Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.093 August 23, 1995 1) Introduction (Dennis Skigen) 2) Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations (Ronald Florence) 3) Meshugoim (David Herskovic) 4) Chicken-footed demons (Bernard S. Greenberg) 5) Chicken-footed demons (Irv Miller) 6) Chicken-footed demons (Nina Judith Katz) 7) Pocket book (David Sherman) 8) Yiddish in translation - once more (Marti Krow-Lucal) 9) A Bintl Brif (Morrie Feller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 13:37:05 -0700 From: adwriter@sierra.net Subject: Introduction Thanks to Morrie Feller, I have found my way into Mendele and you are all stirring up wonderful memories of growing up in a large family in New York and Connecticut. While my Yiddish is limited to a few words and phrases, reading the Mendele mail is pushing me to learn more. As a further incentive for me to join this active group, I had an Aunt Yetta Zwerling who co-starred with Menasha Skolnick (pardon the spelling) in the Yiddish theatre. She would have loved this. Thanks for keeping Yiddish alive, Dennis Skigen 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 12:55:52 -0400 From: ron@mlfarm.com Subject: Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations Is there a Yiddish expression for the English idiom `From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations'? I recall my grandfather using an expression that seemed close, back in the 1950s, but I didn't know enough Yiddish to remember exactly what he said. Thanks. Ronald Florence 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Aug 95 13:48:57 EDT From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: Meshugoim Thought this piece culled from the AP newswire may be of some interest. David Herskovic LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Attorneys in the O.J. Simpson case, battling again over how things are done on opposite coasts, skirmished playfully Monday over the Yiddish word for crazy. "I just thought, you know, these guys are meshuge and (I) didn't know -- didn't know what they were up to," Deputy District Attorney Hank Goldberg commented to the judge. Goldberg, born and raised in Los Angeles, was describing defense experts' conduct as they looked for blood evidence left behind in Simpson's white Ford Bronco. Defense attorney Barry Scheck, a proud Jewish son of New York, popped up to correct him. "Meshugener," Scheck said. "Well, this is Los Angeles, it's an L.A. pronunciation," Goldberg said to chuckles in the courtroom. Goldberg was right -- sort of. According to The Modern English-Yiddish, Yiddish-English Dictionary published in 1968 by YIVO, the Institute for Jewish Research in New York, meshuge is the adjective for crazy or mad -- no matter what city you're from. Meshugener is the noun for madman or lunatic. Even if Scheck thought the noun form was called for, crazy men would properly be called meshugoyim. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 15:44:22 -0400 From: bsg@basistech.com Subject: Chicken-footed demons Baba Yaga is a witch (all right, a senior-citizen female Wiccan practicioner) of Russian folk-lore who is reputed to live in a hut on chicken-legs. Mussourgsky's "Pictures at an exhibition" includes a depiction of a painting of this by Hartmann. Bernard S. Greenberg 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 15:16:29 -0500 From: deanspc.ecgf.uakron.edu@file02.ecgf.uakron.edu Subject: Chicken-footed demons The Russian witch who lived in a house on chicken legs was named Baba Yaga. She invited children in, and then roasted and ate them. Presumably, she was related to the Hansel & Gretel witch, who must have been more successful, since ginger bread is probably a better lure than chicken legs. Irv Miller 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Aug 1995 01:05:32 -0400 (EDT) From: lblikcht@acs.bu.edu Subject: Chicken-footed demons Sholom aleichem, yidn. The witch who lives in the hut on chicken legs in the forest in Russian folk tales is Baba Yaga. I'm new to the list. Where does she turn up in Yiddish? (since this was already discussed, feel free to reply via e-mail, not through the list. Nina Judith Katz 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 95 20:30:02 EDT From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca Subject: Pocket book For my wife's aunts in the Bronx, the Yiddish word for purse is "pakebuk". For her mother and her aunt who live in Toronto (total four sisters, all camp survivors originally from Staszow), the word is "baytl" (pronounced "baatl"). We've always understood "pocket book" to be a NYC-ism. David Sherman Toronto 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 21:48:27 -0400 From: kromobile@aol.com Subject: Yiddish in translation - once more I think Morrie Feller and I are essentially in agreement about the importance of availability of Yiddish and English texts. What he appeared to infer was that I think English translations of Yiddish are more important and useful than Yiddish originals. This is not the case; as a person who has spent her adult life teaching Spanish literature in the original, I am keenly aware of what is lost in translation. What Iwas trying to say was that for me and for many other non-fluent students of Yiddish at this time, translations allow us to enter the world of Yiddish, however imperfectly, and encourage us to learn more. Yiddish, like peninsular Spanish literature, should be translated into English; the translations enrich everyone. This does not mean that the originals should be abandoned. My teacher Joseph Silverman (olevhasholem), a speaker of Yiddish and a brilliant scholar and collector of Sephardic ballads, suggested, in a 1974 article on (and I translate) the Art of Renouncing Nothing, that the best way to understand Cervantes was to cite Wallace Stevens: _[They] had to choose. But it was not a choice/Between excluding things. It was not a choice/Between, but of._ Given a choice between Yiddish originals and translations, I would choose both. I cannot speak for anyone else. Marti Krow-Lucal Sunnyvale, CA 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 22:04:53 -0700 (MST) From: feller@indirect.com Subject: A Bintl Brif I have seen English translations of these letters, but never any in the original Yiddish. As a teaching device, I think the original versions alongside the translations would be very useful. Has anyone ever seen the original Yiddish versions collected in one place? Morrie Feller Phoenix ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.093