Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 18.011 October 27, 2008 1) Jerusalem Yiddish Conference (Heather Valencia) 2) peysakh-lid (Itsik Goldenberg) 3) peysakh-lid (Paul Micheikin Pascal) 4) peysakh-lid (Ute Mueller) 5) Book recommendations (Mike Hirsch) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 24, 2008 Subject: Jerusalem Yiddish Conference I wonder if I am the only person to feel rather bemused by the announcement by Carrie Friedman-Cohen, published in the latest Mendele Review, about the planned Jerusalem conference. This conference has been flagged up for months in Mendele, and I assumed that there would be a call for papers. Now we are told, ôscholars from many countries have offered to participate. One can identify more than two hundred Yiddish scholars worldwide. Unfortunately, we cannot accept an unlimited number of papers. Thus, discomfiting though it be, it needs to be made clear from this early planning stage that there will be no call for papers.ö This statement contains several illogicalities and non- sequiturs. Are we to understand that because scholars from many countries have offered papers, they have all been accepted and the program is now full? This would be a bit unfair since many people have, I am sure, been waiting for the call for papers. Or is Ms Friedman-Cohen suggesting that people may still offer papers with the hope of being accepted? If so, this should have been stated (Though that would in fact amount to a call for papers!). Or is it that only selected speakers are being invited to participate? I do hope not. Quite apart from the exclusive nature of such a procedure, it could well mean missing out on papers which might be more interesting than some proposed by the invitees. If the speakers are by invitation only, this should have been stated at the beginning. I find the conclusion that because ôwe cannot accept an unlimited number of papersö (which applies, naturally, to any conference) there is to be no call for papers, very puzzling. The only fair and open way to run a conference is to issue a call for papers when the conference is announced, and then choose those which the conference organizers wish to have presented. This would of course not be an unlimited number, but only the number the conference can accommodate. There is still plenty of time to issue a call for papers with a deadline, and then decide on the appropriate number from among those which have already been proposed and those which would now be submitted. Inclusiveness is very important in the field of Yiddish, where there is exciting and important research being done by many young scholars throughout the world. I do hope that this matter can be clarified in the next edition of Mendele. Heather Valencia 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 8, 2008 Subject: peysakh-lid The latest Mendele [vol. 18.010] had a question about a song. I believe the song you are looking for is Slutsk. You can find it on the Milken Archive Great Recordings of the Yiddish Stage, Volume 2 sung by Cantor Abelson. Check out this url: http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/cds.taf?cdid=34 Itsik Goldenberg 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 7, 2008 Subject: peysakh-lid I strongly suspect that the town being referred to [in Mendele vol. 18.010] was Slutsk (sometimes spelled Slutzk), which existed under a variety of regimes during its history, including Poland prior to the division of that country in the late eighteenth century. It is currently in Belarus, about 60 miles south of Minsk. If I am right then the song must be "Slutsk, mayn shtetele". The words and score can be found on page 403 of the Slutsker yizker-bukh (this book has been photographed page by page and is available in its entirety online through the New York Public Library website). The yizker-bukh deems the piece "a folksong". In actual fact it was written in the 1930's by Herman Wohl (music) and Aaron Lebedeff (lyrics). Although for the sake of popular consumption Lebedeff wrote nostalgic lyrics about a many different shtetlekh in Eastern Europe (not all of which, obviously, he would have grown up in), he himself was born in Gomel which, like Slutsk, was in the Byelorussian corner of the Russian Empire at that time. Hankus Netsky of the National Yiddish Book Center is of the belief that the piece was performed as a stand-alone within Lebedeff's solo repertoire on the American Yiddish stage. According to the online Freedman Catalogue, though, it was created for the American Jewish musical "On Second Avenue". At least one of Lebedeff's recordings of "Slutsk, mayn shtetele" was made in Poland (obviously before WW2). The words which Mr. Kahana quotes from his granduncle's testimonial are likely a variation on the song's last two lines: "Fun shul af shabes flegt er brengen fremde mentshn, un zmires flegt men singen zeyer sheyn." The ôerö in those lines is referring back to ôder tateö in the preceding line. Why Mr. Kahana's family would sing it at the Peysakh table of all places is a mystery to me, although I could conjecture that it was simply because the whole family was together at that time and was therefore an opportune moment to share their enjoyment of a song they might all have known. Paul Micheikin Pascal 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 14, 2008 Subject: peysakh-lid Perhaps "Slutz" is "Slucz [swut???]". According to Wikipedia, it is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Radzil?w, within Grajewo County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. It lies approximately 6 kilometres (4 mi) north- west of Radzil?w, 26 km (16 mi) south of Grajewo, and 66 km (41 mi) north-west of the regional capital Bialystok. The village has a population of 580. Regards Ute Mueller 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: October 12, 2008 Subject: Book recommendations I recently read "Jacob's Legacy". It primarily concerns Jewish genetics, but grants some credence to Wexler's ôrelexified Slavicö theory based on Jewish genetic history. I also read Michael Wex's "Just Say Nu", which, while it employs non-standard transcription, gives some interesting, if figurative, translations of many less common Yiddish expressions. 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