The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language
(A Companion to MENDELE)

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Contents of Vol. 12.002 [Sequential No. 193]
Date: 24 January 2008

Yiddish Keren Hayesod Brochure of Haifa, 1934

1) This issue of TMR (ed).
2)
Robert Goldenberg on Cantor Louis Danto's Goldfadn songs
3)  Kheyfe un ir hinterland ('Haifa and Its Hinterland')
4)  An algemeyner bild fun der shtot ('General Picture of the City')
5)  Dertsiyung/Hadar HaKarmel/Har HaKarmel ('Education…Mt.Carmel')
6) Andere fiertlen [kvartaln]/Handl…('Other Neighborhoods, Commerce')
7) Mir boyen ('We are building')
8) Di alte shprakhdi naye shulDaytshe yidn ('Old Language'…'New School' … 'German Jews')
9) Postcard photo of  Yafo [Jaffa] St. in the 1930s.
10) Photo of Herzl St. [in Hadar HaKarmel] ca. 1930.

1)------------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 January 2008
From: ed.
Subject:
This issue of TMR

*** Robert Goldenberg on Cantor Louis Danto's Goldfadn Songs *** A Yiddish Keren Hayesod Brochure of Haifa, 1934 is the principal subject of this issue of TMR. Alongside the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemes LeYisroel) that was centered on land purchase and development, the Keren Hayesod, founded in 1920 and within a decade established in sixty countries – known in Yiddish as "Der Erets-Yisroel oyfboy fond" – acquired land and also engaged in building an infra-structure for the Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community). (See  the site of the Jewish Agency for Israel, [includes seven Keren HaYesod posters] and Keren Hayesod – United Jewish Appeal and the related Picture Gallery with posters.    

Given a rapidly growing economy supported by a deep-water port, Haifa's populations, Jewish and Arab, grew. Many of the Jewish immigrants were Yiddish-speakers who could make good use of a map in Yiddish. The text forming the larger part of the map/brochure – the map itself proved too hard to reproduce here -- carries a Zionist message, the rhetoric of which has not changed much since 1934. It made sense to orient newcomers in their native tongue, though militant Hebraists were suspicious of all use of Yiddish. (Note the caption above the photo of Herzl Street below: "Herzl Street, the Main Street of Hebrew Haifa.").  The Zionist movement produced a great deal of educational/propaganda material for the Diaspora. Moving the main headquarters of the Keren HaYesod from London to Jerusalem in 1926 may have accelerated the dominance of Hebrew in promotional materials. I believe that more Diaspora Jews saw Keren HaYesod and Keren Kayemes LeYisroel publications in Yiddish than did the new immigrants to Palestine. There is nothing coy or reticent in the manner in which the Keren HaYesod  puts Hebrew study forward as part of the saga of building a new nation -- "the old tongue" will be taught in the "new school." One often finds Yiddish alongside other languages – Hebrew, English, Spanish, and others – in Keren HaYesod posters. We can trace a downward progression: brochures/posters all or almost all in Yiddish; such promotional material partly in Yiddish; propaganda in Hebrew alone or in Hebrew and some European language other than Yiddish. Prior to the establishment of the State, Keren Hayesod poster texts were often at least partially in Yiddish. Before the move to Jerusalem there were many Keren HaYesod publications in Yiddish (e.g. Der keren hayesod, zayn organizatsye un eretsisroel arbayt, loyt di hakhlotes funem 12-tn tsienistishn kongres ('The Foundation Fund.  Its Organization and its Work in the Land of Israel, According to the Resolutions of the 12th Zionist Congress'), London, 1922; Der keren hayesod un zayn arbayt (The Keren HaYesod and Its Work) by Adolf Behm [Boehm]. No translator shown. London, 1924.  Der keren hayesod in bilder ('The Foundation Fund in Pictures'). London, 1925. Keren HaYesod often published materials in various languages, e.g.  Der keren hayesod, zayn konstitutsye un eretsisroel buzhet ('The Keren Hayesod, its Constitution and Land of Israel Budget'). London, n.d. (also published in English , French, German and Russian).

It is of course ironic that the very language which brought many to Zionism was itself treated rather shabbily in Palestine in the 1930s and later. However, providing new immigrants with materials in their own language has been the policy of official bodies in Palestine/Israel and in the Diaspora to this day. Yiddish has more or less disappeared from this material because few of the recent new immigrants are primary Yiddish-speakers.

Many thanks to Eli Roman for permission to publish the photos of Herzl and Jaffa Streets (the latter from Kheyfe; Biton ha-Amuta le-Toldot Kheyfa 4 [Nov 2006], p. 2).

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 January 2008
From: Robert Goldenberg
Subject: Cantor Danto's Goldfadn Songs

This year we celebrate the Avrom Goldfadn [Abraham Goldfaden] Centenary and articles on the  founder of the  modern Yiddish theatre will appear in a great many publications, including our own Yiddish Theatre Forum. Here we give the link to Louis Danto's recordings of Goldfadn songs from his album "Gems of the Jewish Operetta (Cadenza LRCD108). See Danto's Jewish Music Archives website.   The eight Goldfadn songs among the twenty in the album are: "Shabes, yontef un roysh-khoydesh" from Shulamis; "Di yidishe hofenung"; "Drey zikh milekhl," from Bar Kokhbe; "Rozhinkes mit mandlen," from Shulamis; "Faryomert, farklogt," from Doktor Almasada; "Elnt bin ikh," from Di tsoyberin; "Dos blindn shpil," from Di tsoyberin; "Di Shvue," from Shulamis. Goldfadn songs,  with the exception of "Rozhinkes mit mandlen," especially from his operas,  are art songs, and I have never heard them sung otherwise. In fact, they are seldom sung, or at least recorded, at all nowadays. Aside from Cantor Danto, I have seen only two other Goldfadn recordings on LP or CD: one by Richard Tucker (also operatic, of course), and a choral collection from the National Yiddish Theatre of Romania. The latter two were released in the 1950s. The only other individual recordings of Goldfadn that I have come across are old 78s from the 1920s, from the heyday of  Yiddish theatre in New York. They are not sung in "folk" style. It takes a special voice for this kind of music, and the typical folksinger or popular singer does not have the range or flexibility. Goldfadn's music is considered old-fashioned nowadays, "un nisht dos vos der oylem vil hern."

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 January 2008
From: ed.
Subject: Kheyfe un ir hinterland ('Haifa and Its Hinterland')

Click on picture to enlarge

4)-----------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 January 2008

From: ed.

Subject: An algemeyner bild fun der shtot ('General Picture of the City')

 

Click on picture to enlarge

 

5)-----------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 January 2008

From: ed.

Subject:  Dertsiyung/Hadar HaKarmel/Har HaKarmel ('Education…Mt. Carmel')

Click on picture to enlarge

 

 

6)-----------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 January 2008

From: ed.

Subject: Andere fiertlen[kvartaln]/Handl…('Other Neighborhoods, Commerce')

 

Click on picture to enlarge

 

7)-----------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 January 2008
From: ed.
Subject:  Mir boyen ('We are building')

Click on text to enlarge

 

 

8)-----------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 January 2008
From: ed.
Subject: Di alte shprakhdi naye shulDaytshe yidn ('Old Language'…'New School' … 'German Jews')

 

Click on text to enlarge

 

9)-----------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 January 2008
From: Eli Roman
Subject: Postcard photo of Yafo [Jaffa] St. in the 1930s

 

10)-------------------------------------------
Date: 24 January 2008
From: Eli Roman
Subject: Photo of Herzl St. [in Hadar HaKarmel] ca. 1930

 

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End of The Mendele Review Vol. 12.002

Editor, Leonard Prager

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