Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 6.002
May 20, 1996

1) Introduction (Morton Penn)
2) Yiddish and the Jewish Agency (Nechama and Gershon Winer)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 11:06:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: mpenn@flinet.com
Subject: Introduction

I am a retiree and live in a condo in Florida.  Though this development is
primarily Jewish,  when I spoke a few words of Yiddish or used a Jewish
expression I would experience this glazed-eye response.  After a year of this
nonsense I decided that the 1450 families needed a Yiddish Club.  There I
could share my very limited knowledge of the "mamaluchen". At the beginning it
was slow but thanks to the other auxiliary bodies here, I got the club going.
Our Poinciana Yiddish Club has been well recieved and is growing steadily.
There are fifty members now and growing.  We met once a week during the
"season".  Now that the snowbirds have left for the summer our numbers are
smaller and we are meeting once a month. I don't articulate the reason for the
fewer meeting a month but honestly I was running out of material.  At the
beginning I really didn't know where I was going or how to get there.  With
the help of the members of the club who related stories of their youth and
family and the Yiddish books that are on the market, I was able to put
together weekly programs that included some vocabulary, grammar, stories,
curses, jokes, plays and an attempt to have the group speak Yiddish.  Now,
during the 'slack' time I wonder if you have any suggestions for me.  We begin
full blast the first week in October so now is the time for planning.  I have
a translation plus transliteration of Snow White and Cinderella.  A group of
us are attempting to translate the songs from "Fiddler On The Roof" into
Yiddish.  I am open to any and all ideas.  I got your address from Rick
Turkel. Thank You,

Morton "Mekh'el" Penn

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 16:01:57 +0400
From: winer@parker.inter.net.il
Subject: Yiddish and the Jewish Agency

May 10, 1996
Statement by the editors of the Yiddish press in Israel
(Translated from the Yiddish)

We are deeply grieved to note that the attitude of the Jewish Agency
leadership towards the role and status of Yiddish, both in Israel and abroad,
has considerably worsened since Mr. Avraham Burg was elected to the Chair.

Under his leadership, the Jewish Agency has embarked on a series of steps of
open discrimination against Yiddish. We list below some of the specifics:

1. The Jewish Agency periodical Folk un Zion , a prestigious, established
   journal of quality, under the editorship of Mr. Moshe Kolcheim, has been
   arbitrarily and summarily suspended after 48 years of publication that
   brought the message of Zionism and Israel to the Jewish communities
   throughout the world. As a result, the spiritual contact with thousands of
   Yiddish readers the world over, and particularly in the former Soviet
   Union, has thus been severed.

2. The modest annual subsidy of $10,000 for the World Council for Yiddish and
   Jewish Culture - the umbrella organization for all cultural agencies
   conducting their activities in Yiddish - has been terminated.

3. The World Council received an abrupt eviction notice from the quarters it
   occupies in the Jewish Agency building in Tel Aviv.

4. The Jewish Agency shlichim serving in the former Soviet Union have	been
   directed to oppose any attempt to incorporate Yiddish studies in the
   curricula of the schools it supports. This is in blatant contradiction to
   the policy of the preceding Acting Chairman, Mr. Yechiel Leket, who had
   instructed his representatives to emphasize the importance of Yiddish in
   Jewish education.

We, the editors of the Yiddish press in Israel listed below, voice our protest
against this new policy. We ask the Jewish press in all languages throughout
the world to reprint this statement in the hope that public opinion will
influence the Jewish Agency leadership to reverse its position so that Yiddish
language and culture, which provided an effective barrier against
assimilation, will continue to contribute to the creative survival of our
people.

Yitzhak Bratt, Editor, Lezte Neies, Moshe Kolcheim, Editor, Folk Un Zion Isaac
Luden, Editor, Lebensfragen Yosef Magen, Editor, Di Neie Zeitung Yosef Lipsky,
Editor, Der Veg David Shtokfish, Editor, Israel Shtimme

Inquiries and responses should be sent to:
The World Council on Yiddish
17 Kaplan Street, POB 7053, Tel Aviv 61070, Israel
Fax: 972-3-6930321
E-mail: winer@euronet.co.il

Letters of protest can be directed to: Mr. Avraham Burg, Chairman, The Jewish
Agency for Israel, 48 King George Street, Jerusalem, Israel

Nechama and Gershon Winer

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End of Mendele Vol. 6.002