Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 7.009 May 25, 1997 1) Yiddish and the church (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan) 2) Der kalever in ingern (Vera Szabo) 3) "Es vi a porets" (A. Joseph Ross) 4) "Es vi a porets" (Ruth Kleinman Etkin) 5) Menachem Mendel (Mechl Asheri) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 10:14:50 -0400 (EDT) From: shirshan@aol.com Subject: Yiddish and the church (was: Going to a monastery) The recent light-hearted postings about Yiddish clubs in monasteries can take on a serious and surprising form in our own Golda Werman's fascinating and scholarly book, "Milton and Midrash" (1995 Catholic University of America Press ISBN 0-8132-0821-1). A few enticing tid-bits from Chapter 5, _Yiddish and the Church_ : She describes a German Lutheran minister, Johan Saubert (1638-1688) who, unlike previous Christian scholars who translated classical Hebrew or Aramaic midrashim into Latin, chose to translate a popular folk midrash, the Ze'enah U-Re'enah that was written in Yiddish. He also preached that Chrtistians should read God's original words in Hebrew when they studied the Bible. Golda continues on to teach us that Saubert was not unique in his knowledge of Yiddish. The 16th and 17th century rabbis who taught Bible and Talmud to Christian theologians often resorted to Yiddish (the forerunner of the monastic Yiddish Club?) which the students learned easily because they thought it a German dialect. Her book is mind-expanding for a lay person like me. Accolades to her knowledgeability and talent in sharing it. Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 13:16:11 MET-1MET DST From: verele@osiris.elte.hu Subject: Der kalever in ingern Lag b'oymer 5757 Der kalever rebe, reb Mendl Taub, vos voynt in Bne Brak, Yisruel, iz ongekumen in Budapest mit a por teg tsurik. Er hot farbrakht shabes in Budapest, gegebn a tish inem restoran 'Khane' lebn ortodoksishn shul in Kazinczy gas. Motse shabes iz er gekumen af a lag b'oymer simkhe, vos me hot gemakht in der Masoret Avot ortodoksisher shule fun Budapest. Er hot gezungen, getantst, gegebn a droshe. Zayne vareme yidishe verter, vos R. Yitshok Tsvi Neuman, der religiezer direktor fun der shule hot fartaytsht af ingerish, hobn gemutikt ingerishe yidn tsuriktsukern tsum moker. A por verter hot er gezogt af ingerish oykhet. Er hot gezungen dos lid funem Kalever Eyzik Taub, Szol a kakas mar, un etlekhe fun zayne eygene nigunim. An erekh 500 mentshn zenen gekumen af di dozike, mamesh gvaldike simkhe. Di ingerishe televiziye hot rekordirt di gantse simkhe un der rebe iz geven afile greyt tsu gebn an intervyu nokh der simkhe, oykh af yidish. A por shoen shpeter iz er mit a gantser khevre aroysgeforn keyn Nagykallo (Kalev) af keyver oves, un fun dortn vayter keyn Auschwitz un Ukrayne. Aza gvaldike simkhe iz bay undz ingerishe yidn shoyn lang nisht geven! Freylekhn lag b'oymer tsu alemen! Vera Szabo Budapest 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 22:03:04 -0400 (EDT) From: lawyer@world.std.com Subject: "Es vi a porets" Zellig Bach points out that the Hebrew brokhe, in Eastern Europe, was pronounced the Ashkenazic way, not the modern Sephardic way. And therefore, he says, the last word would have been pronounced "ha'Orets" with a komets-alef. Now to corrrect the correction. It would have been pronounced "Ho'Oretz" in Ashkenazic. Before an aleph, the Hey has a kometz, rather than a pasakh under it. In Sephardic Hebrew, the pronunciation is the same. But in Ashkenazic, it makes it "Ho" rather than "Ha". A. Joseph Ross 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 12:44:53 EDT From: retkin@juno.com Subject: "Es vi a porets" Zellig Bach's reply (vol.7.008) to my posting concerning my family's end rhyme to the motsi (7.004) makes the very important observation about the "minor but significant" pronunciation error. I wrote ha'arets to rhyme with porets when, of course, it would have to have been ha'orets to be the true rhyme that it was. Since this was my first posting to mendele (which I joined to learn more about Yiddish) and, since my forte is Hebrew, I was so nervous about my Yiddish transcription (I probably wrote ha'aretz instead of ha'arets), that I never even gave a thought to the basic difference of the ashkinazic pronunciation of my childhood and the sephardic pronunciation I use today. He's also right about my having a happy family but, since my parents were very serious about things like brakhes, I find it hard to believe that they invented that rhyme. Of course we children knew it wasn't part of the actual brakha but we never thought to ask where it started.. If I don't hear from anyone else who ever heard that rhyme, I guess I'll be just as delighted because I'll have found a whole new side to my parents about which I never guessed. Ruth Kleinman Etkin 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 20:54:42 +0300 From: donnom@netvision.net.il Subject: Menachem Mendel I am still unable to agree with Louis Fridhandler on the question of Menachem Mendel because I believe that the "world of Yiddish Literature" cannot be distinguished from the world of Yiddish-speaking Jews in general. In other words, to be in the former you have first to be in the latter.(And if there were a more clumsy way to express this thought I would probably have used it.) I wasn't alive in 1903, but at that time, when over 50% of Yiddish-speaking Jews were Khasidim, and in today's world of Jews whose peer-group speech is Yiddish, Menachem Mendel is much more likely to evoke the memory of an uncle, grandfather or rabbi than of the character who, Sholom Aleichem himself, as he made abundantly clear, considered not so much an isolated example of the shlimazl as "a yid fun a gants yor" and in a larger sense a personification of every exile-dwelling Jew. As he said, "Un azoy vi yidishe gesheftn zaynen, boruch haShem umetum alts eyns, dos heyst, hoybn hoybn zay zikh on, dakht zikh gants nishkoshedik, mit azoy fil betokhn un glentzende hofenungen, un oyslozn lozn zay zikh oys, tsum maynstn mit shlim-shlim-mazl, vi bay mayn Menakhem Mendl, l'khen badarf men lang nit horoven baym tsunoyfstheln a brif. Me kon im nemn glaykh vi er shtet un geht". But he goes even further and says that even in that one case in a thousand where (a Jew's) business is going well for the while, "Kon er zikher zayn az s'iz nit oyf lang. Alts vos iz geboyen oyf luft un oyf vint muz sof-kol-sof faln..." Bernshtein quotes a proverb which sums it up admirably: "A Yidish ashires iz vi a martsover shnay". I. Ch. Rawnitzky, The man Sholom Aleichem described as "My most intimate friend", in his definition of humor postulates that anything strange and unnatural is humorous, and says, "Haynt vos ken shoyn zayn mer stire tsu a normale, natirlekhn lebn vi dos Yidish hoykerik un farkriplt golosdike lebn, tsezeyt un tseshpreyt oyf ale ekn fun der gantse velt, a lebn fun shvebn in der luftn on a shtikl yesod unter di fis". To Rawnitzki, as to Sholom Aleichem, no Jew in golus, living in and building on air and wind, had a chance to do anything but fail in the end. When you examine Sholem Aleichem's writings, you will find that almost without exception the people he writes about are losers. Menachem Mendl is just one among the rest of them. Louis Fridhandler's second point was that I misspelled his surname. Not quite. I not only misspelled it, I got it entirely wrong. While Friedlander is a common name and listed dozens of times in both the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem phonebooks, Fridhandler is so rare as to be close to a hapax legomenon, because there is not a single listing in either of those two directories. This is offered as an explanation (simple carelessness is the other) but not as an excuse: there is no excuse whatever for referring to Mr. Fridhandler as Friedlander and I hope he will accept my apologies for having done so. Mechl Asheri ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 7.009