Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 5.067
July 25, 1995

1) Simcha Bunim; gebrokhts (Helen Abeles)
2) Ashkenazim from Italy (Eli Katz)
3) Yiddish and the British (Arn Abramson)
4) Khotsh, khotshk, khotshbe (Leybl Botvinik)
5) Spelling Correction: Klepfisz (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan)
6) Peretz's yortsayt--and Mendele's (Hershl Hartman)
7) Peretziana: vinkl, yortsayt, article (Moyshe-Shaye Steinlauf)
8) From the shames (Noyekh Miller)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 09:40:33 +1000
From: abeles@ozemail.com.au
Subject: Simcha Bunim; gebrokhts

Many people are called Simcha Bunim. Could anyone please tell me where
the Bunim part comes from?  Also, where does the term gebrokhts come from?
Is it connected with the word farbrokekhts or farbrokn?

A dank oyf foroys,

Helen Abeles

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 16:57:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: katz@sonoma.edu
Subject: Ashkenazim from Italy

A useful introduction to the question of Ashkenazic Jews in Italy is an
article by Moyshe Avigdor Shulwas, "dos ashkenazishe yidntum in italye."
Yivo Bleter, 34, 1950, pp. 157D181.  The article deals with the
Ashkenazic migration southward into Italy which started toward the end of
the 13th century and established a Yiddish speaking and Ashkenazic
cultural community which coexisted for some two hundred and fifty years
or so on Italian territory with the pre-existing community of Italian
Jews which Shulwas terms "Italyani", but also with Levantine, and later,
Sephardic Jews.  The period in question is of course too late to be
helpful with respect to the speculations of Ellen Prince and Mikhl
Herzog, but Shulwas begins his essay with some possibly relevant remarks:
"der doziker protses hot zikh ongehoybn in a tsayt ven dos italyenishe
yidntum iz gevorn shtark ayngeshrumpn numerish un geografish.  biz dem
tsvelftn yorhundert beerekh ken men gefinen yidn kimat in gants italye.
itst ober bayt zikh dos bild.  dos tsofn-italyenishe yidntum vert
farshsvundn _tsulib sibes un bay umshtandn vos zaynen nokh vayt nisht
oyfgeklert_" [my emphasis, ek].

Efsher ligt dort der hunt bagrobn.

But it should also be kept in mind that our notions of national
boundaries (e.g. Austria/Italy) are entirely modern (the risorgimento
wasn't until the latter half of the 19th century). Even if at any pre- or
proto-Yiddish time Jews lived in German speaking territory which is _now_
in Italy, there's no reason to assume that they thought they were living
in Italy, and, more to the point, it would be necessary to determine what
the situation was with respect to the possible existence of
co-territorial Romance speakers at that time.

Be that as it may, everything that has to do with Elye Bokher and Yiddish
prints in Italy has to do with migrants from the north or their
descendants.  It may in fact be more useful for this period to think of a
continuous Ashkenazic culture area which spilled from southern
Germany/Austria across the Alps to northern Italy, where it coexisted
with other Jewish traditions.

What certainly is the case is that Yiddish literature of the Italian
period (mainly the 16th century, e.g. Bovo Bukh, Pariz un Viena, Ku Bukh)
is significantly infiltrated by Italian lexical items which, although
some persisted in later editions published in Germany and Poland, have
not to my knowledge survived into any modern Yiddish dialect.

Nothing that I have written should, however, be interpreted as
discouraging further speculation along these lines.  I'm also among the
"Loter skeptics," though far from persuaded of the "right answer," and
i'm all for exploring the _sibes un umshtandn vos zaynen nokh vayt nisht
oyfgeklert_.

Eli Katz

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 95 21:09:16 EDT
From: abramson@uconnvm.uconn.edu
Subject: Yiddish and the British

In the July 1995 issue of _Dateline World Jewry_, published by the World
Jewish Congress, page 3, is the following:

                        No Yiddish

World War II archives of the British Broadcasting Corporation reveal that
the BBC repeatedly refused to broadcast in Yiddish to Europe's
beleaguered Jews during the war despite pleas from the Polish underground
for such broadcasts.

BBC records show that the British Foreign Office wishing to play down any
notion of Jewish nationalism, had a hand in rejecting the idea of the
broadcasts.

Arn Abramson

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 95 07:40:44 IDT
From: leybl@telecomm.tadiran.co.il
Subject: Khotsh, khotshk, khotshbe

'khotshk' hob ikh keynmol nit gehert (oder keynmol nit bamerkt). ikh hob
ober ye gehert 'khotshbe'. tsi hobn andere dos gehert? ver zogt 'khotshk'
(loyt dem 'atlas') un ver/ven 'khotshbe'?

leybl botvinik
netanya

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 13:10:00 -0400
From: shirshan@aol.com
Subject: Spelling Correction: Klepfisz

In my posting about Ashkenaz in Toronto [5.064], the name of the talented
poet, Irena Klepfisz, was misspelled.

Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan

6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 19:45:35 -0400
From: hershl@aol.com
Subject: Peretz's yortsayt--and Mendele's

While (khotsh) I heartily endorse the idea of celebrating the life _and
the work_of Peretz, it should be noted that the occasion of his 80th
yortsayt has passed. It occured on April 3 of this year by the general
calendar, which corresponded in 1915 with di vokh fun peysakh (Passover
week--I don't know the precise day on the Jewish calendar)  [19 tog in
Nisn nm].

Which should alert all of us to begin planning observances of _Mendele's_
80th yortsayt in 1997. By the old-style Russian calendar then still in
effect, the date of his death was November 25, 1917; the modern general
calendar equivalent is December 8, 1917. (My birthday--had my parents
known that, I might have been named for him, rather than for the Bundist
folk-hero and martyr, Hirsh Lekert.) Since khanike starts late that year
(12/24), the two week period 11/25-12/8 would be free of "conflicts" on
Jewish community calendars.

Hershl Hartman

7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 14:27:36 -0500 (EST)
From: m_steinlauf@acad.fandm.edu
Subject: Peretziana: vinkl, yortsayt, article

To add to Bob Rothstein's note on vinkl: Peretz's popular newspaper
column in Haynt in 1912-13 was called "In mayn vinkele."

To Sheine Mankovsky, who would like to celebrate Peretz's 80th yortsayt:
unfortunately, it was kholamoed peysakh, and therefore past.

To Mendelyaner one and all, I would like to recommend two articles in the
current issue of Jewish Social Studies (v. 1, nr. 3). One is by Dan Miron
(translated from Yiddish), entitled "The Literary Image of the Shtetl";
the second, funem shrayber fun di dozike shores, is entitled "Fear of
Purim: Y. L. Peretz and the Canonization of Yiddish Theater."

Moyshe-Shaye Steinlauf

8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995
From: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu
Subject: From the shames

Readers, especially our new ones, occasionally ask about Mendele's policy
regarding what gets printed and what doesn't.  The short answer is that
virtually all (probably 99%) appear.  There are however some problem
cases.

1. While Mendele is about Yiddish, _short_ messages that comment on or
bring new information to a statement made in a post that has already
appeared are almost always run even if they doesn't deal with Yiddish.
With so many gelernte (..kulanu khakhamim, as Tevye might have read it,
mir zenen ale gelernte) writing for Mendele it would constitute cruel and
unusual punishment to deprive them of a cherished vice.

2. Yoo-hoo posts are never accepted.  These are mainly personal messages
from one person to another, people in search of other people, etc.

3. Commercial posts are out.  This poses a problem since _some_ of these
may actually be useful to many readers.  The shames is looking for a way
to circumvent the rule.  One way might be to have the product sent to a
reader who can then review it for the list.

4. Finally, there are posts that deal at length--sometimes at great
length--with something other than Yiddish (genealogy, history,
archeology, religion, and so forth).  Some are interesting and even
scholarly, others crank tracts.  All have to be rejected because to
accept them would turn Mendele into a general-purpose Jewish list in
short order.

Mendele _does_ however try to inform readers of the existence of infor-
mation on a non-Yiddish theme that they might find interesting.  A post
of that sort, optimally including a short bibliography, is always in
order.

Finally, readers are reminded that Mendele is what's called a "moderated
list".  The shames understands "moderator" as being akin to a journal
editor.  Copy is edited for spelling, formatting, etc.  Occasionally
contributors are asked to rewrite or delete a passage. But the shames has
done far from a perfect job in this respect and has received some
deserved khad-gadyes from readers; though compared to the editor in Mark
Twain he's been treated with great consideration.

In an age when you can't tell the players even _with_ a scorecard,
language suffers.  So it's no surprise that editing sometimes gets
confused with censorship.  The latter consists of actions designed to
protect the state, a religious body, an organization.  Mendele serves
none of the above.  And to the skeptic who asks: if none of those, maybe
a pet theory?  No.  A theoretical perspective?  Again no.  Nu, khotsh a
paradigm?  Not even a paradigm.

Noyekh Miller

[My shutef, the learned and witty Victor Bers, asks to be associated with
these remarks.]

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End of Mendele Vol. 5.067