Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 2 no. 193
May 7, 1993

1) Russian travel (Sheldon Benjamin)
2) A sheynem dank (Rifka Igel)
3) Re: shtokh (Rick Turkel)
4) Fun vanen di fis vaksen (Rick Turkel)
5) Gut Morgn Dir, Velt (Mark H. David)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed May  5 23:44:44 1993
From: sbenj@Athena.MIT.EDU
Subject: Russian travel

With summer approaching and plans beginning to gel, I
thought I would share with the Mendele crowd a very
useful connection if you are contemplating individual
travel to the former Soviet Union.

Last October we traveled through a number of former
Belarussian shtetlakh and far flung Russian towns in an
extremely successful search for our history, our
missing family, and just to get the feel of the area of
Russia our family came from.  Our trip was arranged for
us by a new Russian Jewish travel agency in Minsk run
by former refuseniks courtesy of glaznost.

For a fraction of official Intourist rates they
arranged full time interpreters, drivers, cars, and
whatever else we needed to facilitate our travel.  They
arranged to rent flats for our use, did advance
research for us, put us in touch with the Jewish
community in each town, organized an advertising
campaign that successfully located several missing
cousins for us, and even connected me with a reasonably
priced archive researcher who has been quite
successfully searching various archives for historic
documents on our behalf.

I am extremely enthusiastic about this little company
and would be happy to share further information on how
to contact them with anyone interested. They are called
BeLWoC Travel (now US Travel Company). The company is
largely unknown in the US (we were their first American
clients) but has apparently been doing business in
Israel for the past few years. Further information
available on request.

Sheldon Benjamin

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed May  5 23:46:48 1993
From: Regina_IGEL@umail.umd.edu (ri1)
Subject: Sheinem Dank!

Taiere Menchen: thank you very much to all of you who
responded to my appeal with suggestions on Yiddish
activities for my parents. They are arriving, God
willing, on the Memorial weekend. After they rest from
a 11 hours trip from  Brazil, I plan to shlepn them to
the Yiddish gathering that will take place within the
premises of my own university! -- Thanks to Fishl and
to Dorothy Bilik to indicate that to me, and thanks to
everybody else who gave me many suggestions! --- My
parents might be plesantly surprised that I am now so
involved with Yiddish... :-) . They never forced it on
me, never made feel bad for not getting it into my
circle of interest. ANd voila! - now I am trying to
speak the language that I wish I had started talking
much much earlier in life.

But as my own Dad uses to say: "It is never late to
learn." -- So...

Zeyt alle guezunt! - Rifka.

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu May  6 09:53:29 1993
From: rmt51@cas.org (Rick Turkel)
Subject: Re: shtokh

I'd like to add my two-cents worth to Pierre Lewis's
comment on the etymology of "shtokh."

The expression "a shtokh in hartz" to express
(negative) surprise or shock seems to go along with a
germanic source meaning "stick" than a Hebrew one
meaning "to shut (someone) up."

Rick Turkel

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu May  6 17:39:43 1993
From: rmt51@cas.org (Rick Turkel)
Subject: fun vanen di fis vaksen

Mottel Lakin mentions (V2.189) the title expression,
bringing back memories long forgotten.

I was an annoyingly curious child, and I remember being
chided by my grandfather after having taken something
or other apart that I really didn't have to know "fun
vanen di fis vakhsen."

Rick Turkel

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu May  6 22:32:46 1993
From: mhd@world.std.com (Mark H David)
Subject: Gut Morgn Dir, Velt (by A. Krishtalka)

I came across a book of Yiddish poetry with the above
title by the above author.  I'd be interested in any
information anyone has about this author (including his
whereabouts) or his work.

The book is copyright 1953, printed in Montreal,
Canada, by Norton Printing, and it has on its title
page the following note:

   dos bukh derSHaynt tsum draytsentn geboyrntog fun
yungn mekhaver un iz gedrukt in a bagrenetzte tsol
eksemplarn.

In other words, the author was 13 when he wrote this.
He would be 53 years old today.

Here's one of the poems, for your enjoyment:

LEBN

di groyse mame feygele
hot a nest geboyt
tsvey eyerlekh geleygt
eyerlekh roze royt

di ventelekh fun nestele,
fun SHtroy zi hot gemakht.
dem dil fun veykhn groz
tsum SHlofn veykh baynakht

iz di mame feygele,
af di eyerlekh gezesn.
un der tate foygl,
gebrengt hot kerndlekh tsum esn.

oysgepikt dos erSHte eyele,
dernokh dos tsveyte ey.
hobn zikh in nest bavizn,
kinder-feygelekh tsvey.

ven di kinder feygelekh,
mit koyekh ongekvaln.
zaynen zey mit tate-mame aroys,
fliyen tviSHn berg un toln.

zaynen kinder feygelekh
oysgevaksn groys.
hobn aleyn eyerlekh geleygt,
in zeyer eygn nestn-hoyz.

un di mame feygele,
varemt oys ir dor.
trilt der tate feygele,
in a foygl khor.

Mark (Meyer) David

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End of Mendele Vol 2.193