Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.227 December 9, 1994 1) Bokser (Jules Levin) 2) A Yiddish/Hebrew Typesetting Machine (Dan Leeson) 3) Kristlen un yidlen (Bob Rothstein) 4) Kristlen un yidlen (Avremi Dashevsky) 5) "Good Times", nit itst gedakht (Dovid Braun) 6) A lied (Baile Borts) 7) Yakov Berliner (Gaston L. Schmir) 8) Apology to Marion Aptroot (Rick Gildemeister) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 8 Dec 94 18:01:01 PDT From: jflevin@ucrac1.ucr.edu Subject: Bokser Daniella HarPaz: I'm afraid you were misled in school re the word "bokser" for carob. It is not English. The West European languages have 2 names for this fruit, one is "Saint John's bread", "pain de st. Jean", "SanktJohannesbrod", etc. since that is what he supposedly ate in the desert (NT), the other is a traditional term, English carob, etc. The older German term was "Bockshorn", the "Bock" (English ~ 'buck') apparently a specific species of European deer. (I think it's the same 'bock' as in bock beer [how to say that in Yiddish?]) The latter term for 'carob' wound up in my father's Yiddish as 'boksaw'. I don't know how it is spelled in Yiddish or what the literary pronunciation is. All I know is that my father had an enormous Yiddish vocabulary that I hardly ever heard him use, and he often used the term for the carob shed every year by the trees on our street in Riverside. He told me he and his fellow steet urchins from pre-WWI Chicago used to chew on the 'boksaw' they found there. It was definitely a Yiddish, not English word, in his vocabulary. By the way, he pronounced 'bok' like buck, 'saw' like saw (midwestern open o!). Jules Levin 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 08 Dec 1994 19:02:51 EST From: leeson@aspen.fhda.edu Subject: A Yiddish/Hebrew Typesetting Machine About three years ago I tried to place the Yiddish Book Center in touch with a man in Detroit who was trying to give away a Yiddish/Hebrew typesetting machine along with about 75 trays of various sized Hebrew type. So I wrote the YBC in Massachussets a letter at a fortuitous time because they had just published a thing in Pakn Treger about their find of such a machine in NY and how they shlepped it up to Massachussets. I figured, at a minimum they could use spare parts. Besides these things cost a fortune and I was trying to give it away. Never got an answer from the YBC, so I wrote again saying, "Do you want a free Yiddish typesetting machine that works?" No answer. Not, "No, we don't want it." Just no answer. So I gave up. But I just saw reference to the YBC on this board and figured maybe somebody on the list knows if they might want such a thing, though I have not spoken to the guy who owns it in three years. I don't think he's had a lot of offers but how do you junk something that weighs a million pounds and only speaks Yiddish? Dan Leeson 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 08 Dec 1994 22:51:16 -0500 (EST) From: rar@slavic.umass.edu Subject: Kristlen un yidlen Moshe Waldoks may be right in attributing the proverb "Es yidlt zikh vi es kristelt zikh" to Heinrich Heine (4.219), but the German proverb and quotation dictionaries that I was able to consult list it, if at all, only as a German-Jewish proverb: "Wie es sich juedelt, so christelt es sich." (One refers to Abraham Tendlau's collection, _Sprichwoerter und Redensarten deutsch-juedischer Vorzeit_, Frankfurt/a/M, 1860.) Yisroel Furman's collection _Yidishe shprikhverter un rednsartn_ (Tel-Aviv, 1968) includes the Yiddish version cited above as #800 and explains: "yidn tuen nokh di nisht-yidn fun zeyer svive (shprakh, kleyder, minhogim, nemen ukhdoyme." Furman traces the proverb to a quotation from the _Sefer khasidim_ of Reb Yehude Hekhosid [R. Judah he-Hasid of Regensburg, c. 1150-1217]: "Kemo sheminhag hanokhrim keyn minhag hayehudim" ("Vi azoy s'iz der minheg bay kristn azoy iz der minheg bay di yidn"). Bob Rothstein 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 09 Dec 94 10:19:26 EST From: dashef@uconnvm.uconn.edu Subject: Vi es kristilt I have used this expression to summarize the sociological view that the behavior of the Jews in diaspora communities mirrors the behavior of the dominant Christian society. Avremi Dashefsky 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 09 Dec 1994 00:10:32 EST From: dovid@mit.edu Subject: "Good Times", nit itst gedakht Nit gedayget, it's a hoax. Dovid Braun [Ellen Prince and Harold Orbach have sent similar messages. nm] 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 08:08:55 -0400 (EDT) From: bmb6@cornell.edu Subject: A lied Does anyone know about the song "Oy,ir kleine likhtelekh" which I found in the back of a chanukkah anthology? It is written by Morris Rosenfeld and Sonia Cheifetz, but no dates or bibliographical details are given. It is quite a pretty little song. Baile Borts 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 09:17:45 -0500 (EST) From: glschm@minerva.cis.yale.edu Subject: Yakov Berliner In reply to Sheine Mankovsky's inquiry, there is a brief article about him in J.S. Hertz, "Doyres Bundistn", Undzer Tsayt, New York, 1956, pp. 271-272. Gaston L. Schmir 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 09 Dec 94 09:07:13 EST From: eeglc%cunyvm.bitnet@yalevm.cis.yale.edu Subject: Apology to Marion Aptroot I've been out for a while and am just checking my mail. A couple of people have written me and I'm unable to answer because my disk accidentally got purged. Fortunately, what khaverte Marion wrote was in a posting, so I was able to retrieve the message and now I can reply. What I think I'm most guilty of here is carelessness in general, and especially about attibuting a confused statement to her. Marion is clearly right about where the logic of what I said takes one, to the conclusion that the disappearance of 80% of Dutch Jewry meant the extinc- tion of the underworld. Obviously I'm wrong, if I meant that! As far as origin theories for Yiddish, maybe I should reemphasize that it seems *plausible* that *part* of the reason there is more loshn-koydesh vocabulary in Western Yiddish is the connection with cattle trading and the desire to hide meaning from gentiles through a sort of "jargon" (and I don't mean the East European use of "zhargon" to name Yiddish). What I think is happening here is that there are many different sorts of folks on this list, some of whom are scholars, others in the beginning stages of learning, who are not necessarily of an intellectual bent. I suppose in my case a little knowledge can be a bad thing, because I don't know what Marion means when she says "since J.W. and Itzik Feitel Stern". We have, as I said, a mixed bag on this list. This sort of thing is going to happen. Myself included, we need to be more cautious and tentative when we assert something in a moment of enthusiasm. I must say, for me, that I am of a romantic temperament and that's going to go on no matter what, realistically, but I can curb it. The danger, obviously, is that someone will take what I say as gospel and add it to their repertory of Yiddish knowledge. Well, I'm going to end this message by saying, Marion, I'm sorry I put those words in your mouth. What I was remembering was a while back when I made I made a connection between the Dutch "sjofel" and the Yiddish word "shoufl" and that you had said to me that it may have come into Dutch through thieves' jargon. I no longer have the text at hand, unfortunately. My motivation was actually the other way around, that I wanted to give you credit for something you had said to me off the list. I put my foot in my mouth and I apologize. Let's all try to be more careful in our communications, especially with the diverse group we have here. Rick Gildemeister ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.227 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) 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 Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele nomail b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu