The Mendele
Review: Yiddish Literature and Language
(A Companion to MENDELE)
---------------------------------------------------------
Contents of Vol. 11.002 [Sequential No. 179]
Date:
1) This issue of
TMR (ed).
2) Reb Mordkhe, ò"ä Outstanding Yiddish Scholar and Activist (ed.)
3) Helena Frank's Anglo-Jewish Yiddish Literary Society (Israel Abrahams)
4) Israel Abraham's Attitude to Helena Frank and to Yiddish
5) Y.-L. Perets' "Oyb nisht nokh hekher"
in Helena Frank's Century-Old English Translation
6) "Di svetshap" (Moris
Roznfeld)
7) "In the Factory" (translation of "Di svetshap"
[The Sweatshop] by Helena Frank and Rose Pastor Stokes
8) Newly published
Click here to
enter: http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/tmr/tmr11/tmr11002.htm
1)----------------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: This issue of TMR.
*In this issue
of TMR we mark the passing of an outstanding scholar of Yiddish, Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter, noting a few
titles of his important books. * Israel Abrahams (1858-1925), a Judaica scholar (author of Jewish Life in the Middle
Ages and other notable
works) was also a publicist and could write with a light touch on
weighty subjects. In a typically relaxed
manner, he talks about the remarkable Helena Frank, a non-Jewess who studied
Hebrew and Russian in order to translate Yiddish.* Like so many acclimated
British Jews of his day, Abrahams has little sympathy for the Yiddish language.
*At least by the time Uriel Weinreich
published his "Guide to Peretz
Translations" (in The Field of Yiddish 1 [1954, pp. 295-6]), there
were more translations of the sentimental neo-hasidic
"Oyb nisht hekher" ('If Not Higher') than of any other story by Perets. Frank was among the first to publish translations from
Yiddish in English. * (The Yiddish text and Sara Retter's
reading of it may be found at http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/Stories.html.)
* Moris Roznfeld's
"proletarian" poem "Di svetshap"
[The Sweatshop] is given in Yiddish and in the English translation by Helena
Frank and Rose Pastor Stokes. This poem is included in Songs of Labor and
Other Poems by Morris Rosenfeld [Yiddish: Moris Roznfeld] and translated by Frank and Stokes. See
Project Gutenberg Release #6859 (November 2004). Present-day readers are likely
to find this poem bathetic. *An announcement from the Jewish Genealogical
Society of Great Britain (JGSGB) of a newly published guide to yisker-bikher in
2)----------------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Reb Mordkhe, Outstanding Yiddish Scholar
and Activist (ed.)
Mordkhe Schaechter (1927-2007) ò"ä
Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter, in addition
to being a researcher, editor and author, was active in the crucial areas of
language maintenance and language teaching. As a teacher of Yiddish language at
Some of Dr. Schaechter's language maintenance projects, such as
lexicons of botanical terminology and of neologisms may have been over-ambitious in an era of gradual Yiddishist retreat, but they were a part of his intense
devotion to the survival and continuous growth and development of Yiddish. His
drive to preserve older terms while he ingeniously carved out new ones was
tireless. Perhaps most significant of his many practical contributions was Yidishe ortografisher vegvayzer (1961) [with Max Weinreich]
and the more recent Der eynheytlekher
yidisher oysleg (1999),
which contained both the sixth edition of the invaluable Takones
fun yidishn oysleg and
the long essay Fun folkshprakh tsu kulturshprakh.
While there is still a minority of writers and publishers "vos makhn shabes
far zikh," most publications today follow the
Standardized Yiddish Orthography [SYO]. No one individual deserves more credit
for this achievement than does Mordkhe Schaechter.
Intense as he
was regarding spelling standards, Mordkhe Schaechter was the leading theorist in the Yiddish
educational milieu to defend regional dialects (e.g. Southern Yiddish, mainly
"Polish") against the sometimes monolithic-seeming litvish-based "Yivo
Yiddish." One of the instruments for this approach was the remarkable
product of multiple revisions and sixteen years of field testing – Yidish
tsvey, a lernbukh far mitndike un vaythalters
(1993).
Two decades
ago, in his Foreword to Mordkhe Schaechter's
Laytesh mame-loshn;
observatsyes un rekomendatsyes [English title: Authentic Yiddish;
Observations and Recommendations] (1986); Dorem-yidish:
Latish mame-lushn] our leading Yiddish
sociolinguist Shikl Fishman wrote: "Mordkhe Schaechter's works
breathe with confidence, a keen language-sense, and much learning. At a time
when others have doubts regarding the future of Yiddish, Schaechter's
neologisms and "langonizmen" tell us that
Yiddish is no widower." [translation mine –LP]
Until his final years Schaechter manifested the same
energy and optimism observed here. In one of the finest among many appreciative
obituaries which have appeared, Zachary Sholem
Berger's concluding sentence is wholly apposite: "Anyone who speaks, reads or writes Yiddish, and wishes to do so with
care and elegance, can learn from Mordkhe Schaechter’s example. His words live." (Forward,
3)------------------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: "Helena Frank's Anglo-Jewish Yiddish
Literary Society" (
[Israel Abraham's book of essays The Book of Delight and Other Papers
- A Handful of Curiosities. Philadelpia: Jewish Publicaton Society of America,
1912, from which the following essay is taken, is in the public
domain and may be found as an e-book at http://www.authorama.com/delight-10.html].
The Anglo-Jewish Yiddish Literary Society
The founder and moving
spirit of this unique little Society is Miss Helena Frank, whose sympathy with
Yiddish literature has been shown in several ways. Her article in the Nineteenth
Century ("The Land of Jargon," October, 1904) was as forcible as
it was dainty. Her rendering of the stories of Perez, too, is more than a
literary feat. Her knowledge of Yiddish is not merely intellectual; though not
herself a Jewess, she evidently enters into the heart of the people who express
their lives and aspirations in Yiddish terms. Young as she is, Miss Frank is,
indeed, a remarkable linguist; Hebrew and Russian are among her
accomplishments. But it is a wonderful fact that she has set herself to acquire
these other languages only to help her to understand Yiddish, which latter she
knows through and through.
Miss Frank not long ago
founded a Society called by the title that heads this note. The Society did not
interest itself directly in the preservation of Yiddish as a spoken language.
It was rather the somewhat grotesque fear that the rôle of Yiddish as a
living language may cease that appealed to Miss Frank. The idea was to collect
a Yiddish library, encourage the translation of Yiddish books into English, and
provide a sufficient supply of Yiddish books and papers for the patients in the
London and other Hospitals who are unable to read any other language. The
weekly Yiddishe Gazetten (New York) was sent regularly to the London
Hospital, where it has been very welcome.
In the Society’s first
report, which I was permitted to see, Miss Frank explained why an American
Yiddish paper was the first choice. In the first place, it was a good paper,
with an established reputation, and at once conservative and free from
prejudice. America is, moreover, “intensely interesting to the Polish Yid.
For him it is the free country par excellence. Besides, he is sure to
have a son, uncle, or brother there–or to be going there himself. ’Vin shterben in vin
Amerika kän sich keener nisht araus drehn!’ (’From dying and from going to
America, there is no escape!’)” Miss Frank has a keen sense of humor. How could
she love Yiddish were it not so? She cites some of the Yiddishe Gazetten’s
answers to correspondents. This is funny: “The woman has the right to take her
clothes and ornaments away with her when she leaves her husband. But it is a
question if she ought to leave him.” Then we have the following from an article
by Dr. Goidorof. He compares the Yiddish language to persons whose passports
are not in order–the one has no grammar, the others have no land.
And both the Jewish
language and the Jewish nation hide their faulty passports in their wallets,
and disappear from the register of nations and languages–no land, no grammar!
“A pretty conclusion the
savants have come to!” (began the Jewish nation). “You are nothing but a
collection of words, and I am nothing but a collection of people, and there’s
an end to both of us!”
“And Jargon, besides,
they said–to which of us did they refer? To me or to you?” (asks the Jewish
language, the word jargon being unknown to it).
“To you!” (answers the
Jewish nation).
“No, to you!” (protests
the Jewish language).
“Well, then, to both of
us!” (allows the Jewish nation). “It seems we are both a kind of Jargon. Mercy
on us, what shall we do without a grammar and without a land?”
“Unless the Zionists
purchase a grammar of the Sultan!” (romances the Jewish language).
“Or at all events a
land!” (sighs the Jewish nation).
“You think that the
easier of the two?” (asks the Jewish language, wittily).
And at the same moment
they look at one another and laugh loudly and merrily.
This is genuine Heinesque
humor.
Note:
The Anglo-Jewish Yiddish
Literary Society
The question raised as to
the preservation of Yiddish is not unimportant at this juncture. It is clear
that the old struggle between Hebrew and Yiddish for predominance as the Jewish
language must become more and more severe as Hebrew advances towards general
acceptance as a living language.
Probably
the struggle will end in compromise. Hebrew might become one of the two
languages spoken by Jews, irrespective of what the other language might happen
to be.
4)---------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject:
In 1972, Yankev Glatshteyn [Jacob Gladstone],
a major American Yiddish poet, devised the rubric "Geshtaltn
vos zukhn tikn" [Neglected Figures (literally: figures that seek
correction)] for a group of essays in his In der
velt mit yidish [In the World With Yiddish]. An essay on Helena Frank
(1872-1954) headed this gathering of pieces which within the compass of Yiddish
literature could only be viewed as eccentric. One could say that such a partial
tikn came a few years later, in
1975, when three astute Jewish intellectuals (Irving Howe, Arthur Goren and
Moses Rischin) deemed Helena Frank's 1912 Jewish
Publication Society anthology Yiddish Tales worthy of reprinting in their series "The
Modern Jewish Experience".
In addition to her pioneering book of Perets translations (Jewish Publication Society of America,
1906) – one of which is included in this issue of TMR -- and the
above-mentioned Yiddish Tales (1912), Frank translated the poems of the
most important of the Yiddish "proletarian" poets, Moris Roznfeld, together with the
notorious socialist-activist married-to-a-millionaire Rose Pastor Stokes (who
worked in a cigarette factory in the East End of London before emigrating to
America). Their collaborative effort, Songs of Labor (
Israel Abrahams obviously admired
and respected Helena Frank, a
woman with unusual interests and talents. Abrahams regards Helena
Frank's concern for the survival of Yiddish as "grotesque". He
associates Yiddish with humor in the same stereotypic tradition that continues
to plague us. His lengthy citation of a certain Dr. Goidorof
encapsulates the hoary fallacy that Yiddish "has no grammar."
Abrahams the
5)---------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Y.-L. Perets' "Oyb nisht
nokh hekher" in Helena
Frank's Century-Old English Translation.
Yiddish text and audio see: http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/Stories.html.
*
6)------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: "Di svetshap" (Moris
Roznfeld)
7)------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: "In the Factory" (translation of "Di svetshap" [The Sweatshop] by Helena Frank and Rose
Pastor Stokes)
In the Factory
Oh, here in the shop the machines roar so wildly,
That oft, unaware that I am, or have been,
I sink and am lost in the terrible tumult;
And void is my soul... I am but a machine.
I work and I work and I work, never ceasing;
Create and create things from morning till e’en;
For what?—and for whom—Oh, I know not! Oh, ask not!
Who ever has heard of a conscious machine?
No, here is no
feeling, no thought and no reason;
This life-crushing labor has ever supprest
The noblest and finest, the truest and richest,
The deepest, the highest and humanly best.
The seconds, the minutes, they pass out forever,
They vanish, swift fleeting like straws in a gale.
I drive the wheel madly as tho’ to o’ertake them,—
Give chase without wisdom, or wit, or avail.
The clock in the
workshop,—it rests not a moment;
It points on, and ticks on: Eternity—Time;
And once someone told me the clock had a meaning,—
Its pointing and ticking had reason and rhyme.
And this too he told me,—or had I been dreaming,—
The clock wakened life in one, forces unseen,
And something besides;... I forget what; Oh, ask not!
I know not, I know not, I am a machine.
At times, when I
listen, I hear the clock plainly;—
The reason of old—the old meaning—is gone!
The maddening pendulum urges me forward
To labor and labor and still labor on.
The tick of the clock is the Boss in his anger!
The face of the clock has the eyes of a foe;
The clock—Oh, I shudder—dost hear how it drives me?
It calls me “Machine!” and it cries to me “Sew!”
At noon, when about
me the wild tumult ceases,
And gone is the master, and I sit apart,
And dawn in my brain is beginning to glimmer,
The wound comes agape at the core of my heart;
And tears, bitter tears flow; ay, tears that are scalding;
They moisten my dinner—my dry crust of bread;
They choke me,—I cannot eat;—no, no, I cannot!
Oh, horrible toil I born of Need and of Dread.
The sweatshop at
mid-day—I’ll draw you the picture:
A battlefield bloody; the conflict at rest;
Around and about me the corpses are lying;
The blood cries aloud from the earth’s gory breast.
A moment... and hark! The loud signal is sounded,
The dead rise again and renewed is the fight...
They struggle, these corpses; for strangers, for strangers!
They struggle, they fall, and they sink into night.
I gaze on the
battle in bitterest anger,
And pain, hellish pain wakes the rebel in me!
The clock—now I hear it aright!—It is crying:
“An end to this bondage! An end there must be!”
It quickens my reason, each feeling within me;
It shows me how precious the moments that fly.
Oh, worthless my life if I longer am silent,
And lost to the world if in silence I die.
The man in me sleeping
begins to awaken;
The thing that was slave into slumber has passed:
Now; up with the man in me! Up and be doing!
No misery more! Here is freedom at last!
When sudden: a whistle!—the Boss—an alarum!—
I sink in the slime of the stagnant routine;—
There’s tumult, they struggle, oh, lost is my ego;—
I know not, I care not, I am a machine!
(Translation by Helena Frank and Rose Pastor Stokes of Morris
Rosenfeld's "Di svetshap" [The Sweatshop]).
8)------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain
(JGSGB) [registered charity No. 1022738]
Subject: Newly published
Cyril Fox & Saul Issroff, eds. Jewish Memorial (Yizkor)
Books in
This book lists approximately 1000 yizkor
(Yiddish: yisker) books and memorbuecher.
Copies are in 32 academic libraries in the
-----------------------------------------------------------
End of The Mendele Review Vol. 11.002
Editor, Leonard
Prager
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