Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.305 March 30, 1994 1) Sholem Aleykhem's yartzayt (Anno Siegel) 2) On learning Yiddish (Rob Frantz) 3) Kreplach (Meylekh Viswanath) 4) A Pesach question (Dan Leeson) 5) Introduction (Motl Dailey) 6) Grayever folkslid (Meyshe Alpert) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 29 13:55:42 1994 From: Subject: Sholem Aleykhem's yartzayt Louis Fridhandler is right on the secular date and I was wrong. It's May 13, not 2. Maybe I mixed in the birth date, Mar 2, 1859. Zayt mir moykhl dem toes. Another case of "mail now, check later". Anno Siegel 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 29 14:56:36 1994 From: Subject: Advise to polyglots on learning Yiddish For those who love learning languages and have experience in self-education, let me relate how I learned Yiddish. Prior to Yiddish, I had studied Hebrew and Arabic (I have an M.A. in Near East Lang & Lit), French, German and yes, Esperanto. I'm mostly interested in reading and have learned the last three languages mentioned in addition to Yiddish purely by self-education and have read novels and/or verse in each of them. So here goes, for Yiddish: 1) Obtain Uriel Weinreich's "College Yiddish" and read it-the whole thing. Get a hold of a Yiddish-English dictionary, Weinreich's preferred, but Harkavy's is good. A cheap and portable one, though not very good is the paperback by D.M. Harduf, obtainable through the Workmen's Circle Book Center. Also, I used Hebrew-English and German-English dictionaries quite a bit. If you know German, learning to recognize the Yiddish spelling of German words helps immensely. 2) Find a novel or short-story in Yiddish with a translation. Here's what I did. I found a Yiddish novel entitled Di Gas (The Street) by Yisrael Rabon (Israel Rabon) and plodded my way through sentence by sentence, often reading aloud (don't worry too much about pronunciation at this point). This is quite an interesting novel, but of course any novel or short story (along with the same one translated into English) will do. In my case, I was carrying around two books on the bus too and from work each. When you finish this you'll be on your way. 3) Get a subcription to the Yiddish-language Forvarts ($36/year) or at least buy some issues on the newstand. It helps in learning the language of the living world, not just literary language. Also, approximately every other weekly issue has a literary page "Perls fun Yiddishe Poezia," with poems (and stories about the poets) as well as songs, letters from readers and so forth. It is a must in my estimation. 4) Join and become active in a Yiddish club in your town or city. Find out if there is one through the local synagogues or JCC's. 5) Stick with it. It's rewarding. However, take a break once in a while in a while so you don't get burned out. Rob Frantz 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 29 17:37:01 1994 From: VISWANATH@draco.rutgers.edu Subject: Meat kreplachs with cottage cheese and sour cream Dvora Mashye Rabson writes: >For Andrew Cassel, who inquired about the definition of "salte-nosis": my >maternal grandmother (who is still alive at 101) is from Keidan >originally, and she made the "best" saltinosis (according to my mother). >It's a triangular-shaped kreplach filled with cottage cheese and my >grandmother usually floated it (them) in "milk-soup," and added dollops >of sour cream. She was also known to occasionally fill the kreplach with >ground-up meat (not hamburger), fried it and served it on the side with >brisket. My mother has a recipe for it from a Pesach cookbook, believe >it or not, and said she would send it along. kreplach filled with cottage cheese and floating in milk-soup, with dollops of sour cream... and occasionally filled with *ground-up meat! And from a Pesach cookbook to boot! I guess the haskole was more widespread than I imagined. Meylekh Viswanath 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 29 19:09:24 1994 From: leeson@cedar.fhda.edu Subject: A Pesach-cum-recipe-cum-Yiddish question I seek a Yiddish word or a Yiddish expression that I have forgotten. At this time of the year my grandmother always prepared her matzoth in a special way and the word for matzoth prepared in that fashion is what I seek. She would get a pot of water boiling, run cold water over the matzoh, and then steam it over the boiling water for perhaps 10-15 seconds for each side. Then it was coated with butter or schmaltz depending on what else we were eating and it was (and still is delicious). Anyway, how were matzoth prepared this way referred to in Yiddish? I always thought that it was only my grandmother who made them this way (though I must admit I did not do a lot of looking into other people's kitchens to find out how they preferred their matzoth). And the people I would ask about this as I got older looked at me as if I were trying to inquire about where to buy a size 14 bustle frame whenever I would speak of "steaming matzoh." But my daughter works at a place that has a number of Russian immigrants and as Passover approached, one of them mentioned that, in Russia, she had them steamed in exactly the same way as I described (and which my daughter loves). So clearly the practice of steaming matzoh was more widespread than I thought. But what Yiddish word describes them? My grandmother always referred to them as being refreshed or "frished auf" but that is not the name of the thing, only a description of what was done to it. Now that your childhood memories have been awakened, remember, only 10-15 seconds per side over boiling water. Then butter at once and eat at once. No delay or the thing petrifies!! And the matzoh must be wet before steaming. Dan Leeson 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 29 19:58:16 1994 From: Subject: Introduction My name is Matt Dailey. I am a graduate student in Yiddish and Hebrew at the Ohio State University. My Yiddish interests are in the area of Yiddish religious literature, in particular those items written for women, like the tkhines. My Hebrew training is in the area of Biblical Hebrew and Comparative Semitics. I am looking forward to interacting on Mendele, and hope to hear from my colleagues soon. Motl Dailey 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Mar 29 22:13:45 1994 From: meyshke@aol.com Subject: Grayever folkslid Mikhl Herzog: I don't remember the khazn or the label, but I'm pretty sure the Grayeve recording you are thinking of is "Dray yor a libe gefirt" (or, as they say on the recording itself, "Dray yor a wibe gefirt"), an American Yiddish recording of the late 78-rpm era (late 40s-early 50s), at least the copy I know. There is a spoken intro at the beginning, to the effect of: "'Dray yor a wibe gefirt': a idishe folkslid fun grayever gegnt, gezungen in ortikn dialekt," and then the 'w's and final 'i's fly fast and furiously. A number of years ago, the record was in the collection of Carol Freeman, a singer of Yiddish and Balkan music living in lower Manhattan. If you'd like, e-mail me directly and I'll put you in touch with her. A gutn meyd (so to speak), Meyshe Alpert ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.305 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. Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net