiddish theater, was the dialect Voliner?  Did the Vilna
troupe perform in Voliner?  And when did it stop being the dialect of
choice for Yiddish performance?

I would love to hear any of your thoughts on this issue and thank you all
in advance for your expertise and insight!

Please also note, on a much more tachlis note, that I am looking for a
coach in NYC who knows Voliner and can help us performers to master this
dialect in time for our run!  If you know of someone who might fit the
bill, please do send along their name to me directly:
rebecca.joy@earthlink.net

With thanks,

Rebecca Joy Fletcher

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 8, 2007
Subject: Yiddish and the internet

Some years ago I quoted a friend who, while discussing the status of
Yiddish, said "a loshn muz hobn a gas" (a language must have a street,
i.e., a venue). To this my response was that the internet would be the new
"gas" for Yiddish.

At that same time, I also showed how any two Jews, anywhere in the world,
could correspond with each other in Yiddish via the internet even though
they did not have any Yiddish fonts. All that would be required is a
scanner which would upload any Yiddish message into one's computer from
which the message could then be forwarded to any recipient as an
attachment.

Since that time the Internet has evolved in several ways. Now an  internet
program, Skype, which is available at no cost, allows any two people to
converse in Yiddish. Not only that, if their computers also have a camera,
they can see each other as well.

New Internet programs such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook are just the
beginning of new ways in which we can interact with each other, and with
the world at large.

It has been standard doctrine that for Yiddish to survive, it has to be
handed down from one generation to the next, usually in a rather confined
environment. I would like to call this " Shtetl Yiddish." And I would like
to suggest that we are in a process of shifting from  Shtetl Yiddish to
what I would call Global Yiddish. I think the implications for the future
of Yiddish should be obvious.

Morrie Feller

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 10, 2007
Subject: phrase from a song

I'm trying to confirm whether I've properly transliterated a Yiddish
phrase:  "Leyg zikh dayn sheyn kepele un farmakh di bloye eygelekh." (Lay
down your pretty little head and close your blue eyes.")

Have I captured it properly? Also, do you know if this comes from a song?

Many thanks,
Sonia Baku

[Moderator's note:  this is the correct rendering of the Yiddish according
to YIVO standards.]

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 11, 2007
Subject:  Weinreich concordance

I would be grateful for information about obtaining a concordance between
the first two volumes of Vaynraykh's "Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh"
and the English edition by Noble and Fishman, "Max Weinreich - History of
the Yiddish Language."

Al Grand

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: October 13, 2007
Subject: [r] in songs

I am a Yiddish singer and had a discussion recently with another Yiddish
singer about the pronunciation of the [r] in Yiddish songs.  We discussed
these questions: * Should one use the uvular [r] or the tongue [r] on
stage? And why? * Should one pronounce final [r] of words very 
articulately
and rolling, or should they be pronounced discreetly and short? And Why?
What do you think?

Thanks in advance,
Monika Feil

9)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  October 16, 2007
Subject: Ezra Korman

I am searching for information about the Yiddish poet Ezra Korman. He is
best known for publishing an anthology of poetry by women writing in
Yiddish (Yidishe dikhterins, 1928). Korman was active in the Kultur-lige 
in
Kiev during the years 1918-20, left Kiev for Warsaw with a group of
Kultur-lige leaders in 1921, after the Kultur-lige in Ukraine came under
the aegis of the Soviet Union. Korman worked with this group in Warsaw for
about a year, then went to Berlin, where he stayed briefly, after which
time he immigrated to the US and settled in Detroit, Michigan. I would be
grateful for any information about his political affiliations and cultural
activities in Detroit from the 1920's until his death in 1959, and any
contact information for his descendants.

Ellen Kellman
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 17.014


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