Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 4.167
November 6, 1994

1) Yiddish Scrabble (David Sherman)
2) "Hobn" auxiliary in the present perfect (Schmuel Levine)
3) Rivalry between two Jewish charity boxes (Zellig Bach)
4) Di Kishef-makhern (Michael Steinlauf)
5) "Unter Dayne Vayse Shtern" (Jay Brodbar)
6) Yiddish theater with simultaneous translation (Michael Steinlauf)
7) Risevn and amshy in Rovne (Khayim Heynakh Sapoznik)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 94 20:29:01 EST
From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca
Subject: Re: Yiddish Scrabble

A clarification about my Yiddish Scrabble posting: the moderator deleted
some of the old header information.  When I wrote:

> We had a terrific time at the Yugntruf Yidish-Vokh in Copake NY, from Aug
> 31 to Sept 6. ...Among the unplanned activities, we found ourselves in
> a game of Scrabble in Yiddish with Josh Waletsky and his family...

That was in 1989.  Of course, we had an equally terrific time at
yidish-vokh in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994.

David Sherman

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 05 Nov 1994 20:03:07 -0600 (CST)
From: schmuel@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu
Subject: "Hobn" auxiliary in the present perfect

I am currently working on dissertation research on first language
attrition and incomplete first language acquisition of Yiddish.  This
involves, for the most part, US-born children of immigrants for whom
Yiddish is a native language, but who, for the most part, have not used
Yiddish actively since about school age (I'm always on the lookout for
new participants in the central Texas area, so please contact me if you
fit this description!).

Several of the informants in my study have produced present perfect (past
tense) constructions in which hobn was the sole auxiliary.  I have since
learned that several dialects of Northeastern Yiddish contained only one
auxiliary, hobn (zayn is simply absent from the grammar of these
dialects).

I have three questions for Mendelniks: first, does anyone know exactly
which Northeastern dialects had only the one auxiliary?  Second, in those
dialects which allowed hobn as the only auxiliary, was its use as such in
any way stigmatized, i.e. considered "low-brow" or uneducated?  Third,
can anyone suggest titles which describe in detail the grammars of
various Northeastern Yiddish dialects (at this point I'm interested in
anything on the subject, regardless of what language it's written in).

Thanks for your input!

Glenn Levine (Schmuel)

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 1994 22:34:38 -0500
From: zellig@aol.com
Subject: Rivalry between two Jewish charity boxes

Nowadays, when all manner of charity boxes stand in front of, or near,
cash registers, pleading, so to speak, for your loose change for a great
variety of organizations, it is good to remember that this type of
collection was at one time unique to religious purposes.

In my posting "Meyir bal Ha'Nes (4.150,2) I mentioned that the Meyir
bal-ha'Nes "pushkes" in pious Jewish homes were the forerunners of the
blue-and-white Keren Kayemes boxes of the Jewish National Fund.

The encounter of the two charity boxes was not at all a friendly one.
Ultra-orthodox Jews saw in the new box a rivalrous "occupant" on the
kitchen table or window sill, an upstart competitor for a share of the
meager fiscal charity pie of the shtetl economy.

They vehemently resented the diversion of funds from the Meyir bal-ha'Nes
collections for the old people in the Holy Land studying the holy books
to the secular Zionists aiming to establish godless settlements in Erets
Yisroel and to revive Hebrew as if it were an ordinary language and not a
holy one ("loshn koydesh").

Zellig Bach

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 06 Nov 1994 09:28:08 -0500 (EST)
From: m_steinlauf@acad.fandm.edu
Subject: Di Kishef-makhern

In reply to Dovid Braun's query for Zalmen Srebro about Goldfadn's play
"Di kishef-makhern": it's not easy with Yiddish plays, even with
something as basic as this one. There exist, of course, scattered
throughout the world, numerous individual editions of Goldfadn's many
plays. But -- go try to find them, and then go try to read them. There
is, however, one decently-edited collection of Goldfaden plays done by
Sh. Bilov and A. Velednitski, A. Goldfaden, "Geklibene dramatishe verk,"
which includes "Di kishef-makhern." The book was published in Kiev in
1940, but -- my own xeroxed text was made, I'm pretty sure, from a copy
in the Brandeis (or possibly Harvard) Library. If you can't find it
there, I'll be happy to make a copy of my copy. Agev: any plans for a
revival, or at least a dramatic reading?

Michael Steinlauf

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 09:42:12 -0500 (EST)
From: brodbar@epas.utoronto.ca
Subject: "Unter Dayne Vayse Shtern"

I recently was at the Holocaust Museum Memorial Learning Center and while
sampling their multi-media data base, listened to a hauntingly beautiful
rendition of Sutzkever's "Unter Dayne Vayse Shtern."  It was set to music
by Avremi Brudno.  Since no discography was provided, I would be most
appreciative if someone can post any info on where I might find it,
espcially on cd.

Jay Brodbar

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 06 Nov 1994 09:45:50 -0500 (EST)
From: m_steinlauf@acad.fandm.edu
Subject: Yiddish theater with simultaneous translation

In response to Dvorah Halperin Biasca's query: the Polish State Yiddish
Theater has, for many decades, been staging Yiddish theater with
simultaneous translation into Polish. The quality of both the
translations and the performances themselves is rather low, but the
method has made it possible for tens of the thousands of Poles (and
handfuls of Polish Jews, mainly from abroad) to "witness" Yiddish
theater. All in all, I suspect it's worthwhile, though I've been present
at (and involved in) endless disputations about whether it really is.

Michael Steinlauf

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 10:05:35 -0500
From: sapoznik@aol.com
Subject: Re: Risevn and amshy in Rovne

In my home my family from Rovne (Volhynia gubernia) always used risevn
for "to draw" and schreibn for "to write". Also, my late father Zindel
Sapoznik occasionally used the word "amshy" (or "amtshy") as a kind of
endearing term for eating. Is this his own construction? He was born in
Rovne before it was Polish (1920); could this be from before then?

Khayim Heynakh Sapoznik

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