Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.303 April 15, 1996 1) Shas tkhine (Leonard Prager) 2) Yok (Jonathan Bellman) 3) Mendele Moykher Sforim (David Herskovic) 4) Shtetl: A film by Marian Marzynski (Andrew Cassel) 5) Yiddish slang terms for prison (Zellig Bach) 6) Another Singer novel (Dvosye Bilik) 7) Katsenelson tsi Tseytlin? (Johnny Mangaard) 8) _Kind un Keyt_ (Sureh-Rukhl Schaechter) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 96 16:55:10 IST From: rhle302@uvm.haifa.ac.il Subject: Shas tkhine Anyone looking up _shas tkhine_ in the _Encyclopaedia Judaica_ will find an entry in the Index, but nothing on the subject on the page we are referred to (14:1317). Yom-Tov Levinski, who can generally be relied upon, in his 2-volume _Entsiklopedya shel havay umesoret bayahudut_ (Tel-Aviv, 1970), p. 803, briefly informs us that "Bereyshit meya zu yatsa monitin le'Shas techina'- - kelomar: 360 techinot al inyanim shonim bechayey haisha, keneged hagvarim hameayinim beshas (talmud)." ('At the beginning of this century the "Shas tkhine" became well known -- 360 prayers touching matters in the life of women, as opposed to the Talmud, with which the men interested themselves." Levinski has here glossed the _Shas_ in _Shas tkhine_ as implying that the women's prayer book is _their_ Talmud, the men having the _real_ Talmud. I am not convinced that the name _Shas tkhine_ was meant to give the women a feeling they had a substitute Talmud -- how could there be a substitute Talmud? Rather, I think it was called _Shas tkhine_ because 1) it is printed like a _seyfer_ with commentaries in double columns at the bottom of each page and is compendious and 2) it contains materials taken from or inspired by the Talmud. _Shas_, I suggest, is used attributively -- not an ordinary _tkhine_ but a super-tkhine, a _shas-tkhine_. Levinski says, too, that the _shas tkhine_ was a collection of 360 prayers. The copy of _Rav peninim_ I own does not have 360 prayers (I count 120). Someone needs to compare all the texts calling themselves _shas tkhine_. The Yiddish _tkhine_ seems to have its origins in the seventeenth century, and assuming that _tkhines_ are still being composed (are they?), the _shas-tkhine_ is the next-to-last chapter in its history. Has anyone written about the _shas-tkhine_ per se? In my _Rav peninim_ most of the prayers relate to matters of equal importance to both sexes. Distinctly feminine concerns and situations, such as Sore Bas-Tovim's _tkhines_ touching the three female mitsves of khale, nide and hadlokes haneyres, are not apparent in most of the _tkhines_ in _Rav peninim_. Leonard Prager 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 11:43:24 -0600 (MDT) From: jdbellm@bentley.univnorthco.edu Subject: Yok The backwards-slang theory for the origin of "Yok" (g=k, "goy" backwards) is a good one, I think; slang constructions based on backwards spellings seem to be common in the British Isles. Shelta, a dialect spoken by the Irish Travellers, has some, and of course Cockney slang uses them also. When I was in England in '75-'76, ill-bred, havoc-raising thugs (skinheads, teddyboys, a particular kind of English football fans, etc.) were generically called "yobs," from "boy," and the construction was explicitly clarified for me by an English friend. Jonathan Bellman 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Apr 96 19:13:44 EDT From: 100114.750@compuserve.com Subject: Mendele Moykher Sforim I have just finished the second of the two volume collection of all Mendele's works. The set was published by the Hebrew Publishing Company, 50-52 Eldridge St, NY. No year is given. My problem is that the two of his major works that appear in this volume "dos vintch fingerl" and "shloyme reb khaym's" are incomplete. Had it not been for Morrie Feller telling us about the closing remarks of some conference speaker (vol. 5.294) who quoted the words of an enlightened hershele returning home only to find a ravaged shteytl, I would have assumed that these stories may be mendele's great "unfinished" works. The pages are all in order with even the word 'ende' appearing half way through the story. In the case of "dos vinch fingerl" the story finishes with shmulik trying to relax in the forest, being suddenly awoken by the cries of his sons. All we know about hershele at this stage is that he has been settled in with refoel by reb avrom. The narrator then tells us 'vayehi', all this happened in the time of the kapore hindlekh and so on and finishes by quoting hershele's own writings that he is more embittered by a few Jewish noses than Titus' destruction of the Temple and the Spanish inquisition combined. 'ende'. There is then a short story titled "di alte mayse" and after that we have a single chapter of hershele and refoel not being able to sleep for their own respective tsores. After this comes "shloyme reb khaym's" and a few other stories and then for the last time another single chapter of hershele chasing a khosen kale after he spots the slave agent amongst the mekhitonim. There is no interruption in the page numbers to indicate that there are chapters missing. This final chapter is titled "a fri morgen in glipsk" and is indexed as if it is a story on its own. "shloyme reb khaym's" is less complicated though it still seems incomplete. It begins with reb note and his sons sitting in the back garden and his wife and daughter sitting melancholically in the front. We are never told why they are so sad and we do not even learn how reb khayim and reb note tie up apart from the latter staying at the former's house for the yomim noyroim. The story comes to an abrupt halt after chapter 11 which briefly introduces azik der shmit and hertzel kayles. (A bit similar to itzik and khaykel in "masoes binyomin") Between "sayfer habehaymes" and "oyf asifes" there are about 50 pages missing but according to the index there is nothing between these two stories. So what exactly is wrong and are the full versions available anywhere? David Herskovic 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 21:30:30 -0400 From: andrew.cassel@phillynews.com Subject: Shtetl: A film by Marian Marzynski It's more sociology than linguistics, but I would commend to all Mendelyaner the 3-hour film "Shtetl", which is scheduled to air on PBS this coming Wednesday Apr. 17. It concerns the Jews of Bransk, Poland. For a more detailed description, check out the following web site http://www.clarityconnect.com/webpages/grunberg/shtetl.html Andrew Cassel 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 23:02:55 -0400 From: Zellig@aol.com Subject: Yiddish slang terms for prison There are three slang terms in Yiddish for prison: Khad-gadye, ko'ze, un -- kheyder. "Khad-gadye:" This is, of course, the famous joyous song chanted to the great delight of children and adults at the end of the Passover seyder. I remember as a child in Vilne when we sung it with an added Yiddish refrain, after each verse, "a tsigele, a tsigele for one gildoyn" [a little goat, a little goat for one gildn]. Note: "Gildn" was a Polish or Russian coin of small monetary value (15 cents). The stress is normally on the first syllable of the word, but in our refrain we would stretch out the _second_ syllable and in a giggly, giddy voice pronounce it gilDOYN. Khad-gadye is, of course, a moral ballad of a chain of events of outrageous aggression that always end with capital punishment. In its climax God smites the Angel of Death. It mirrors the eternal Jewish belief that _rishes_ [meanness] will eventually be punished and _yoysher_ [justice] will ultimately prevail. As a slang term for prison, khad-gadye is quite appropriate since its clear message is: Behave! Aggression towards beast or man will in the end always be punished. "Ko'ze," a Slavic word meaning goat or kid, synonymous with the meaning of the Aramaic word _gadye_, is also a Yiddish slang term for prison. To say in Yiddish that one "spent" time in the "ko'ze" is about the same as saying he spent time in "khad-gadye." Due to its specific reference to the meaning of "gadye," ko'ze as a slang term for prison is valid only in Yiddish and, as far as I am aware of, _not_ in the language from which it was borrowed. "Kheyder." This familiar and homey Yiddish word gained currency as a slang term for prison among the Jews in Great Britain. The reason: Since the primary function of the kheyder was (and is) to teach, to give lessons, a sentence to a prison term is basically for the purpose -- and hope -- of teaching the criminal a "lesson" for his unlawful acts. Zellig Bach 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 96 23:26 EDT From: dorothy_bilik@umail.umd.edu Subject: Another Singer novel To Charles Siegel: According to Singer himself and to David Neal Miller, Singer did not write novels or other belles lettres under the Varshavsky pseudonym. That name was used for journalistic pieces. But, as Casey Stengel said " you could look it up" in Miller's Bibliography of Singer. Dvosye Bilik 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 18:40:02 +0300 From: mangaard@cc.helsinki.fi Subject: Katsenelson tsi Tseytlin? Ikh hob tsvey verziones fun dem lid "Dos Kelbl" (oder "Donay, donay"). In eyn heyst es tsi der shreyber iz Katsenelson in andere tsi er iz Aron Tseytlin. Vos iz rikhtik? Dos dosike lid vos zogt der shriftshteler zey Tseytlin iz fun World Wide Web, Yiddish Poems With Hebrew Letters (Voice of Yiddish oder etlekhes). Ikh hob nisht gehot gefunen do in Finland a bukh vos dos mir derklert. Johnny Mangaard Helsinki, Finland 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 17:15:01 -0400 From: viswanat@pacevm.dac.pace.edu Subject: _Kind un Keyt_ Mir hobn nor vos gezen dem nayem yidishn kinder-zhurnal fun Yisroyl, _Kind un Keyt_. S'iz prekhtik! Mayn enyntsiker komentar: ba di retenishn, zol men gebn di entfers in zelbn numer. A shod tsu vartn etlekhe khadoshim tsu hern di entfers! Sureh-Rukhl Schaechter ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.303