Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.310 April 5, 1994 1) Linda Richmann (Jay Lee) 2) Isaac Babel (Dvorah Masha Rabson) 3) Introduction (Vadim Altskan) 4) Introduction (Henry Baich) 5) Wanted-Tapes of Yiddish language radio shows (Rob Frantz) 6) Jewish Programming on WRNO (Hope Ehn) 7) Ver zogt az yidn kenen nor leynen? (Meyshe Alpert) 8) A Table of Contents for Mendele (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Apr 4 11:39:30 1994 From: Subject: Linda Richmann Despite the annoying tendency of Saturday Night Live to repeat programs half-way through the season, palming them off as "encore" presentations, I enjoy Mike Meyers' "Coffee Talk" shtik. For those who are unfamiliar with it, he portrays a Jewish woman who hosts a cable-access phone-in TV show where they talk about "daughters, dogs, whatever, no big wup." The comedy is formulaic, but as I progress in Weinreich, I understand more of the Yiddish Meyers uses. There is one stock phrase, however that I cannot translate. Linda Richmann is only filling in for the regular host, who is out, undergoing medical treatment for shpilkes af der ginekhte gezoynk. Is this real Yiddish, or is it glossalalia? He uses Yiddish in other places that makes me think maybe he isn't making it up. (For example, a caller asked if any of Barbara Streisand's houses burned in the (then) recent brush fires. Linda replied, "Halt dem Mund. Di shvartse ponim hobm es shwer, un itzt brenn di shtot." Then got choked up, exclaiming, "I'm getting beklemt!") Jay Lee 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Apr 4 13:14:21 1994 From: rabson@meeker.ucar.EDU Subject: Isaac Babel Does anyone know if and when Isaac Babel's stories were translated into Yiddish? If so, were they read widely? Dvorah Masha (Diane) Rabson 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Apr 4 16:54:29 1994 From: valtskan@ushmm.org Subject: Introduction Sholem Aleyekhem ! My name is Vadim Altskan. I'm working for US Holocaust Memorial Museum.I graduated from Moscow University 3 years ago and came to States 18 months ago. In Moscow I used to work for Jewish Historical Society. Subject of my research is "History of Jews in Podolia" Actually I was born in Proskurov in Podolia, and as you know Podolia is South-West part of the Ukraine. I'm fluent in Ukranian and of course in Russian, and trying to learn Yiddish myself. Zayt gezunt. Vadim Altskan 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Apr 5 02:47:58 1994 From: Subject: Introduction I've been lurking on Mendele for over a month so let me tell you some- thing about myself. I lived on Chicago's West Side, the largest Jewish neighborhood, for 20 of my first 30 years finally leaving there in 1950. The community's adults were almost all bilingual, English and Yiddish. Some spoke more than the two languages. I learnt most of my Yiddish in Talmud Torah, translating Chumash from Hebrew to Yiddish. Some Hebrew grammar was taught but I think we were too young to be much helped by it. Most of my adolescent friends learnt their Yiddish either at Workmen's Circle or Poale Zion schools. I subscribe to one Yiddish magazine but still feel uncertain in my read- ing. I need a good beginning Yiddish text. Any suggestions? Henry Baich 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Apr 5 12:48:51 1994 From: Subject: Wanted-Tapes of Yiddish language radio shows Having a sub to the Yiddish Forvarts, I have seen ads for Yiddish shows on WEVD. If anyone out there, in the New York area, is familiar with these broadcasts, please give me a schedule. I'm interested in shows where the broadcast language is Yiddish, not shows about Yiddish or about Yiddish music. Also, news programs in Yiddish would really be exciting. Ultimately, I'd like to have tapes made of these shows to develop my listening skills and would send the tapes and postage to anyone who could do this for me. Also, if Mendelniks are aware of shows of this type in other cities or towns please inform me or the Mendele network as a whole. Blank cassette tapes and postage are cheap, but living, spoken Yiddish is at a premium, even in Yiddish groups (in mine, much to my regret, over 50% of the conversation is in English). Rob Frantz 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Apr 5 11:52:37 1994 From: Subject: Jewish Programming on WRNO The Judaic Broadcasting Radio Network in Cleveland, Ohio is pleased to announce the debut of it's new shortwave program: Shalom America Worldwide The program is broadcast Sunday nights at 11pm Eastern Time on WRNO 7.935 MHz, LIVE from Cleveland Ohio. The program is hosted in English by longtime broadcsater Phil Fink, and features Jewish and Israeli music in English Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino, as well as recorded comedy, news from Israel, interviews with newsmakers and entertainers, and call-in trivia contests via a toll-free number. Judaic Broadcasting also offers a domestic version of Shalom America, aired at 7am EST on Sundays on the following stations WRDZ 1260 AM Stereo (c-quam) Cleveland, Ohio WWCS 540 AM Stereo (c-quam) Pittsburgh, PA WNZK 680/690 AM Detroit, MI WLIR 1300 AM Monsey, NY For More Information on Judaic Broadcasting and its programs, call toll free in North America: (800) 583-2420 or outside of North America (216) 382-2802 Hope Ehn 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon Apr 4 19:52:45 1994 From: meyshke@aol.com Subject: Ver zogt az yidn kenen nor leynen? To all of you who responded privately to my posting of Dzhankoye, a hartsikn dank and a half! However, my intention was not to merely post the lyrics of this quite well known song, but to pass along the song in the format I received it: as a printout of a file in a (music?) program called Qbasic. I offered it as something Qbasic users might run and hear (?) the song (and read the lyrics?), as well something that might tickle the Fonye bone of other readers. This all important detail of my post, which might have provided a bit more context to what otherwise was a jumble of characters on the screen, was apparently mistakenly omitted by me, or by Reb Mendele (a lebn em in di beyner!) somewhere in the depths of the redaktsye process. And then there's Grandma's cream extractor, as Blumke Kirshenboym points out, also glaringly absent from this version of the song. . . That's what you get with Qbasic. . . Ver darf zukhn naye glikn. . . ? Meyshe Alpert (A red-faced shames promises an unredacted version.) 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue Apr 5 13:39:07 1994 From: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Subject: A Table of Contents for Mendele Bob Rothstein to the rescue! Mendelniks and Mendelnitses are once again indebted to him, this time for comipiling a complete table of contents to Mendele. It is available on request. Please write to: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu There's something sobering about an archived table of contents. We suddenly realize that our every cough and wink may be scrutinized by one of our no-nonsense children as years from now they peg away at disser- tations and studies of the rebirth (alevay Gotenyu) of Yiddish in America. If for no other reason, may this also serve as a reminder to writers that a _usable_ subject line, one that contains information, makes a difference. If Bob has gone to all this trouble, surely the rest of us can do better than "various" or "farshidns". That applies to my own subject lines which I now repent. Noyekh ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.310 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