Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 24.012 April 24, 2015 1) Prof. Benjamin Harshav z”l (Gershn Price) 2) Links (Redaktsye) 3) Efsher shraybn nokh a lid (H. Binyomen) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 24 Subject: Prof. Benjamin Harshav z”l I join the entire yidish-velt in mourning the loss of scholar, translator, and poet Benjamin Harshav. Prof. Harshav was instrumental to my earliest forays into Yiddish poetry as an undergraduate, and I remain forever grateful to him and his wife and fellow translator Barbara for having let me into their home to spend countless hours crouched over Halpern, Glatshteyn, Leyeles, Sutskever, and all the rest. To have even marginally assisted him with editorial work for his most recent book on Hebrew versification and for his soon-to-be-published collection of original Hebrew and Yiddish poetry was an immense privilege. I cherish those few years I was able to spend in his company. Any thorough assessment of Prof. Harshav’s transformative role in the development of a stunning array of fields - Jewish cultural history, Hebrew and Yiddish literatures, modernism, semiotics, literary theory, art history - would be an impossible task. Likewise impossible would be an estimate of the countless students and scholars his work has directly and indirectly shaped. In lieu of that, I offer the image of him folding a triangular hat from a copy of Der algemeyner zhurnal, a project undertaken for the sake of illustrating for me and another student precisely what one Yiddish poet had in mind with his description of such a hat (the exact reference eludes me, sadly). With a kind of dexterity that was otherwise beginning to escape him, Prof. Harshav promptly donned the hat and continued reading along with us. Here was the rigorous, highbrow, cosmopolitan structuralist, deeply and blissfully immersed in the heymish world of modern Yiddish poetry, ever aware of the intimate connection between literature and life that so animated both his academic and belletristic endeavors, ever eager to pass on a mesoyre, a yerushe, that stretched from Vilna to Tel Aviv to New Haven and back. May we all aspire to even a tenth of such exuberance and erudition. My deepest condolences to his wife, children, and grandchildren. Koved zayn likhtikn ondenk. Gershn Price 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 24 Subject: Links Mendelyaner are directed to these links for additional information on Prof. Harshav: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__yiddish.forward.com_articles_187320_benjamin-2Dharshav-2Dscholar-2Dand-2Dtranslator-2Ddies-2Dat-2D_&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=xQrlc-ODQvFKluAlzujb4n71rG4K5dHaHsF4BPczIJM&s=yn-D4F_djSIz3TyS1NlOtT4AzEdLCa_asfq8OG2OBoU&e= https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.yiddishbookcenter.org_oral-2Dhistory_benjamin-2Dbinyomen-2Dharshav&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=xQrlc-ODQvFKluAlzujb4n71rG4K5dHaHsF4BPczIJM&s=Jmcp7A_wIvPiM33-JEyOQRhG8kqc7awewExQ1kKfkPY&e= https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.haaretz.co.il_gallery_literature_1.2621087&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=xQrlc-ODQvFKluAlzujb4n71rG4K5dHaHsF4BPczIJM&s=i5HZOvRfhAbkCBMRNeWlZD3KO78b3REfzjQiUfkJgVw&e= https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__korebasfarim.com_2015_04_23_-25D7-2594-25D7-259E-25D7-25AA-25D7-25A8-25D7-2592-25D7-259D-2D-25D7-2595-25D7-2597-25D7-2595-25D7-25A7-25D7-25A8-2D-25D7-2594-25D7-25A1-25D7-25A4-25D7-25A8-25D7-2595-25D7-25AA-2D-25D7-2591-25D7-25A0-25D7-2599-25D7-259E-25D7-2599-25D7-259F-2D-25D7-2594-25D7-25A8-25D7-25A9-25D7-2591-2D-25D7-2594-25D7-259C-25D7-259A-2D-25D7-259C-25D7-25A2_&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=xQrlc-ODQvFKluAlzujb4n71rG4K5dHaHsF4BPczIJM&s=qJMyzUPfE-HFe7VgsDrdn67UNbavZqc4O1YaYOcey3k&e= https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ynet.co.il_home_1-2C7340-2CL-2D860-2D202-2D32921259-2C00.html&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=hgSCSvtHqNOp40iT6T4uKyOHqvQreUPfVso-KO1Kgto&m=xQrlc-ODQvFKluAlzujb4n71rG4K5dHaHsF4BPczIJM&s=dltcvCFn1G0X4ZgzUZzSx0Oz5O7yU4hKLCSGHCV8EZA&e= 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 24 Subject: Efsher shraybn nokh a lid The editors reprint here the opening poem of H. Binyomen’s (Benjamin Harshav’s Yiddish pseudonym) collection “Take af tshikaves” (Wales: Three Sisters Press, 1994), p. 11-2. Efsher shraybn nokh a lid Efsher shraybn nokh a lid take af tshikaves: dare faygn, shnit nokh shnit, verter vi di paves. Veln kumen afn vint, shtoybelekh fun gramen - on a shtram un on a zin, shtamlendike shtamen fun an oysgemektn vald, oysgezipte groypn, halbe zatsn, mit gevald bindn zikh in stoypn, un a diner telefon klingt in di kaloshn: s’iz nokh do an alter hon vos farshteyt dem loshn, vos farbeygt an oyer shtil vi a klugn bikhl: efsher shpiln nokh a shpil, zikher tsi nit zikher, efsher dreyen nokh a vayl zhaver-katerinke: fun a gast vos zet a mayl vert men dokh nit yinger, efsher tsien nokh a knoyt fun a knoyl mit vate, efsher tsindn dine hoyt - verter tamevate, efsher shlepn nokh a gram same af katoves - funem shtoybn tareram vekn zikh di oves un farshteyen nit keyn vort funem gantsn khoyzek: on a posek, on a kvort - shikerer un loyzer. Efsher shlepn nokh a strof fun farvishte shpurn - ergets tsit zikh on a sof, ergets forn furn, ergets firn furn hey in fargramte leyters, un du ligst dort, elehey yankev a farkleydter.  Efsher shraybn nokh a lid take af tshikaves: dare faygn, shnit nokh shnit, verter vi di paves. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 24.012 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. 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