The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language
(A Companion to MENDELE)
---------------------------------------------------------
Contents of Vol. 12.012 [Sequential No. 203]
Date: 30 June 2008
1) This issue of TMR
(ed.).
2) A
Century of Yiddish, Czernowitz 1908 to Jerusalem 2008: An International
Conference at the
3) Reading an American Yiddish medical advertisement
4) An American Yiddish dental advertisement and the
secularization of a Hebrew text
5) Rina Yosifon [see TMR 12.004] reads her Yiddish
translation [see TMR 12.004] of the Lucky monologue
in Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
1)---------------------------------------------------
Date: 30 June 2008
From: ed.
Subject: This issue of TMR
*** We are pleased to
assist the Dov Sadan Project in announcing a timely conference at the
(click on image to enlarge)
*** Rina Yosifon
[see TMR 12.004] reads her Yiddish
translation [see TMR 12.004] of the Lucky monologue in
Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
2)
----------------------
Date: 30 June 2008
From: Prof. Yechiel Szeintuch
Subject: A Century of
Yiddish, Czernowitz 1908 to Jerusalem 2008: An International Conference at the
Organizing Committee:
Prof. Yechiel Szeintuch, Yiddish Department and Dov
Sadan Project
Prof. Eli Lederhendler, Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry
Prof. Aharon Maman, Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies
Prof. Shaul Stampfer, Jewish History Department
Preparations are currently being made for an
international conference on the roles of Yiddish language and culture over the
past century. The century of Yiddish to be celebrated is, of course,
intrinsically bound to a 700-year linguistic and cultural tradition that
preceded it. About a hundred years ago, following the rapid rise of a modern
Jewish culture that considered Yiddish a national treasure, a group of writers
gathered in Czernowitz to plan a broadly based effort to acknowledge and
deliberate on the meteoric rise of both a folk and a highly sophisticated
modern Yiddish culture – literature, press, folklore and theater.
Today, after millions of Yiddish speakers in Europe
have been murdered and their educational and cultural institutions destroyed,
it is time to assess what Yiddish endured, how it battled (before, during, and
after the Second World War) and survived. The foci of the planned conference
will range from Yiddish culture as an anchor for the consolidation of a Jewish
and self-identity, to Yiddish as an abandoned ship withstanding a struggle for
existence following the relocation of millions of Yiddish-speakers and their
descendants -- in an independent Jewish state and in the Diaspora.
The Jerusalem Conference is being organized by three
institutes at the
1.
Modern Yiddish literature
2.
International Yiddish press
3.
Yiddish theater
4.
Yiddish cultural history and creativity during the
Holocaust
5.
The postwar revival of Yiddish language and literature
6.
Yiddish education in the Diaspora and in
7.
Research on Yiddish in academic institutions such as the
8.
The significance of Yiddish and its culture for Jewish
Studies
The last two generations have seen a growing interest
in Yiddish language and culture despite the sharp decrease in the number of its
speakers. This increased interest has developed in a rapidly changing society
in which new media – particularly the internet – are powerful forces. The
internet is a cultural field beyond any given time or place, skirting
communication barriers of the past, exposing near-limitless knowledge in
seconds. Entering the word “Yiddish” in the Google search engine in order to
check the extent of interest in Yiddish in the world, one finds more than ten
million “hits.” This is tangible evidence that Yiddish is embedded in the real
world and testifies to the widespread interest in Yiddish today.
The history of teaching Yiddish in Jewish school
systems in Europe, the
Many years ago the author, poet and critic Yankev
Glatshteyn stated that by the end of the 20th century Yiddish would
have “a lebediker untergang.” No one understood this prediction as signifying
diminishment accompanied by a hope for renewal. The Jerusalem Conference will
examine the Glatshteyn prophecy by reviewing the modern history of Yiddish, the
awareness of its unique quality, and the role it plays today as a central
resource in Jewish studies.
The conference will take place at the
Yiddish in Jewish Education in the 20th
Century
Yiddish in
The Czernowitz Conference and its Aftermath
Yiddish and Yiddish Activity among Holocaust Survivors
Yiddish and Jewish Studies in the 21st
Century
Dov Sadan – Yiddish and Jewish Studies for the 21st
Century
The Academic Status of Yiddish in Europe and the
Yiddish and Consumers of Yiddish in Today’s World
Research and Teaching of Yiddish Today (2 sessions)
Yiddish in Social Milieux, in Literary Life,
Linguistics and International Discourse
The Future of Yiddish in Light of the 20th
Century Experience
Jewish Creativity in the Holocaust Era
Modern Yiddish Language and its Characteristics
Yiddish in Secondary Education in
The Israeli UNESCO Committee (Dir., Daniel Bar-Eli) will act as co-sponsor. The
UN has designated 2008 the International Year of Languages. The UNESCO
Committee will bring experts from abroad to participate in the Conference.
The conference will take place at the
3)----------------------------------------
Date: 30 June 2008
From: ed.
Subject: Reading an
American Yiddish medical advertisement
(click on image
to enlarge)
Commentary: The Most Important of All Important Questions
The question which
the young woman asks the young man in the above picture – we are told – is
the most important that any young lady can ask a suitor who seeks her hand
in marriage. Every man must ask himself
this same question before he thinks of marrying. Hundreds of thousands of lives
and the health and fortune of future generations are dependent on this most
important of important questions:
"I want to
know whether you are completely healthy," the woman asks the man. And just
as her question is important, so is his answer full of anguish and pain. He
loves the girl – she is pretty, young, charming, attractive; he loves her
truly, deeply and earnestly. But to her most important question he cannot reply
"yes." Oh if he had only thought of A.V. Preventative five years
before. A.V. Preventative comes in a small leather box with the label you see
on this page. It can be bought in the following drugstores… and in hundreds of
other pharmacies. 50 cents a box.
***
This fascinating
drawing accidentally encountered in David Goldberg's advanced Yiddish grammar
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, p. 43) is not as easy to understand as
one thinks at first glance. The textbook explains it as "An advertisement
for a prophylactic medicine in an American Yiddish newspaper in 1909." We
don't know the source of the advertisement nor can we deduce much about the
medicine, one of many (anti-venereal?) concoctions of the day. The
advertisement claims the product "iz a pozitiver meditsin tsu farhitn
mener krankheytn" ('is a positive medicine to prevent men's diseases').
Could condoms being alluded to
here? Even today the term "men's diseases" is in use, covering a wide
field. Fifty cents a box would have been very expensive a century ago. The
drawing suggests a connection between health and class (the wealthy are
generally healthier than the poor). There is nothing Jewish-looking in the
scene -- the young man stands 'hat in hand' and the woman is dominant. The
source of the drawing is very likely a non-Jewish periodical. The bust
scultpure in the upper right-hand corner could be of a distinguished family
member or some famous world figure. What is remarkable about the drawing is the
initiative and power it assigns the young woman. She has the temerity to raise
an issue young ladies were not even supposed to know about, much less discuss
with a male. This is of course the age of the suffragettes and our young lady
may represent the new woman of the period.
4)----------------------------------------
Date: 30 June 2008
From: ed.
Subject: An American Yiddish dental advertisement and the secularization of a
Hebrew text
(click on image
to enlarge)
Commentary: ùÀÑìùÈÑä îÄé éåÉãÅòÇ?
The above somewhat
crude advertisement pits competent dentist against quack. This seems to be its essential
message. But careful attention to its wording reveals a subtext that tells us
something about immigrant life in
Playful use of the
Hagode [Haggada] for secular,
including commercial, purposes was not uncommon in the Yiddish of a century
ago. From the Hagode comes the
opening of the advertisement that parodies the famous Passover song beginning
"Ekhod me yoydeye." From the Hagode also come the two sons, the
"Eynoy yoydeye lishol" [Eyno yodeya lishol] 'the one who does not
know how to ask') coming first on the right side of the page and in the
advertisement described as "der farblondzheter patsyent, er hot nit
gedenkt gut dem adres, un er kumt op khibet
ha-keyver oyf der velt -- in di hent fun a kalike" ('the lost
patient, who did not know the address well, and suffers a beating at the hands
of a cripple in this world').
Readers would have
been fully familiar with the folk belief (khibet
ha-keyver) that warns the newly deceased to remember their names
upon entering the grave and being interrogated by the angels of destruction.
The 'pitch' here is "If you get lost and do not find the Paris Dental
Parlor you will be 'beaten up' (i.e. get inferior treatment) by a quack in this
world." Of the khokhem, the
Wise Son, on the other hand, we learn "der patsyent vos hot keyn misteyk
[sic--ed.] nit gemakht in adres un hot getrofn rikhtik tsu di Pariz dental
parlors -- in di hent fun a kinstler." ( 'the patient who made no mistake
in the address and correctly found the Paris Dental Parlors -- in the hands of
an artist'). The opposing characterizations both dwell on the principal matter
of finding the right address, a
real life problem for greenhorns who knew little or no English and faced
having to move about in a gigantic metropolis . The advertisement concludes in
hype: "In everything that belongs to high-grade [sic--ed.] dentistry,
fixing bad teeth or making new ones, when you want to be sure to get the best
dental work in the world at the cheapest prices in New York, with written
ten-year guarantee, then go to the Paris Dental Parlor Co."
5)-------------------------
Date: 30 June 2008
From: Rina Yosifon
Subject: Rina Yosifon [see TMR 12.004, Sec. 7] reads her
Yiddish translation [see TMR 12.004, Sec.
8] of the Lucky monologue in Beckett's Waiting for Godot
|
Click on the
gramophone to hear Rina Yosifon reading. (Suggestion: Raising volume and wearing headset will improve hearing) |
|
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End of The Mendele Review Issue 12.012
Editor, Leonard Prager
Editorial Associate, Robert Goldenberg
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