Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 2 no. 196
April 11, 1993

1) Sutzkever evening (Yohanan Weininger)
2) Shlug zich kup in vont (Cal Pryluck)
3) The word 'nar' (Bernard Katz)
4) Announcement of new list (A.J. Hyman)
5) From the shames (Noyekh Miller)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon May 10 09:28:35 1993
From: Yohanan Weininger <yohanan@shum.cc.huji.ac.il>
Subject: Sutzkever evening

According to the poster on the Hebrew Univ. campus.  On
Tuesday, 18 May at 5:30 p.m in "Beit Belgia" (Belgium
House) on the Givat Ram campus, there will be an event
in honor of Sutzkever who recently turned 80. The
sponsors are the National Library and the Yiddish Dept.
Listed on the poster (in Hebrew and without their
titles) are the following: Avraham Karpinovitz Yossl
Birstein Dan Miron Chone Shmeruk Avraham Sutzkever [and
in "tal va-matar"]: Chairman: Avraham Noverstern.

for now, off to the class of Turniansky in old yiddish.

Yohanan Weininger

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon May 10 13:40:00 1993
From: Cal <PRYLUCK@VM.TEMPLE.EDU>
Subject: Re: shlug zich kup in vont

>  7.  "Klap zikh kop on vant un shray `Bravo!'"  In
>  response to "What's to be done?" in situations where
>  no course of action is satisfactory.  Also in
>  response
>
>My father, a native Yiddish speaker born in Brooklyn,
>used to say, in the same situations, "Stand on your
>head and holler for a hammer." Was this a translation
>from Yiddish of a variant of "Klap ... Bravo"?  The
>alliteration suggests it underwent distinct
>anglicization.  Was it current in Brooklyn?  Anybody
>else ever hear it?
>

When I was growing up in the 'thirties I often heard
from my parents

"Shulugs zik kup in vent un shry 'hurra'" in response
to my complaint "there's nothing to do."  I never heard
the phrase used in translation then or later.

My wife and I did have a midwestern Protestant friend
who we figured was an honorary Jew, who was much taken
with "hock mir nicht kein chinik" which we often
translated as "stop banging my teapot."  Forty years
later slogans such as these are the only Yiddish we use
freely, except for the one about teapots.  I guess it
serves to remind us of a time when we were all much
younger.

Cal Pryluck

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon May 10 19:57:58 1993
From: bkatz@epas.utoronto.ca (Bernard Katz)
Subject: Re: The word `nar'

        I had always assumed that the Yiddish word
`nar', meaning a fool, was derived from the Hebrew word
for a youth.  In fact, I thought that the Yiddish word
meant a fool, in the sense of someone who is puerile. I
recently learned, however, that there is a German word
`Narr', which means a fool or buffoon.

        Does anyone know what the etymology of the
Yiddish word is?  There seem to be a number of
possibilities. One is that the Yiddish word actually
comes from the German word, and it is just a
coincidence that there is a somewhat related word in
Hebrew. Another is that the Yiddish word does derive
from Hebrew word. But then, it would be an astonishing
coincidence that there is such a similar word in
German. Someone might, however, conjecture that the
German word actually comes from Hebrew by way of
Yiddish. Do we have any evidence about which comes from
which?

Bernard Katz

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon May 10 23:18:48 1993
From: AJHYMAN@UTOROISE.BITNET
Subject: JEWSTUDIES - New List Available

Dear Friends,

I am very pleased to announce the creation of a new
e-mail list called JEWSTUDIES, made possible by the
nice folks at NYSERNET.

The list will be moderated but open, so please
sign-on today using the normal SUBSCRIBE command to the
LISTSERV at NYSERNET.

For the first little while, please try to keep the
following guidelines in mind when sending a post to
JEWSTUDIES. We would like posts on:

1) Descriptions of on-going scholarly research in the
broadly defined area of Jewish Studies

2) Queries regarding information pertaining to on-going
scholarly research in Jewish Studies

3) Bibliographical, reference, archival or other source
notes that might be of interest to other scholars in
Jewish Studies

4) Brief notes on other areas of interest to scholars
of Jewish Studies. For the time being we will be open
as to the time period of concentration, although
material pertaining to the 18th/19th/20th Centuries
are strongly encouraged.

NO POST WILL BE INCLUDED THAT DOES NOT INCLUDE THE
E-MAIL ADDRESS of the sender, unless special
circumstances warrant it.

May we suggest that you take the opportunity to test
JEWSTUDIES by sending a brief note on your current
endeavors for inclusion in the first issues.

All the best, and we look forward to hearing from you.

  AJHYMAN, moderator, JEWSTUDIES.
c/o   jewstudies@nysernet.org

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue May 11 12:58:04 1993
From: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu
Subject: From the shames

Mendele begins its third year on May 15, a suitable
occasion for mirth and foolishness.  If you've been
saving some especially bad doggerel, riddles, smarmy
ballads, jokes--this is your chance to unload some of
the inventory.

Noyekh

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End of Mendele Vol 2.196