Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 20.006 October 7, 2010 1) Zachary Sholem Berger's "The Popular Language that Few Bother to Learn" (Dina Levias) 2) Zachary Sholem Berger's "The Popular Language that Few Bother to Learn" (Morrie Feller) 3) Zachary Sholem Berger's "The Popular Language that Few Bother to Learn" (Jack S.Berger) 4) Zachary Sholem Berger's "The Popular Language that Few Bother to Learn" (Larry Rosenwald) 5) Zachary Sholem Berger's "The Popular Language that Few Bother to Learn" (Gilda Brodsky) 6) Number of Mendele subscribers (Moyshe Horvits) 7) Yiddish Sources Website updates (Gerben Zaagsma) 8) Digitalized Yiddish collections in the Lithuanian National Library (Jordan Kutzik) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 13, 2010 Subject: Zachary Sholem Berger's "The Popular Language that Few Bother to Learn" I know the US is a continent, and the situation described by Z.S. Berger is probably a true reflection of American reality. But, living in Switzerland as I do, I have a feeling that there is more interest in Yiddish learning and more activity in that field in Europe! Could Prof. Niborsky be requested to comment? Dina Levias 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 26, 2010 Subject: Zachary Sholem Berger's "The Popular Language that Few Bother to Learn" In response to Zachary Sholem Berger's post in Mendele 20.005, I would like to offer the following: The National Yiddish Book Center, in addition to collecting over 1,500,000 Yiddish books, has made thousands of these books available on the Internet from which they can freely be downloaded. So the question is: Who will read all these books? And the answer is: very few.It seems to me, therefore, that the NYBC has an obligation to create the readers who will read these books. It can do this by offering scholarships for its online Yiddish course. The NYBC should also create a special curriculum for the training of Yiddish teachers, as well as providing resources for those who are serious Yiddish scholars.Inasmuch as the NYBC has recently received a $3,000,000 gift, the financing of these programs should not be a problem. Morrie Feller 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 12, 2010 Subject: Zachary Sholem Berger's "The Popular Language that Few Bother to Learn" It is with considerable sadness that I agree with Zackary Sholem Berger's thesis.It has been said by philologists that to preserve a language, as a living language, requires a critical mass of about a million speakers. The one victory achieved by the Nazis, was to have excised and cauterized the taproot of Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jewry. The world of the twentieth century and forward does not place the same demands for a "Jewish lingua franca" on us, as the world of the past thousand years, or so, did.The exception to this is among Haredim, who seek the enciphering attribute of an arcane language, to maintain a barrier between themselves and an outside world they deliberately choose to hold at arm's length. I do not have any response to this problem to offer that I believe is either practical or workable. It is why, many years ago, I decided to assume the burden of translating Yizkor Books from Yiddish (and Hebrew) into English. I believe that Zackary is right, in that there will always be autodidacts, just like there are specialists today who can read Babylonian cuneiform and Egyptian heiroglyphics. However, for the larger majority of the interested population, effort would be well directed towards bringing these beautiful and very important texts out, from behind the language barrier where they exist today, so they can be more generally appreciated and understood. Jack S. Berger 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 13, 2010 Subject: Zachary Sholem Berger's "A Language Studied By Few" Re: Zackary Sholem Berger's very interesting, very melancholy reflections on the study of Yiddish language in academic institutions - yasher koyekh. First and foremost, they're deeply moving and thought-provoking.Second, I had a couple of thoughts. 1) I too was a member of the editorial board of the New Yiddish Library. I too am puzzled by the fact that, as Ruth Wisse is quoted as saying, the books in that series "have not yet made their way into the life stream of American culture." Why is that? I've sometimes wondered whether Yiddish literature - Yiddish fiction at any rate, the story bout Yiddish poetry is significantly different - is essentially a local literature. One time I talked the members of an eclectic reading group I was part ofinto reading Hillel Halkin's translations of Sholem Aleichem's Tevye stories. Terrific translations, in my view, terrific stories. The members of the reading group had a different judgment; for them, the stories were minor, "not like Tolstoy." These were all serious and thoughtful readers. Just a single incident, obviously, but it left me wondering. 2) Mr. Berger writes, "The highly regarded translators of a previous generation languish in nursing homes or have passed away." Not sure whom he has in mind; in my view, though, which I know not everyone will share (I've written some fairly polemical pieces on the translation of Yiddish literature, some of them published in the Mendele Review), many of the translations being produced today, including those in the New Yiddish Library, are as good as or better than the translations that preceded them. 3) It's my impression - others will have more precise information - that the academic study of Yiddish is flourishing in Europe more than it is in America. If that's in fact the case, it raises the question of what makes for that difference. Maybe the problem that Mr. Berger describes so convincingly and poignantly is a specifically American problem, and has its roots in specifically American habits of thought and institutions. Al dos guts, a gmar tov to all, Larry Rosenwald 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 22, 2010 Subject: Zachary Sholem Berger's "A Language Studied By Few' I found this posting to be particularly interesting. I was raised by my grandmother who spoke only Yiddish to me. Sadly, I only answered her in English. Now forward to the present - I am in my 80's and spend the winter months in Florida. My neighbor prevailed upon me to take the Yiddish course offered at the club house so we could converse with a Russian condo owner who also spoke some Yiddish - and since I understood it, I was a step ahead of anyone else. So I registered for the course - that was three years go.....and it has been a rewarding experience for me. I have a lot to learn - I still search for words - but it is amazing how much I can recall. The sad part is that the teacher now has about 15 people in the class - she tells me that when she started some 20 years back, there were about 100 students....most of them are now gone. It is a beautiful, expressive anguage and one can only hope that it is not lost to future generations. Gilda Brodsky 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 12, 2010 Subject: Number of Mendele subscribers Tayere shamosim, S'zet oys az veyniker Mendelianer shteln frages oder entfern af zey. Efsher darf emetser fregn Rut Vaysn "lebt yidish oder nit?" (shmeykhl) Mayn frage: vifl mentshn krign yetst Medele? un vifl hobn es gekrogn,lemoshl, mit finf yor tsurik? A dank faroys un "tak derzhat! (Rusish) for "hang in there!" Moyshe Horvitz [der untershames entfert: haynt, zogt der computer, 1935. mit a por yor tsurik--efsher 2000] 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 27, 2010 Subject: Yidddish Sources Website updates Dear Mendelyaner, This is just a short notice to say that it is now possible to receive updates to the Yiddish Sources website by email. See this announcement: http://yiddish-sources.com/news/updates-by-email Best regards, Gerben Zaagsma 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 24, 2010 Subject: Digitalized Yiddish collections in the Lithuanian National Library http://www.epaveldas.lt/vbspi/simpleSearch.do The national library of Lithuania has a digital collection of about 180 Yiddish language publications that were published in Lithuania and territory which is now Lithuania (most importantly Vilne/Vilnius) scanned online which can be viewed for free. Many of the daily and weekly newspapers are represented in their entirety (or close to it) for periods of several years to decades, as well as some well known (and many not so well known) magazines, literary journals and the like. Altogether the collection represents tens of thousands of pages. Needless to say, this is an invaluable resource for Yiddish students, historians, linguists, writers, translators, journalists teachers/professors and anyone else ho would enjoy reading the Lithuanian and Polish Yiddish press. Individual articles and authors can be located through the Index to Yiddish Periodicals (Hebrew University) http://aleph500.huji.ac.il/F/?func=file&file_name=findb&local_base=iyp01&con_lng=heb It can be navigated in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. All the best, Jordan Kutzik _____________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 20.006 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead, direct your mail as follows: Material for Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements, i.e. announcements of events, commercial publications, etc., always in plain text (no HTML or the like) to: victor.bers at yale.edu (IMPORTANT: in the subject line write "Mendele Personal") Material for postings to Mendele Yiddish literature and language, i.e. inquiries and comments of a non-commercial or publicity nature: mendele at mailman.yale.edu IMPORTANT: Please include your full name as you would like it to appear in your posting. No posting will appear without its author's name. Submissions to "regular" Mendele should not include personal email addresses in the body of the message, as responses will be posted for all to read. Please send postings always in plain text (no HTML or the like). In order to spare the shamosim time and effort, we request that contributors adhere, when applicable, as closely as possible to standard English punctuation, grammar, etc. and to the YIVO rules of transliteration into Latin letters, which are explained in summary form at http://www.yivoinstitute.org/about/index.php?tid=57&aid=275 All other messages should be sent to the shamosim at this address: mendele at mailman.yale.edu Mendele on the web: http://mendele.commons.yale.edu/ To join or leave the list: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/mendele