Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.021 June 12, 1995 1) Yiddish Music Festival in New York City (Henry Mullish) 2) Ghengis Cohn (Louis Fridhandler) 3) Kholile (Harvey Spiro) 4) Eiss (Jay Fleischer) 5) Izi Kharik (Peter Kluehs) 6) Gilbert and Sullivan in Yiddish (Varda Ullman Novick) 7) Yiddish in Kiev (Esther Aleksander) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 07 Jun 1995 11:20:21 -0500 (EST) From: mullish@acfcluster.nyu.edu Subject: Yiddish Music Festival in New York City On Wednesday July 12, 1995, there will be another annual FREE musical concert at Damrosch Park beginning at 7pm. I am given to understand that it will be a really special show (I think they always are, I must say) because many of the leading Yiddish personalities of the stage will be performing. I am also told that the whole program will be taped for subsequent viewing by the Public Broadcasting Service. For those who are not familiar with Damrosch Park it is part of the Lincoln Center complex at Broadway and 64th Street. Since the park cannot be seen from Broadway, let me explain that it is located behind and to the left of the Metropolitan Opera House, towards the State Theater. The same program will be performed at the following locations: Wednesday, August 9th at 6:30pm at the McDonald Park, Forest Hills; Tuesday, August 22 again at 6:30pm at Cunningham Park, Flushing, Queens; Sunday, August 20 at 6:00pm at Kensico Dam Plaza, Valhalla; Sunday, August 27th at 7:00pm in Seaside Park, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. So there's absolutely no excuse for anyone to miss out on this wonderful opportunity, no matter where you are located on the network! Enjoy, Henry Mullish 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 23:57:45 -0400 From: lfridhan@aol.com Subject: Ghengis Cohn I haven't read the novel nor seen the TV show of _The Dance of Ghengis Cohn_, but I appreciate Zellig Bach's insightful review (5.019). The content described seems to imply that being turned into a Jew is a punishment, that craving Jewish delicacies is a punishment, that using Yiddish words in public is a shameful punishment. One of the tragic ironies is that the author, Romain Gary, was himself punished for being Jewish by other murderers, compatriots of the German police commandant. The author's attempt at symmetry seems, however, to distort the whole set of glorious possibilities thot open up in becoming and being Jewish. The occasional use of Yiddish for fun in TV (so-called) comedies often reaches for the same kind of distortion as does _Ghengis Cohn_. Using Yiddish for comic effect is fine, but not when the comic effect depends (as it often does) on ridicule and destruction of dignity. Incidentally, I think of myself as _becoming_ Jewish. I think of Jewishness and Yiddishkeyt as _processes_ not simply states of being. I was born Jewish, am Jewish, but I strive by study (including Yiddish) and work and thought to _become_ Jewish: not more not less, but still to become. By that I mean: Jewishness, Yiddishkeyt are dynamic, living processes, not static conditions of being. Belief, faith are elements, but don't constitute the whole ball of wax. That would be easy, but as they say, shver tsu zayn a yid. It could be said (with my limited knowledge of the novel) that Romain Gary might have sensed that the real punishment for the German police commandant was that he was turned into a Jew without experiencing the living process. And so the painful deadness of his soul was sharply underscored. Louis Fridhandler 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jun 8 08:45:10 1995 From: hjs@nrc.gov Subject: An incorrect biblical citation? Kholile. Thanks to Michael Shimshoni's sleuthing in finding a reference to the word "kholile" in the Tanakh. >> kholile ... can be found already in the Torah in >> Bereshit (Genesis) 18,14 with essentially the >> same meaning it is used these days in Yiddish >> and Hebrew. Following up on his citation, I noticed a typo. The actual verse in which the word appears (twice!) is verse 25, not 14. It's the beginning of the story of Avrohom's negotiation with G-d over the fate of S'dom. The recent JPS translation interprets it with the meaning: "far be it from you." Harvey Spiro Vienna, Virginia 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 08 Jun 95 09:17:23 EST From: fleiscj_at_met16mf1@ccmail.edu.gov.on.ca Subject: Eiss I would very much appreciate learning of any information on a writer named Chaim Yisroel Eiss. He lived in Geneva during the first half of this century and was instrumental in rescuing Jews during the chorbon. He is referenced in "Chassidic Tales of the Holocaust." Thanks. Jay Fleischer Toronto, Ontario 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 08 Jun 1995 19:38:00 +0200 From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de Subject: Izi Kharik leyendik in band 14 fun musterverk di poemes fun izi kharik [fun dembin, ukrayne], hob ikh gefunen a poeme mitn kepl: di shvarts-hey-nun-ayen-vov- vov-dike goye. mayne verterbikher kenen nisht aza oysdruk. kon emetser gebn an eytse? a dank foroys. peter kluehs wehrheim, germany 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 14:36:52 -0700 (PDT) From: vunovick@netcom.com Subject: Gilbert and Sullivan in Yiddish I'd like to share a post that was sent to me by Sami Klein: Varda Ullman Novick vunovick@netcom.com ---------- Forwarded message ------------------------------------- The June BBC Magazine had a short piece on Gilbert and Sullivan in Yiddish. A Yiddish version of the The Pirates of Penzance, having played to enthusiastic audiences in the USA for the past 8 yrs, is soon to be eleased on CD by Blue Hill Recordins. The recording with the Klezmer Conservatory Band of Boston may come as a suprise to G and S tradionalists.. "Der Groyser General" -a major general who prays in synagogue, studies the Torah, eats chicken soup with matzo balls and cooks carrot stew for Purim - is just one of the newly styled characters in Di Yam Gazlonim. It was translated into Yiddish by Al Grand, a retired teacher from No. Bellmore, NY, who also translated HMS Pinafore. "I am the very model of a modern major general" becomes "Ikh bin der Groyser General un ikh bin oykh a guter Yid (literally, 'I am the Major General and I'm also a good Jew'). Mr. Grand says he has to change contexts and meanings slightly. (HMS Pinafore is anchored in Tel Aviv harbor, for instance) for the translations to work. 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Jun 95 16:02:59 GMT From: brandon@gluk.apc.org Subject: Yiddish in Kiev Yedye far mendelyaner-avanturistn! Di Solomon-universitet in Kiev zukht a yidish-lerer/lererin far onheybers. Hot's nit kayn moire un kvenklt sikh nit! In di 5 khadoshim vos ikh hob do gearbet, bin ikh geven zeyer tsufridn. Kiev iz a sheine shtot und mayn arbet iz biz gor tshikave. Emes, kayn groise parnose iz es take nit, ober ir vet hobn a khelek in der videroyflebung fun yidish un yidishkayt do inem gevezenem yidishland. Un oyb Kiev vert ayhk amol nimes, kent ir aroysforn ken Lemberik, Tshernovits oder Odes... Oyb emetser vil mer visn vegn ot der shtele, zol er/zi shraybn tsu: Esther Aleksander c/o brandon@gluk.apc.org. Esther Aleksander ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.021 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. 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