Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.083 August 15, 1994 1) Introduction and a request (Mitchell Brown) 2) Guidelines (Bob Werman) 3) Yiddish courses; Yiddish wordprocessors (Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky) 4) Yidishe textn nisht transliterirt (Peter Kluehs) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 07:51:00 CDT From: brown.mitchell@tntv7.ntrs.com Subject: Introduction and a request My name is Mitchell Brown and I have been lurking for quite a few months now. I am 39 years old and currently live in Hyde Park, Chicago. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I heard some Yiddish spoken, but not often. My grandmother was fluent in Yiddish. However, she did not learn it until she went to work in a factory in the early twenties. When ever she would relate the story of how she learned it, she would always end by saying "Those girls were always suprised that I learned to speak such a 'deep Jewish'". Has anyone else ever heard of a fluency in Yiddish being referred to as 'deep'? She never referred to the language as Yiddish, only as Jewish. I was a German Language and Literature major and did my Senior Year abroad in Bavaria. When I returned to the US, I was amazed to see that along with German, I had also acheived some degree of fluency in Yiddish. I had some Russian and Hebrew, which obviously helped. I tried to read the Forward every week. I also started collecting Klezmer music. I studied Beginning Yiddish at the Workman's Circle in New York with a lovely man named Pesach. Is he still there? Since coming to Chicago, it has been more difficult to keep up my Yiddish studies. It is less 'in the air' than it was in New York. I have been able to pick up a Forward occasionally, and rent Yiddish films from that wonderful resource, Facets Multimedia. Any suggestions for pursuing Yiddish in the Windy City? Are there any Yiddish radio broadcasts in the area? Here is a request: I just finished John Gross' fascinating book SHYLOCK, a book that starts out being a historical survey of interpretation and criticism of the character, and winds up being a study of anti-Jewish sentiment throughout the centuries. One of the most interesting pieces of information for me, was the great tradition of performing Shakespeare in the Yiddish theater of New York. Can anyone tell me where I can find these Yiddish versions of the plays? Besides MERCHANT OF VENICE, HAMLET and KING LEAR seemed to be the most popular. Mitchell Brown 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Aug 94 1:03 +0300 From:RWERMAN@vms.huji.ac.il Subject: Guidelines Some of the requests for help that appear in Mendele seem -- to my oversensitized ears -- to border on, or even enter into the area of unforgivable hutzpa. I work in science and have seen articles authored by A. (alone) who in a endnote thanks B. for doing the experiment and C. for writing the paper. If some of the requests for aid were answered, I imagine a similar scene, the requester authoring an article/thesis/book based on the information all supplied by other readers of Mendele. Why should we contribute under those circumstances? Does the requester deserve sole authorship because s/he initiated the request? I think some guidelines are in order here. Am I more paranoid than absolutely necessary? Nobody, by the way, ever answers my queries on Mendele (except to correct my egregious mistakes). Perhaps this posting is generated by envy on my part. Why is everyone keeping their Venetian dictionaries to themselves? __Bob Werman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Aug 94 11:10 EST From: reyzl@mcimail.com Subject: Yiddish courses; Yiddish wordprocessors I believe that it has now been more than 7 months since I posted anything on Mendele after writing so many long "essays" here. That year of making time to contribute to Mendele is long gone. I have been extraordinarily busy working for Yiddish in the last 7 months as the Executive Secretary (now officially Executive Director) of the Congress of Jewish Culture (= Der Alveltlekher Yidisher Kultur Kongres) in New York. I have been extraordinarily busy with computerizing an office, preparing for a three-day North American Yiddish conference to be held mertseshem in June, 1995 (more later); a new lecture series; new leyen-krayzn; and preparing a bi-lingual quarterly bulletin about the latest news about Yiddish language, literature, and culture to be published in print and on our own online forum (For those who may not know, until 8 years ago, the Kultur-Kongres regularly published a prolific quarterly about this domain in Yiddish only.) Between a sick mother, no cleaning lady, and 3 major computer crashes, there has been no time for e-mail shoyn opgeret fun snail-mail. But it certainly has been wonderful to find so many new members here as well old Yiddishist friends in the last 7 months. I have needed to post for a long time, but just couldn't find the time. Now the rush is on to get the bulletin finished. So, I will be posting a slew of items during this week, and hope to get many responses. Besides the general request in the my newsletter posting, I am seeking detailed information about the following matters: 1) I would very much like to compose a list of all institutions around the world that teach Yiddish language, literature and culture, i.e., colleges, Hillels, synagogues, Jewish community centers, Workmen's Circle branches, clubs as well independently formed classes. Any and all information would be welcome, but the more detail, the better, e.g., address, phone number to call, instructor's name, etc. (Dates and schedules are not important.) 2) I would appreciate hearing from anyone with direct experiences writing Yiddish on a computer. Which wordprocessing programs worked best for you? What were the problems with your particular programs? What fonts did you use? Which programs do you recommend and why? 3) Fonts with which to write Standard Yiddish are hard to come by. But I believe that there are several in the public domain on internet as well as several independently composed by individuals. How does one access those? Can we upload them onto the Mendele archive for others to download like regular files? I am sure that there will be many willing takers for this, since most programs come with a small selection of Yiddish fonts. Hoping to hear from lots of you out there. Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Aug 1994 20:11:00 +0200 From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de Subject: yidishe textn nisht transliterirt Sholem aleykhem alemen Mendelnik(e)s; Ikh pruw gefinen a meglikhkeyt tsu aroplodn yidishe literatur durkh dos INTERNET. Kon mir emetser gebn an eytse vo zenen faran azoyne textn un tsi dos gejt mit hebrew-kermit aleyn. Ikh hob oykh nokh nisht keyn hebreisher word processor. Men hot mir nor oferirt eynen far WINDOWS ober ikh wolt liber gebliben mit DOS 5.0. A sheynem dank in faroys far ayere entfers! Peter Kluehs ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.083 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu