Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 3.099
September 6, 1993

1) "Corn" bread (Martin Davis)
2) Forverts (Hal Berman)
3) Saphire (Ellen Prince)
4) Shabesdike, slushai, Yehupets (Bob Rothstein)
5) Two greetings (Regina Igel)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Sep  5 11:48:19 1993
From: davism@turing.cs.nyu.edu (Martin Davis)
Subject: "corn" bread

Just back from a summer away from email, I noted with interest the
discussion in July about the corn bread available in New York some
years ago. I often had it when growing up in the Bronx during the
30s.

About a week ago I found what seemed to be the very same bread at
breakfast at the Hotel Karl Inn in Prague.

Martin Davis

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Sep  5 12:28:38 1993
From: BERMAN <berman@mars.senecac.on.ca>
Subject: Forverts

Much as i appreciate the Forverts for continuing to provide Yiddish
news and commentary, I would like to warn that we should not rely on
it for any examples of correct orthography, grammar or vocabulary.
This warning comes as a result of an August posting which came close
to doing so.

The Forverts usually contains, hmmmm.... shall we call it
imaginative? spelling,draws heavily on English for its vocabulary,
etc... This is not a complaint. But you wouldn't go to a gardener
for a backache, would you?

Hal Berman

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Sep  5 14:54:57 1993
From: "Ellen F. Prince" <ellen@central.cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: Safire

Edward Portnoy:

manishtano... EVERYTHING about william safire bothers me.

ellen prince

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Sep  5 16:24:08 1993
From: ROBERT A ROTHSTEIN <rar@slavic.umass.edu>
Subject: shabesdike, slushai, Yehupets

[Rivkele di shabesdike]

	Just to add to earlier postings explaining "shabesdike" in
the context of the Bialystok ghetto song, let me quote the
explanation given in Eleanor Mlotek and Malke Gottlieb's _We Are
Here:  Songs of the Holocaust_ (_Mir zaynen do:  lider fun di getos
un lagern_), published by the Arbeter Ring (NY, 1983): "The song was
inspired by the tragic occurrence in the Bialystok ghetto on the
Sabbath of July 12, 1942, when 5,000 Jews were shot by the Germans.
Women whose husbands were killed on that Sabbath day were called
'shabesdike' (the Sabbath ones)..."  A note in Shloyme
Katsherginski's _Lider fun di getos un lagern_ (NY: CYCO, 1948)
explains that the men who were rounded up that day were all killed,
but the women who were left behind (di shabesdike), kept hoping that
the men had simply been taken off to forced labor. Both books
contain the full text and melody of the song.

	Mascha Benya, whom Ellen Prince quotes (3.095), may know
another version of the song since the text published in these two
books and elsewhere doesn't say anything about Rivkele trying to
console her child.


[Slushai]

	The Russian imperative form _slushai_ 'listen' is used as
the title and refrain of a Yiddish song about a prisoner shot while
trying to escape from prison.  The text that I have was published in
a Soviet collection called _Komyugishe lider_ (Komsomol Songs) in
1926.  The first of six stanzas begins:

  Vi shvartse makhshoves bam moser in zinen,
    Iz finster fun tif-harbst di nakht.--
  Nokh shvartser far ir iz di tfise, der binyen,
    Vos shteyt, vi a dimyen fartrakht...

The Yiddish text is a translation of a 1864 Russian poem by Ivan
Ivanovich Gol'ts-Miller, which became a folk song. According to one
source, the melody was used by Shostakovich in his 11th symphony.
The Russian poem (also called "Slushai!") begins:

  Kak delo izmeny, kak sovest' tirana,
    Osenniaia nochka cherna...
  Chernei etoi nochi vstaet iz tumana
    Videniem mrachnym tiur'ma...


[Yehupets]

	Zachary Baker's Ukrainian etymology for Yehupets sounds
reasonable to me.  Hrynchenko's 1907 Ukrainian dictionary shows a
figurative meaning for the adjectival form _iehypets'kyi_, namely
"malicious, evil."  (The two examples cited are idioms meaning
"malicious/nasty/evil woman.")

			Bob Rothstein

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon Sep  6 08:31:50 1993
From: Regina_IGEL@umail.umd.edu (ri1)
Subject: two greetings

I am just a messenger here: Lea Singer asked me to send regards to
Dorothy Wasserman (a mendelenik).

And for all who are reading (this is from me): A gut yur, a sheyne
yur! --- It has been such a pleasure to read the Mendele e-mail!
May it all continue and grow always!

Regina Igel

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End of Mendele Vol. 3.099