Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 4.204
November 29, 1994

1) Offers of help (Dan Slobin)
2) Offers of help (Yude Rozof)
3) Offers of help (Miriam Halkin)
4) A biographical note about Mendele (Zellig Bach)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 17:57:47 -0800
From: slobin@cogsci.berkeley.edu
Subject: Offers of help

To Louis Fridhandler:  The "fierce resentment" engendered by Zellig
Bach's proposal was not to the offer of help, which anyone desiring help
could appreciate, but to the proposal that a "minyen" be empowered to vet
all submissions to Mendele for orthographical purity.  Even though
content would not be at issue, the reminder of the czars' "dozvoleno
tsenzuroyu" struck me as the wrong kind of control to impose on what is,
for all intents and purposes, a simple series of conversations between
like-minded people.  Just as we (hopefully) do not correct our friends'
grammar and pronunciation in the course of conversation, I believe that
we should not impose ourselves as teachers in the course of an
electronically-transmitted written conversation.

In the interests of friendship and mutual respect, I suggest that the
purists keep their criticisms to themselves, and that members of the
Mendele community who fear that they will be impugned for their
orthography and grammar turn to members of the self-appointed minyen for
help before joining the conversation.

In the meantime, heartfelt thanks to Zellig Bach for his knowledge,
advice--and great stories!

Dan Slobin

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 00:30:34 -0500 (EST)
From: jrosof@sas.upenn.edu (Jeremy S Rosof)
Subject: Zelig

Ikh meyn az Fraynt Bakh iz a giber yidish un mir darfn im dankn un loybn
vos er hot zikh gemeldet frayvilik oystsubesern dos yidish af mendele.
Ikh farshtey ober gants gut di gefiln fun di vos viln nisht az andere
zoln ibershraybn zeyer yidish.  Fun desthalbn leyg ikh fir az di vos viln
lernen zoln opshikn zeyer post koydm tsu Zelign un di vos nisht iz nit!
Azoy arum iz tsu hofn az yeder eyner vet zayn tsufridn, un mir'n hobn an
oysgetseykhnte miglekhkeyt zikh tsu lernen eyner funem tsveytn a laytish
mame-loshn.  A shekoyekh oykhet tsu Fraynt Fridhandler vos hot derklert
az er iz greyt onteyltsunemen in a tsukunftiker red-kolegye.

Yude Rozof

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 13:50:54 +0200 (EET)
From: mhalkin@lib.haifa.ac.il
Subject: Zellig Bach's offer

I too was surprised at the resentment aroused by Zellig Bach's sugges-
tion that those Mendelniks who so wish could have their Yiddish texts
reviewed before publication. As I understood it, this would be a service
available to those who want it, and not one imposed on those who don't.

I'm a beginning Yiddish student who is just starting to be able to dope
out Yiddish texts in Mendele. It would be a comfort to me to know that
these texts are for the most part free of glaring grammatical or
syntactic errors - errors which at my stage of the game I can't always
identify on my own. Zellig Bach's kind offer would ensure the reliability
of Mendele as a vehicle for learning without inhibiting Mendelniks who
wish to express themselves in mame loshen, and it should be appreciated
as such.

Miriam Halkin

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 20:57:40 -0500
From: zellig@aol.com
Subject: A biographical note about Mendele

Maurice Samuel wrote (_In Praise of Yiddish_, p. 117):

"In his boyhood [Mendele] was shanghaied by a master-beggar, who
exhibited him as an _ilui_ (a scholar-prodigy.)"

Mendele was reputed to know by age 10 the entire _tanakh_ by  heart.

I was intrigued by the term "shanghaied" and checked this particular
detail in the _lexikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur_, published by
the alveltlekher yidisher kultur kongres, N.Y. (vol. VI, 1965).

The 17-tear-old Mendele was fascinated by the stories of a local beggar
who traveled in his horse-drawn wagon from one Jewish community to
another.  In these stories Jewish life in Lithuania, Podolye, and other
parts of South Russia was attractive enough to catch Mendele's fancy, and
he joined him on his next trip.  It was apparently also a means of
breaking away from a highly impoverished home with six siblings and a
widowed mother.

The name of the beggar was "avreml der hinkediker" who later became the
prototype and main character of Mendele's famous work _Fishke der
Krumer_.

Mendele partook in the food that the beggar managed to scrounge together,
and they slept in synagogues, naturally free of charge.

In one town the beggar tried to marry Mendele off to a daughter of a rich
man who was a "balebos" in the literal meaning of the words "ba'al
ha'bayis" because he was, indeed, the owner of a house.  The beggar hoped
to receive a pretty penny as marriage broker.

Mendele's refusal to go through with this plan immensely angered the
beggar, and he started to pressure him into paying for "transportation
and upkeep" going back to the start of the trip.

Fate smiled upon Mendele.  Several weeks later he managed, during one of
the trips, to come across a distant relative who, when heard of the young
man's plight, met the beggar's demand and thus paid "ransom" for
Mendele's freedom.

Zellig Bach

[Good things often arrive in bunches: Zellig's post was preceded by a
_very_ long post by Michael Honey concerning his geneological research
into Mendele's family (he's a plimenik).  Due to its length the text
will be available in "zipped" form via anonymous ftp as soon as a few
technical matters are straightened out. nm]

______________________________________________________
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