Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 18.018 January 31, 2009 1) gembl (Yankl Levitow) 2) Luftmensch (Violet Lutz) 3) ashlekh (Yankl Berger) 4) ashlekh (Sam Millman) 5) ashlekh (Leonard Fox) 6) Information about Yiddish actress Betty Kaye sought (Larry Rosenwald) 7) plotke (Bob Rothstein) 8) plotke (Zulema Seligsohn) 9) Yiddish-Byelorussian dictionary (Leonard Fox) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 20, 2009 Subject: gembl Ot iz a frage vos mayner a bakanter hot mir geshtelt un vos ikh hob beshum oyfn nit gekent entfern. Der bakanter -- aleyn a rusisher yid fun odes -- fregt vos iz taytsh funem rusish-yidishn vort "gembl" (rusish: ge-ye-em-be-ye-el-myerkiznak). Er git iber a dialog in a gemish fun rusish un yidish vos er hot gezen oyf der internets: "Nu, iz vus zhe? Teper vsya Moldavanke (der yidisher gegnt in Odes) budyet imet ay grose gembl?" "Oden gembl, tsvey gembl -- ot azoy nasha zhizn." Oyf yidish: "Nu, iz vos zhe? Itst vet gants Moldovanke hobn a groyse gembl?" "Eyn gembl, tsvey gembl...ot azoy iz undzer lebn!" A sheynem un a hartsikn dank in faroys. Here is a question which an acquaintance of main asked me and which I couldn't begin to answer. He - himself a Russian Jew from Odessa - asked me for the meaning of the Russian Yiddish word, "gembl." He reported to me a dialogue in a mixture of Russian and Yiddish which he saw on the internet: "So, what do you think? Now all of Moldovanke will have a big gembl?'" "One gembl or two gembls -- that's how our life is!" The translation from Russian is my friend's. Many thanks to everyone in advance. Yankel Levitow 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 20, 2009 Subject: Luftmensch in Nordau's writing Responding to Lawrence A. Coben -- this reference may help you: Steven A. Aschheim, in his book "Brothers and Strangers. The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923" (University of Wisconsin Press, 1982, 1999), credits Nordau with popularizing the notion of the Luftmensch in 1901 (see p. 87), citing the speech Nordau gave at the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel in December; it is in Nordau's collected Zionist writings, "Zionistische Schriften" (1909, 2nd ed. 1923; "Kongressrede," 1901). The 1902 "American Jewish Yearbook" (available on Google books) gives a synopsis of the paper in English (p. 81), rendering the title as "The Physical, Spiritual and Economic Elevation of the Jewish People." Maybe it would interest you to know that the young Martin Buber - undoubtedly influenced by Nordau's ideas - used the term "Luftmensch" in his article "Ein geistiges Centrum" [A Spiritual Center] published in the Oct. 1902 issue of the German-Jewish periodical "Ost und West" (pp. 665, 666) -- available in English in: "The First Buber. Youthful Writings of Martin Buber" edited and translated by Gilya G. Schmidt (Syracuse UP, 1999). At the same time that the idea of the "Luftmensch" was occurring in these polemical writings, Martin Buber and other young Zionists in the German milieu were giving Yiddish literature in translation a major role in their German-language publications. Violet Lutz [Editor's note: Jordana de Bloeme provides the same citation for Luftmensch.] 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 19, 2009 Subject: ashlekh I suspect it is derived from shallots. In Quebec it is called ?chalote. Yankl Berger 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 20, 2009 Subject: ashlekh Responding to the inquiry by Perets Mett as to Yiddish words for scallions, my recollection is that my parents used the word "tsibulkes." I don't know its origin, or how prevalent was the use of this word. My parents were from Bessarabia and, apparently, it was common usage in those parts. Sam Millman 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 19, 2009 Subject: ashlekh This subject was discussed in Mendele Yiddish Literature and Language, vol. 4.210 and vol. 4.211. Leonard Fox 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 26, 2009 Subject: I'm posing a query for a friend; she's wondering whether any readers of Mendele might have information about her grandmother, whose stage name was Betty Kaye and who was active in the Yiddish theater in Philadelphia somewhere around 1928. Her birth name was Bella Bloom, her married name Betty Klein (she probably didn't use her married name in the theater). She also had a radio program called something like "Dos khazente- meydl," in which she sang a lot of cantorial tunes. Does anyone have information about her or suggestions about where to get it? A hartsikn dank, Larry Rosenwald 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 19, 2009 Subject: plotke Polish "plotka" means "gossip." It is derived from a verb that means "weave" but also "babble; speak nonsense," and that is etymologically related to English "flax" and the Latin-origin combining elements "-plex" and "-plect." Bob Rothstein 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 20, 2009 Subject: plotke Lillian Siegfried asks whether "plotke" is Yiddish, Polish or Russian. It is in Harkavy's Yidish Dictionary, but he refers the word to the preferred spelling "plyotke." There is a Polish word, "plotka," with the same meaning: slander, rumor, etc. Zulema Seligsohn 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: January 10, 2009 Subject: Yiddish-Byelorussian dictionary. Readers who are familiar with the Byelorussian language may be interested in the following book, which was just listed in the most recent MIPP catalog of new publications in Judaica: Idysh-belaruski slounik. Yiddish-Byelorussian dictionary. About 25,000 dictionary entries, 50,000 words, more than 5000 proverbs, many idioms and quotations. It can be ordered from: [email protected] Leonard Fox ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 18.018 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. 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