______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.283 March 10, 1994 1) New Jewish Gopherspace (Avi Hyman) 2) Ansky exhibit update (Zachary Baker) 3) Tikn-toes (David Braun) 4) The Australian connection (Louis Fridhandler) 5) Jascha Kessler & Bias (Howard Kaplan) 6) Shimelekhe, and various (Neyakh Zide) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 10:46:23 1994 From: Avi_J._Hyman@magic-bbs.corp.apple.com Subject: New Jewish Gopherspace I am pleased to tell you that Jewish Studies Judaica eJournal has now opened its JEWISH STUDIES GOPHERSPACE. Gopher is a program used to scan material in an easy-to-use menu style over the internet. Included in the Jewish Studies space are direct connections to libraries, actual texts and articles for reading on-line or downloading, information about programs at universities, and lots of other stuff related to Jewish Studies and Judaism in general. To find it, you need access to gopher, which universities have. Instead of typing MAIL to enter your mail account, try typing GOPHER. You may need to set your computer to VT100 emulation. If it works, you will see a menu screen pop up. If it doesn't, speak to your local computer services person. Here is the path to follow: Other gophers around the world / U.S. gophers / New York State gophers / NY-Israel Project of NYSERNET / Electronic Journals / Jewish Studies Judaica eJournal Please have a look and then tell me what you think. Avi Hyman (ahyman@porpoise.oise.on.ca) 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 11:09:01 1994 From: Zachary Baker (bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu) Subject: Ansky exhibit update The tentative dates for the Ansky exhibit at the Jewish Museum, New York, are: October 6, 1994 to April 23, 1995. The person at the Museum with whom I spoke told me that those dates are 95% certain. Zachary Baker 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 13:13:34 1994 From: dovid@MIT.EDU Subject: tikn-toes The point of my posting about the "gutn purim malekh" song was to bring you the passage of the song that differs from the one collected by Cahan, and dafke that I left out: a gitn pi:rem malox vi: ox gaj fal ox fal ox of de s'tajno cebrex ox mo de bajno (Translated into orthography: a gutn purim malekh, vu ikh gey fal ikh, fal ikh of di shteyner, tsebrekh ikh mir di beyner). David Braun 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 14:09:37 1994 From: Louis Fridhandler <74064.1661@CompuServe.COM> Subject: The Australian connection That Bobbi and Michael Zylberman are heirs and transmitters of Yiddish culture in Melbourne is at first glance rather startling. Azoy vayt farshtekt? Doesn't that illustrate something about the power of the Ashkenazic spirit? Could we bottle it? However, here I am in Orange County, California as distant from my geographical and cultural roots as could be. If it can happen here, it CAN happen ANYWHERE. I have taught Yiddish, given academic as well as entertainment talks on Yiddish, presented programs on Yiddish writing (especially Sholem Aleichem). In Orange County? Are you kidding? Last night we heard Thomas Keneally speak on "The Indeliberate Elements in Writing." Of course, he shifted eventually into discussing "Schindler's List." The story of Poldek Pfefferberg's lifelong persistence to tell Schindler's story is a legend with many facets. One of those facets is, in my opinion, the humane spirit that permeates Ashkenazic culture: devotion to righteous action and to honoring righteous action. We Yiddish cultural heirs are certainly not the exclusive heirs to such a spirit, but we may have the most experience with forces hostile to that spirit. Thomas Keneally has undergone a deep transformation. Observation from the outside reveals a journey from ignorance of European Jewish history to considerable knowledge that has changed his insides. Now, he is one of the few non-Jews that seems to "get it." And I am not offended by his (partially successful) attempts to imitate Pfefferberg's Polish-Yiddish accent. Er iz a mentsh, un take a heymisher mentsh! I would love to hear from the Zylbermans about 1) their style of approach to teaching Yiddish, and 2) how Keneally is received in Australia by non-Jews and by Jews. Louis Fridhandler 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 14:19:51 1994 From: HKAPLAN%AM.mrgate@woods.uml.edu Subject: Jascha Kessler & Bias Hail to thee blithe spirit! The Chinese girl will probably come back and haunt you but I say Ok to guy from the Bronex, a coopsite. Taka a landzman. With people like the murdering doctor running around why mess with Jascha? Howard Kaplan 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri Mar 11 14:26:44 1994 From: n-zide@uchicago.edu Subject: shimelekhe, and various 1. More or less in agreement with Shleyme Axelrod: in playing hide and seek (called hide'n go seek) - also in Brooklyn in the thirties, you made a circle on the back of the boy who was it, and recited a rigmarole having to do with 'shimelekhe and you go O U T.'This finished the programming of the it boy; then you had a short time (counted out ?) to hide before he could open his eyes, turn around and look for you. I assumed the shimelekhe had something to do with the Hebrew shem OlekhO. (Inscribing (names or whatever) wasn't as trendy then as it has since bcome.) I don't remember anyone ever explaining it. Hide and seek is an old and widely known game (in Europe), and I assume there are explanations, scenarios of 'what was going on ' in this rigmarole. As to games in New York, Botkin ? Kirschenblatt-Gimblett ? Does Baker's YIVO book(s) on games talk about hide and seek ? What is it called in Yiddish? 2. I second Steinlauf's comment on the urgency of getting cultural (including linguistic) information from the oldest Yiddish speakers around. (How many Mendelniks are in their eighties or older ?) On theatre, sexuality or whatever. On 'feygele', Groucho Marx used the term somewhere; I can't supply the reference. 3. Freely associating from good old Meyshe Kapeyer, what's the story on Meyshe Pisher, later gentrified to Maurice Lafontaine ?. Neyakh / Norman Zide ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.283 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. 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