Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ____________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 25.001 May 21, 2015 1) Finf un tsvantsik, biz hundert finf un tsvantsik (Victor Bers) 2) klug-bilet (Moshe Taube) 3) nervous hooleila (Eliezer Greisdorf) 4) Tsunoyfgenumen vi a nikl (Mikhoyel Basherives) 5) "af tselokhes" inquiry (Joyce Tamara) 6) brengen unter di hent (Martin Jacobs) 7) bavayzn zikh (Martin Jacobs) 8) A man is not a potato? (Marian Kaplun Shapiro) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 21 Subject: Finf un tsvantsik, biz hundert finf un tsvantsik With this issue Mendele enters its twenty-fifth year. Its founder and for many years redaktor, Noyekh (Norman) Miller passed on the editorial duties to a chain of worthy successors--first Iosif Vaisman, then Kalman (Keith) Weiser, and now Gershn (Josh) Price, who is also our technical expert. Noyekh's professional work as a sociologist made him a meyvn of computers in the days of the punch cards, and much earlier than most academics he saw the power of BITNET and its successor, the World Wide Web (now just "Web"). Noyekh was a kener in algemeyn, indeed a perfectionist in all matters of technology and visnshaft. When our membership grew too large for his own institution's mainframe, he asked me to sponsor Mendele's migration to the much larger facilities at Yale, and he was reasonably tolerant of my linguistic and technical shortcomings. All who read this know the melancholy fact: the number of native speakers of Yiddish, already diminished by the Holocaust, has shrunk in the last quarter century. More particularly, we have lost many of the connoisseurs of the language and its literature who have contributed to Mendele since its start in 1991, among them Leonard Prager, who edited The Mendele Review. Still, we can be consoled by the current size of our membership as counted by the computer: more than 2,000, although we are too honest to claim that any are, or ever have been, in Antarctica (but see B. Goldstein, di ergste nesie af der velt [bgoldstein.org]). 25, biz 125! Victor Bers, Untershames 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 25 Subject: klug-bilet A reminiscence that comes to mind [from the inquiry in 24.011] is the expression vigrishne bilet 'winning ticket' that appears in a Sholem Aleykhem story with the same name, about a poor shames from the shtetl whose talented son made it to the big city to study medicine and ends up converting to Christianity. This is the term both his father and the rich of the shtetl, who look on with envy at this presumptuousness of a poor boy to make good, use (the latter with irony and Schadenfreude) for the clever lad. M. Taube 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 25 Subject: nervous hooleila [Reply to inquiry in 24.011] I found the word for cholera in both the Russian and Polish dictionary. In Yiddish "kholere' is also used as a curse or swear word. In Polish and Russian it is very likely used in a similar manner. Hooleila reminds me of something entirely different: "Hulenen' in Yiddish means to carouse wildly. In Polish 'hulac' has the same meaning. 'Hultaj' in polish is a rogue. Eliezer Greisdorf 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 3 Subject: Tsunoyfgenumen vi a nikl In a fictional story written by a friend's grandfather he uses the phrase "tsunoyfgenumen vi a nikl". Does anyone know its meaning? The wife is selling or throwing into the garbage everything in the house she considers worthless, out of fashion or not needed, including the husband's beloved childhood samovar. He appears at the door with a pack of items and she curses at him, "Host zikh geaylt, e! Avek-hendum-pendum, tsunoyfgenumen vi a nikl, un na! Itst vet men dikh aroysshteln afn gas mit di bebekhes!" Thank you, Mikhoyel Basherives 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 10 Subject: "af tselokhes" inquiry I'm haunted by a performance by Theo Bikel of a yiddish folk song sung "af tselokhes" as in "af tselokhes ale sonim, am yisroyel khay". Can anyone point me to a recording, audio or video, of his or anyone's performance of this song. Part of the problem may be the transliteration, or the fact that I don't know the "English" title of the song. Thanks very much, Joyce Tamara 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 17 Subject: brengen unter di hent Can anyone tell me the meaning of "brengen unter di hent"? The context is: "Di mener zenen geven vi di dembes un di arbet hot bay zey gebrengt unter di hent." Many thanks in advance. Martin Jacobs Brooklyn, NY 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 17 Subject: bavayzn zikh Can anyone tell me what "bavayzn zikh" means in the following context? "Ven es iz gevorn likhtik hot men ... geshtelt zikh davenen. Di goyim hobn demolt genumen redn shtiler, bavizn zikh on dem rashikn tuml un gekukt af di davendike yidn mit groys derekh-erets." Many thanks in advance. Martin Jacobs Brooklyn, NY 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: May 18 Subject: A man is not a potato? Hi – I am a psychologist/writer, and want to refer to a Yiddish saying I heard in my childhood, which had been rendered in English to me: A man is not a potato, or, in a variant form, A man is not a stone. These both referred to a MAN, not a ‘person’, but a real, male man, and meant that a girl shouldn’t “lead a man on,” because, being a man, he could not control himself. Many thanks for considering this request, Peace, Marian Kaplun Shapiro ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 25.001 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead, direct your mail as follows: Material for Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements, i.e. announcements of events, commercial publications, requests to which responses should be sent exclusively to the request's author, etc., always in plain text (no HTML or the like) to: [email protected] (in the subject line write Mendele Personal) Material for postings to Mendele Yiddish literature and language, i.e. inquiries and comments of a non-commercial or publicity nature: [email protected] IMPORTANT: Please include your full name as you would like it to appear in your posting. No posting will appear without its author's name. Submissions to regular Mendele should not include personal email addresses, as responses will be posted for all to read. 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