Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 21.005 September 12, 2011 1) "kick" oyf yidish (Les Train) 2) Race and Humor in Yiddish jokes (Jack S. Berger) 3) Race and humor in Yiddish jokes (Stuart Filler) 4) Race and humor in Yiddish jokes (Zevi Ghivelder) 5) General inquiry about heirs/estates of Yiddish writers and other cultural figures (Leybl Botwinik) 6) "biz keyn dants" (Maurice Wolfthal) 7) Book of verses sought (Naomi Bloch) 8) Song lyrics sought (Ruth Bork) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 31, 2011 Subject: "kick" oyf yidish vi zogt men af yidish "a kick" (mitn fus)? un vos iz taytsh "vayse khevre"? (hooligans, mistome?) un far vos zenen zey vayse dafke? a dank, Les Train 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 27, 2011 Subject: Race and Humor in Yiddish jokes Many years ago, I heard the following: Q: What is the difference between a black man at age 20 and age 21? A: A shvarts yor. Jack S. Berger 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 27, 2011 Subject: Race and Humor in Yiddish jokes A saying worth recording is "Don't call me shvartse" --as witnessed, recalled, and admired by our dad, Louis Filler, I expect from the 1940's. There seem to be Web references. It's an employee, a woman, addressing her employers, a couple that she is aware speak about her in front of her and on the pretense that she's oblivious to their phrase for her, di shvartse, whose rough translation is "the black." Compare Sembene's short film tragedy "The Black Girl," whose original French title is "La noire de"; i.e., "The Female Black [servant] Of," to be completed with the name of the white employer couple. Compare also the tragic-comic bit in the feature-length "Bamako," where an unemployed Malian in complete isolation is studying conversational Hebrew in hopes of eventual employment. (Compare also Phillip Dean's three-act "The Sty of the Blind Pig" on the theme They Say I'm Like One of The Family. And the Web indicates a song with "stop calling me shvartse" in it.)No, s'z nisht kein (nisht a?) Yiddish joke or saying in toto, except for the one word, but it opens a cultural interface the size of the universe; as does the traditional perception of the American Jews as other than white; or, it may be, a universe and a half. Stuart Filler 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 29, 2011 Subject: Race and humor in Yiddish jokes Referring to racist jokes, please make a note of the lyrics of this old tune:Shiker is a goy / shiker iz er / trinken miz er / vayl er iz a goy. Zevi Ghivelder 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: September 11, 2011 Subject: General inquiry about heirs/estates of Yiddish writers and other cultural figures 1) There is a "Beys Shalom Ash" [Shalom Ash House] in Bat Yam. See: "http://www.bat-yam.muni.il/show_item.asp?levelId=3D57805"; 2) And a "Beys Leivik" [Leivik House] in Tel Aviv that is the home of the Yiddish Writers and Journalists - they may be able to help you vis-a-vis Dzigan and Shumakher See: "http://www.leyvik.org.il/ArticlesEN2.aspx"; 3) There is a Shura Turkow - I believe, from the famous Turkow family - affiliated with the Arbeter ring in Israel. Contact Bela Briks-Klein at: "[email protected]" Zay gezunt, Leybl Botwinik [Moderator's note: Roberta Newman of YIVO can be contacted directly at [email protected]. Below is the original posting again.] YIVO would like to display unpublished letters from the following writers, actors, and communal activists on a new web site now in development, the Gruss-Lipper Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland. As such, we'd greatly appreciate any contact information for their literary estates or family members: Shalom Asch Moyshe Broderzon Chewel Buzgan Shimen Dzigan Zishe Kats Esther Kreitman Avrom Morewski Ignacy Schwarzbart Yisroel Shumakher Diana Blumenfeld Turkow Oyzer Warshavskii Michal Weichert Mark (Markus)Yuviler Thanks very much for any leads anyone out there might have! Please contact [email protected] Roberta Newman Content Producer/Gruss Lipper Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 29, 2011 Subject: "biz keyn dants" Regarding "biz keyn dants." "Biz keyn" means all the way to. "Dants" could be Danzig (Gdansk). Maurice Wolfthal 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 28, 2011 Subject: Book of verses sought This is a request for a book which I used as a child - I was born in 1938.Unfortunately, the book was lost and I was wondering if any of your readers would perhaps have a copy of it. I do not know the title - but it was a book of verses. One of the poems in it - and I quote the first four lines: Ale zogn ikh bin sheyn Far vos ikh bin gevaksn kleyn Ikh ken tantsn, deklamirn Mames gest tsu amuzirn Here's hoping someone recognizes the verse. Many thanks, Naomi Bloch 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: August 30, 2011 Subject: song lyrics sought Dear Friends, My mother used to sing me a children's song the first line of which we both believed was: "Reyzele, hot zi a neyzele, mit fiselekh kortsinke, hoya hoya!" We both treated it as a nonsense song of sorts. I have since learned that we were both mistaken about the lyrics (she is a native speaker of Yiddish), and the first line actually is "Reyzele, hot zi an eyzele, mit fiselekh kortsinke..." which makes ever so much more sense. Does anyone have the lyrics for this song? I'd love to see it through this new lens and have since forgotten all the lyrics (Is there a recording of this song? It's not one of the common ones.) Many thanks, in advance -- a sheynem dank, ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 21.005 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. 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