Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 5.215
January 15, 1996

1) Introduction (Heather Valencia)
2) Introduction (Anna Shternshis)
3) Tracking down an article (Iosif Vaisman)
4) Tracking down an article (Louis Fridhandler)
5) Hasofe (Arnie Kuzmack)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 14:35:34 GMT
From: h.m.valencia@stir.ac.uk
Subject: Introduction

I am a new user of Mendele and would like to introduce myself: I teach German
language and literature part-time at the University of Stirling. I wrote my PhD
thesis on the earlier poetry of Abraham Sutzkever, but for the last couple of
years I have been working on the Yiddish poets in Berlin in the twenties,
especially Abraham Nokhem Stenzel. I have published a monograph in German on
his literary friendship with Else Lasker-Schueler, and am now compiling an
anthology of poetry he wrote then, with the German translations by his
life-long friend Elisabeth Woehler (if anyone has biographical information on
this lady apart from what is available in the Stenzel archives in London and
Frankfurt, I would be very grateful to hear of it!)  I should also say as part
of my introduction that there is a lively Yiddish group in Glasgow of which I
am a member: there are readings of Yiddish literature every Sunday with about
20 or more participants, and I take a Yiddish class every fortnight - so
Yiddish is alive in the west of Scotland. Anyone passing through is most
welcome to visit!

I am seeking information for a friend who is doing a thesis on Holocaust
literature: she has given me the titles of some plays and poems of which she
hopes to find translations into English: so far I have drawn a blank, and I
give the titles (mainly in English as she gave me them) hoping that someone
will know if translations exist: H. Leyvik (plays): Who's who?; Di khasene in
Fernwald (1938); In the days of Job (1953); Nes in geto (1944); Maharam of
Rothenberg (1944) Leyvik (poems) Hitler's night moves; In Treblinka I never
was; The ballad of the wilderness; With the saved remnant. Shmuel Liptsin: In
spite of tears (play NY 1946) Yitskhok Katsenelsen: By the Rivers of Babylon
(play, 1941)

Information also about where editions of the Yiddish originals are to be found
would be welcome, but she is particularly interested in translations.
Greetings to all.

Heather Valencia

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 20:56 +0300
From: shternshis@glas.apc.org
Subject: Introduction

My name is Anna Shternshis, and I have already sent a notice to Mendele, but
still I decided to write again.

I am a graduating student of Russian State University of Humanities, now I will
get MA on Russian history and archives. Also for 5 years I've studied at
Project Judaica, conducted both by our University and Jewish Theological
Seminary in New-York. Our programme included Yiddish and Yiddish literature,
and historiaography etc.

When it just started nobody realized how interesting and serious it would be.
Now it is considered to be the best programme of Jewish science in Russia. So
these studies woke up my interest to Yiddish, the language which my parents
spoke when they wanted to hide something from me.

Now I am currently teaching Yiddish in Moscow Jewish University and have a
group of 9 students, which learn Yiddish mostly because of curiosity and also
as a tool for research of history of East Europian Jews.

The subject of my MA paper is going to be a research about Yiddish songs in
Soviet Union, how Jewish idea stayed in these songs whizh were supposed to be
absoutely not national. Also I would like to find out the transformation of
Jewish identity in such songs, how did Jews understood themselves and thought
of their national future in Soviet Russia. The slavic interpolations in these
song really help here.

I am a very attentive reader of Mendele, which I subscribed just recently.
Internet has just started in Russia, so I hope that Yiddish network would soon
have Russian audience also.

Anna Shternshis

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 12:57:56 -0500 (EST)
From: iiv@mmlds1.pha.unc.edu
Subject: Tracking down an article

To Louis Fridhandler:

    Author:  Gershon Winer
     Title:  The religious dimension of Yiddish secularism.
    Source:  Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought,
             Winter 1992 v41 n1 p80-95

Abstract:  Yiddish secularism is an unusual phenomenon because it combines a
worldly socio-political outlook on life with religious non-belief into what is
known as 'veltlichkeit.' The movement found its expression in the 1890s as a
flagrant defiance of religious practices, beliefs and institutions. It later
developed into an ideology which attempted to reconcile secularism and religion
through philosophical essays, educational theory and Yiddish literature.
Leibush Lehrer, Solomon Simon, Abraham Golomb and I.L. Peretz are the most
influential proponents of Yiddishism and the spirit of 'veltlichkeit.'

Iosif Vaisman

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 13:46:17 -0500
From: lfridhan@aol.com
Subject: Speedy tracking of an article on Mendele

Ven ikh hob gefregt ale Mendelyaner vegn a referat, _Secular Dimensions of
Yiddish Culture_ hob ikh gemakht a groysn toes inem titl.  Ober bashaynperlekh
dos makht nisht oys.  Iosif Vaisman hot mayn frage farshtanen gants fayn.  Ikh
hob gekukt aroys az mistome an entfer vet onkumen fun eynem a gelernter
Mendelyaner.  Ikh hob nisht gekholemt az es vet onkumen azoy gikh.  Zeyer a
sheynem dank Iosif Vaisman.

When I asked all Mendelyaner about a paper, I was greatly mistaken in the
title.  Evidently that doesn't matter.  Iosif Vaisman understood my question
perfectly.  I looked forward to the probable arrival of an answer from a
learned Mendelyaner.  I did not dream it would arrive so quickly.  Many thanks
to Iosif Vaisman.

Louis Fridhandler

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 14:31:43 -0500 (EST)
From: kuzmack@umbc.edu
Subject: Hasofe

Hershl Hartman notes the secular dictionary meanings of hasofe and wonders
whether Yiddish is inherently secular in its treatment of loshn- koydesh
elements.

It seems to me that there are two types of uses of loshn-koydesh.  One is the
use of words of LK origin that are recognized and commonly used by all speakers
of Yiddish.  Examples: skhoyre, khasene, mishpokhe, khaver, etc.  Others may be
less common but still assumed to be understood by any educated reader/speaker,
such as lekholapokhes

The second, however, is the use of LK words in a specifically religious context
among frum Jews who are assumed to be familiar with both religious practices
and with the classical religious texts.  In such discourse, one might freely
cite tanakh or gemore in the original or use LK terms for religious concepts
that would not be understood by many Yiddish speakers.

Hasofe may have separate meanings in these two contexts.

Arnie Kuzmack

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End of Mendele Vol. 5.215