Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 4.370
March 17, 1995

1) Homentashen und Motl Jefferson (Berel Leiser)
2) Purim humour (Ze'ev Zimmerman)
3) An appeal (Mikhl Herzog)
4) Isaac Bashevis Singer (Veronika Grady)
5) Patsh, frask, khmalye, un zetz (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 95 06:27:03 EST
From: leiser@pacevm.dac.pace.edu
Subject: Homentashen und Motl Jefferson

Raboysai v'rabonoysay, last week I had the good fortune to find myself at
the National Archives, where, borukh hashem, I learned the reason for
the great stre ngth of the dollar and also, nebekh, the reason for its
recent drop in value. But I am getting ahead of myself.

For years the true facts of Thomas Jefferson's ancestry have been known
only to a favored few.  Mendelniks, informed of the facts, will
undoubtedly spread t he word.  In the Archives, I stumbled upon his
mama's diary, and there I came upon the unvarnished, indisputable emes.
Jane Jefferson, as she is called by historians and biographers, was in
fact descended from a family of Galitzianers, who naturally called her by
her proper name, Chana.  Her husband's name was Yoysefson, but when he
landed at Ellis Island, the Irishman at Immigration misunderstood and
wrote "Jefferson."  A zeltene zakh iz dos nisht geven in die tzeiten.

Nu, when Chanah delivered her baby boy, she wrote in her diary:  "A nurse
came in asked me what name she should put on the chart for my yingele.  I
saw in his eyes that one day he would save our people from that
meshugener meylekh George, y'makh sh'moy v'zikhroy, who as everyone
knows is descended from Homon Horosho, which is why the war his people
fought was called the War of the Roshos.  So I said to the nurse,
thinking back on another hero who once saved our people, 'I want my son
to be named Mordechai, Motty for short.'  Little did I know tha t she was
dyslexic.  Instead of Motty she wrote Tommy!  So my little boy, I knew,
would ever after be called Thomas."

If perhaps you doubt this, ask anyone from the ADL or the AJC who was the
founding father of their organizations.  Who else but Motty Yoysefson,
one of ours, would build such a wall of separation between church and
state?

Nu, Motty designed the Great Seal of America, which from that day to this
has been on the greenback.  You can see it for yourself.  And in that
seal is the Great Homentash.  First is the pyramid, a reminder of how
the yidn hobn amol ged arft arbetn b'mitzrayim avoydas perekh, als
shklafen, to build a monstrous quadruple homentasch pointing to the
heavens.  And second is the emesdik himlishe homentash mit der
eybeshter's oyg as a sign of Hashem yisborakh's providential hashgokhe
over us mere mortals.  This divine homentasch is the reason the greenback
has been the most powerful currency on earth.

Now along comes Avrom Moishe Greenspan.  He patschkes with the greenback,
and to make matters worse, Congress talks about doing away, not only
with the homent asch on the back of the dollar bill, but, kholile, with
the dollar bill itself .  It is not to wonder why the mark and the yen
are taking over!

I could tell you much more that I learned from my research, such as the
fact th at the so-called native Americans are actually descended from the
"lost" tribe of Menashe, and that they brought mame loshen with them, as
we can see, from th e names they gave themselves.  Lemoshl, the slogan of
one tribe, right out of the Toyre, was "A patsch fur a patsch," which
is why the tribe is called the Apatschis. But this will have to wait for
another occasion.

A freylikhe purim alle!

Berel Leiser

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 11:29:32 -0500 (EST)
From: zimmerma@lib.uwo.ca
Subject: Purim humour

A bit of Purim humour.

Q.  What did Jeffrey Dahmer like to eat for Purim?

A.  Humantaschen.

Ze'ev Zimmerman

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 95  15:17 EST
From: zogur@cuvmb.columbia.edu
Subject: An appeal

First of all, _a freylekhn purim_ to all.

This is an appeal to all academics on the network, wherever you are,
whatever your discipline.

In connection with plans to preserve the extensive, irreplaceable,
invaluable tape-recorded archives of the Yiddish Language and Culture
Atlas:

If you are at all familiar with the nature and value of this material,
would you be good enough to write to me directly, by E- mail (or, by
snail mail, to Box 234 Garrison, NY 10524), a thoughtful, quotable
statement concerning the value of the archive for future scholarly
research in your particular field. Letters from linguists, Germanists,
Slavists, Hebraists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists,
folklorists, ethnomusicologists, literary scholars, et al. will be
gratefully acknowledged. Please indicate your title and academic
affiliation.

I do apologize to the non-academics among us for this "exclusionary"
appeal. I expect you will understand the reason for it.

Again, Gut Purim

PS: Does anyone recall the second line of the following bit of
doggerel?

git pirim, git pirim,
??????????????
gits mir a groshn
n'varfts mir arous

Mikhl Herzog

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 11:59:21 -0600
From: v.grady@mail.utexas.edu
Subject: Scholars of Isaac Bashevis Singer

I am a graduate student in Germanic Languages at the University of Texas
at Austin and am interested in talking with scholars who have substantial
knowledge of the life and work of Bashevis Singer. Does anyone know where
I could find such a person?

Veronika Grady

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 17:39:17 -0500
From: shirshan@aol.com
Subject: Patsh, frask, khmalye, un zetz

In undzer Yidish Vinkl, hob ikh zey gegebn "heym arbet" tzutzugreytn a
por verter vegn zeyer yugnt, vi azoi zeyere eltern flegn zey disiplinern.
Iz aroisgevaksn a diskusye vegn di "shuld rayzes" {guilt trips} vos a
sakh mitglider hobn ibergelebt un mir hobn gelakht un dertzeylt Woody
Allenishe meynselekh un vitzn. "Iz dos gringer tzu farnemen vi knipn un
shlogn?" hob ikh gefregt. "Vos meynt ir?"

Hot eyner dertzeylt fun a tate vos fleg im gebn a patsh in tokhes, un a
tzveyter hot dertzeylt fun a geshrey, "Trombenik!" mit a frask in ponim.
"Un a khmalye git men in kop?" hot gefregt a driter. "A zetz git men in
kop!" hot a ferter geenfert.

Meyn shayle: Are patsh, frask, khmalye and zetz interchangeable?
Synonyms?

Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan
Boynton Beach, Florida

______________________________________________________
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