Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 122 December 14, 1992 1) Shaygets, etc. (Hershel Bershady) 2) Yiddish Day at the Knesset (Daniel Galay) 3) Shiksa again (Martin Davis) 4) Melupn (Mikhl Herzog) 5) Uxoriousness (Jascha Kessler) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 11 Dec 92 11:41:14 EST Subject: shaygets, etc. What a lovely storm has been brewed out of all this! Next we need references to Joseph's coat, etc. Perhaps because Jews have historically been able to acknowledge their ambivalence and, to that extent, deal with it, they have been able to maintain their identity for over 2000 years. As to Jewish walks: whoever said this, I was then alerted to the phenomenon and have spent a lot of time observing Jews walking (among other things). The main problem with my methodology was I knew they were Jews to begin with. I've tried to "predict" who is a Jew from among strangers primarily on the basis of their walk. This works better for people over 35; under 35 assimilation has become too widespread to tell. Of course, you could say that all Jews walk as though they were over 35...that too may be true. Here's to a few more logs on the fire! Hershel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 13:06:03 IST From: HISHTALMUT Subject: Yiddish day at the knesset, Israel On the 4/1/1993 at the Knesset, Israeli parlament, will take place, with the auspicies of the Knesset Chairman, Prof. Shevach Weiss the YIDDISH DAY . Your support to this event, and to the idea to create, by law, a "National Council for Yiddish Culture" can help a lot to encourage all the efforts that are made right now in Israel. Every individual or institution can address their solidarity to: 1. Prof. Shevach Weiss, Knesset Israel, Jerusalem, Israel. 2. Hemshech Dor Lybobers fun Yiddish, P.O.Box 65279 Tel Aviv 61652 Israel 3. Mendele. Please contact me at morim@ccsg.tau.ac.il if you have any questions on this issue. A groisn dank far aier shtitze. Mir veln ale genisn fun di resultatn. Daniel Galay. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 10:00:42 -0500 From: davism@turing.cs.nyu.edu Subject: "shiksa" again From the book review section of the NY Times, Sunday, 12/13, in a review by John Simon of a new biography of Kurt Weill, referring to his marriage to Lotte Lenya: "Yet the secret of their getting on so well together was, as he wrote his parents (upset at his marrying a shiksa), that here were 'two people with different, unconnected artistic interests, each helping the other along his own path'." Martin Davis 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 16:25 EST From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.Columbia.edu Subject: Melupn To Moyshe Taube: No variant with melupn, huh? I give up! Be well. Mikhl. 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 15:41 PST From: KESSLER Subject: RE: Uxoriousness Apropos Ellen Prince's remark about her spouse, the uxor. Uxorious is denoted in English as a husband who is overfond of his wife, doting, therefore submissi ve to the woman. It is not henpecked, nor "pussy-whipped," but one who dotes, a nd that does not necessarily come out as pejorative. I regard myself as a uxor ious type of husband; but my wife would say I was overbearing, bullying, domineering, difficult, too independent, too selfmotivated, tooinconsiderate of her f eelings and rights, and etc. I think we who enjoy nuances would probably all ag ree that it is how a thing is said, how a think is said, that is, that determin es the intention. "Brutus is an honorable man." So he was. Not in that speech. Who could tell from one sentence. I am delighted with my shaygetz soninlaw, of course, but I can hear those very narsty now deceased aunts and uncles, a sc ad of them, all gone, putting a spin on their intonation that would curl the ha ir on all our heads. My poor mother, nearly fifty years married, or 60, if I cant count, was always called Sie, to her face. My father's sisters were a rough lot in their youth, till their 80s. My mother was far too intelligent and refi ned and American for them. Imagine being called "her" to you face over dinner by your sistersinlaw! Rage and exasperation with them were my dear mother's lot all her life. This is a family I could never recognize from Jewish literature as Jewish. I was 22 before I happened on Maxim Gorki's autobiographies, MY CHILDHOOD, and the other two, and I immediately spotted my folks as Russian, violent Bessarabian types, out of Gorki's family, yet! Just lacking the use of vodka as a substitute for tea. Had they used vodka, no telling the murders that might have occurred. Instead it was savage satire....Shikse was the least word of offense in their vocabulary. Jascha Kessler ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.122