_The Mendele Review_: Yiddish Literature and Language (A Companion to _MENDELE_) ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 06.006 30 June 2002 1) Sholem Asch in this issue of _TMR_ and the last (ed.) 2) Sholem Ash, "a shtiler gortn" [romanized version] 3) On Reading "a shtiler gortn" in the 21st Century (ed.) 4) "Vos darft ir mer?": Yosef Guri's latest collection of Yiddish idioms (ed.) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 June 2002 From: Leonard Prager Subject: Sholem Asch in this issue of _TMR_ and the last The most important -- and most damning -- citations relating to Asch (in _TMR_ 6.005) were accidentally omitted. Their source is not the "Introduction" to the anthology, but a biographical sketch of Asch in the section called "Notes on the Authors," presumably the work of both Howe and Greenberg. They write: "As a stylist he is far from being in the first rank of Yiddish prose writers. His use of Yiddish is often clumsy and impure, being too heavily alloyed with Germanic elements." (p. 78) This charge was often motivated by pure jealousy and has yet to be systematically shown. They further note that "quite apart from their religious intention," Asch's later novels such as _Mary_ and _The Nazarene_ "do not compare very favorably" with his early work. It is this last judgement that most infuriated Asch. The last issue of the TMR carried the correspondence of Sholem Asch with Irving Howe and others around the issue of Asch's participation in the Howe-Greenberg anthology of Yiddish stories. The letters reveal an unfortunate misunderstanding. The present issue of TMR features one of the three Asch stories, "A shtiler gortn," chosen by Howe and Greenberg, who translate it as "A Quiet Garden Spot." They see it as "a little sketch, almost a fable, of the typical patterns of immigrant family life in America." In my reading the patterns are not necessarily "typical." Those readers who prefer to read romanized Yiddish have an opportunity here to do so. However, we urge all Mendelists to read the Yiddish-letter version to be found at http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/onkelos/shtil.pdf. An audio version of the story read by Sara Blecher-Retter will shortly be accessible at http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il. The Yiddish text can be manually scrolled while listening to the story. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 June 2002 From: Morrie Feller Subject: sholem ash, "a shtiler gortn" ------------------ sholem ash [Sholem Asch] a shtiler gortn (dertseylung) ven der kleyner shimen iz geshtorbn hobn zayne tsvey zin, -- note un anshl -- geshvorn baym keyver, az zey veln der mame nit fargesn, un zey veln tomed in foter gedenkn azoy lang vi zey veln lebn. - du zorg dikh nit, tate, hot der elterer note arayngeshrien in keyver arayn, "vi vil meyk areyndzhments far der mamen" -- di shvegerin, notes vayb, hot dos derhert iz zi gevorn mer dreyst tsum toytn vi zi iz geven biz itst, un zi hot derfar fun shver farlangt: - ir zolt zikh loyfn un miyen far mayn eyntsik kind, ayer eynikl. nor zi hot nokh nit gedoyzhet oystsuredn dem gantsn shprukh hot ir shoyn farkhapt di tsveyte shvegerin, anshls vayb. - vos epes far ir eyntsik kind aleyn? -- far ale zayne kinder, far ale zayne eyniklekh zol er zayn a meylits yoysher. - un nit nor bloyz far zayne kinder aleyn, nor fremde kinder oykh -- far di gantse velt, far ale yunge layt, vos veln badarfn itst in fayer geyn. oy, oy, az men zol zey farzen, az di koyl zol zey maydn -- iz a fremde yidene, velkhe hot zikh punkt gefunen oyfn gutn ort -- tsugekumen tsum ofenem keyver un arayngeshrien, vi zi volt zikh gevolt banutsn mit der umzistine gelegnhayt, vos der kleyner shimen pakt zikh oyf yener velt, mit im a tfilele mitsugebn tsu di i rike... ikh veys nit, oyb der kleyner shimen vet rikhtik oysfirn di shlikhes vos di lebedike hobn im baym letstn opsheyd fun zey mitgegebn. nor gehert di shlikhes hot er gevis. vorem az der kleyner shimen hot derhert di verter fun eltstn zun: "tate, zorg dikh nit, vi vil meyk areyndzhments far der mamen", hot a laykhter shmeykhl a shveb geton oyf zayne bleykhe geshtorbene lipn, un di groye shteyfe hor fun di vontses hobn zikh bavoygn -- un azoy mit dem shmeykhl iz er arayn in grub arayn. vorem der kleyner shimen hot zikh gemuzt dermonen in di ofte farshprekhungn fun zayn zun, velkher iz geven "gut op". - tate, zorg zikh nit, vi vil meyk areyndzhments. gebrakht hot der kleyner shimen fun zayn kleyn shtetl in poyln keyn amerike zayn sher mit di oysgedarte hent, zayn shmeykhl oyfn ponem, zayn vayb nekhe, an oysgedarte getraye khaverte, zayne tsvey yungen, anshl un note, un avekgeshtelt zikh arbetn. shtendik gearbet. hot er nit gehat vos tsu arbetn, iz er troyerik geven, i z im langvaylik geven -- hot er zikh gehaltn far an iberikn. shabosim un yontoyvim zaynen durkhgegangn im in langvaylikayt un benkenish nokh der arbet, azoy vi di sher un di nodl zaynen gevorn a teyl fun zayn kerper un ven er hot zey nit gehat, hot im epes gefelt un on zey hot er nit gekent lebn. in der vokhns bay der arbet hot er gebenkt nokh shabes. az der shabes zol kumen -- vet er zikh oysruen. nor koym iz der shabes gekumen un der kleyner shimen hot zikh gut oysgeshlofn hot er zikh shoyn arumgedreyt far langvaylikayt un nit gehat vos mit zikh tsu ton. keyn bakante, keyn fraynd hot er nit gehat. er hot gekukt in himl arayn, gezukht a shtern. -- vos kukstu, vos eylstu dikh azoy? -- hot nekhe gefregt. - es vilt zikh shoyn tsurikgeyn tsu der arbet. a tsu langer shabes. azoy hot der kleyner shimen opgelebt zayn lebn. di kinder zayne zaynen fri avek fun hoyz, gezorgt far zikh aleyn, ibergeblibn aleyn mit nekhn -- a getraye oysgehorevete yidene. in di ovntn, say zumer un say vinter zaynen zey beyde opgegesn in di kitshn. der parler iz geven sheyn oyfgeroymt, un badekt mit piktshurs, ober keyner hot im nit gezen bay tog, in im iz men nor geshlofn. gevoynt hot men in kitshn baym kikhl -- gezesn un geshvign, teyl mol hot men zikh dermont on a bakantn fun der heym fun kleynem shtetl. - du gedenkst dem langn shmuel fun der heym? hot der kleyner yid plutsling gefregt zayn vayb. - dem, vos di tochter iz avek mit a soldat? - yo. vos hostu zikh epes dermont on langn shmuel? - glat azoy. oder men hot zikh dermont on a gesl fun shtot: - du gedenkst dos unter-gesl in der heym? - vu di mume brokhe hot gevoynt? - yo, dort vu dos kleyne plumpl iz geshtanen un shabes nokhmitog iz men gegangen mit der shep shepn frish vaser. - yo, vos hostu zikh epes dermont on kleynem unter-gesl? - glat azoy. teyl mol hot zikh a zun dermont on tate-mame un shpet in ovnt plutsem umgerikht arayngefaln in kitshn arayn. - gib nor a kuk ver es iz do! note iz dokh do! oyf meshiekhn volt ikh zikh gikher gerikht. vos makht men? vos makht dos vayb un di kinderlekh? - ol-rayt. -- efsher vestu trinkn a glezele roytn burikes-borsht? host dokh dos shtendik azoy gern gehat. der mames a glezl borsht. -- un du, tate, arbetst nokh alts in brukliner shop? -- vos zol men ton? men muz dokh makhn a lebn. -- er hot shoyn take keyn koyekh nit. bay nakht krekhtst er a gantse nakht oyf di zaytn -- dertseylt di mame. -- nu, mame, zorg dikh nit, vi vil meyk areyndzhments. iberedn mit anshl. oyf di alte yorn vestu nit darfn arbetn. der kleyner shimen hot geshmeykhlt -- dos zelbe gute bleykhe shmeykhele, vos es hot yetst geshvebt oyf zayne lipn, ven men hot im in der erd arayngeleygt. un es iz durkhgegangen vider a halb yor, un men hot keyn kind in di oygn nit ongezen. gevoynt hot men vayt eyns fun andern. un hot men zikh geklibn tsuforn zen an eynikl, hobn di alte farblondzhet in veg. -- a, shoyn vartn oyf peysekh, khalemoyed veln mir tsugeyn zen di eyniklekh. un vider in a halb yor arum hot zikh a zun arayngekhapt: -- nu, tate, du arbetst nokh in shop? -- vos zol men ton? men muz dokh makhn a lebn, der mamen parnose gebn. -- zorg dikh nit. vi vil meyk areyndzhments.... un bald vider fargesn gevorn, biz di kinder hobn gehert, az der tate iz geshtorbn. zayn toyt iz geven shtil azoy vi zayn lebn, fargesn. nokh zayn levaye iz nokhgeforn eyn vogn, di almone mit di tsvey kinder un di tsvey shnir, un zey hobn dem tatn mitgegebn di shlikhes oyf yener velt, derfar veln zey makhn areyndzhments far der mamen. di alte nekhe iz geshtanen baym keyver, zi hot geveynt, keyn shlikhes, az er zol zikh loyfn un mien far ir, hot zi im oykh nit bafoyln. zi iz geshtanen a shtume di gantse tsayt un gezen vi di tsvey goyim shitn tsu ir kleynem shimen. nor nokh dem vi men hot shoyn iber dem kleynem shimen ale opgezogt, ales vos iz im gekumen loyt dem din, hobn zikh ale oyfgehoybn avektsugeyn, un zi iz shteyn geblibn baym keyver un oysgeshtrekt di hent, un di kinder hobn zi avekgenumen bay di orems un gezogt tsu ir: kum, mame! hot zi zikh naiv arumgekukt mit ire oysgeleshene oygn, velkhe hobn dem glants gehat vi di oygn fun a shtume beheyme, un gefregt: -- vu? hobn zi di tsvey zin avekgefirt fun keyver un gezogt tsu ir: -- zorg dikh nit, mame, vi vil meyk areyndzhments. fun keyver hobn zikh beyde zin gerisn iber der mamen. yeder eyner hot gevolt, az di mame zol zitsn by im shive. geblibn iz zi baym eltern, bay noten, velkher iz geven a seylsmen, un hot gehat eyn kind un iz geven beser op fun anshln. nokh di ershte akht teg iz di mame gekumen tsu gast tsum tsveytn zun. azoy hot zi zikh a por vokhn arumgevalgert fun eyn zun tsum andern, biz men iz zi gegangen arayngebn in an anshtalt far alte layt. nor eyder di kinder hobn gemakht "areyndzhments" di muter tsu bazorgn in an anshtalt, iz zi shtilerheyt avekgegangen tsu ir man. a keyver in shkheynes bay ir man iz shoyn nit gevezn. shoyn geven farnumen. un iberhoypt iz der teyl semetery, vu der man iz gelegn, geven tsu tayer far a yidine... hot men zi bagrobn oyf a nayem teyl semetery, vu siz geven vayt fun shtot un es hot gekost bilik a keyver. zaynen dos alte por gelegn tsuteylt nokhn lebn: er iz gelegn tvishn fremde yidn oyf eyn teyl semeteri un zi iz gelegn tsvishn fremde vayber oyf an ander teyl semeteri. fargesn zaynen di alte geven bay zeyer lebn un fargesn zaynen zey gevorn bay zeyer toyt. zeyere kvorim zaynen bald fartrogn gevorn tsvishn yam fargesene vi zey zaynen un zey hobn keynem nit gehat , nor dos shtikl himl iber zikh, un dos kleyne bergl erd vos zey hobn farmogt oyf zikh. ober mer hobn zey nit badarft. in vinter zaynen di kvorim gevorn tsugedekt mit a dek fun shney un zaynen opgevisht gevorn fun der erd, ober ven der liber zumer iz gekumen un di zun hot oyfgedekt di oyberflekhe fun der erd fun shney--deke, zaynen di tsvey kvorim oykh antplekt gevorn. der vint hot gebrakht oyf zeyere berglekh zoymen--shtoyb fun blumen un grinsn, velkhe er hot aropgeganvet fun di raykhe kvorim un ayngeflanst in di berglekh fun di oreme. baytog hot di zun tsuvarmt, tsehitst un antblit di shtoyblekh bliekhts, un baynakht hot der regn zey tif in der erd farflanst, un der toy, fri un shpet, hot zey bavasert. un iber dem keyver fun kleynem shimen mit zayn vayb nekhe, khotsh tsesheyt un tsuvorfn oyf tsvey bazundere felder, hobn geblit mit gele feld--blumelekh bloye vaser--lilyen, mit vayse honik--keplekh, mit yasmin un mit bloye oygelekh. di kvorim zaynen farvandlt gevorn in shtile bliende gertner, velkhe keyn oyg hot nit bamerkt nor zaynen bavakht un opgehit gevorn fun di shtile bahaltene hant fun der natur. teyl mol hobn zikh di brider, note un anshl, tsufelik bagegnt in a gepakte kar forndik fun der arbet, oder in a hol fun a miting. -- halo, note! -- halo, anshl! -- men darf a mol aroysgeyn tsu di alte oyf der semeteri zen vos zey makhn! hot eyn bruder gezogt. -- men darf, ay em redi. nekstn zuntik iber a vokh, mirn zikh trefn bay bruklin bridzh tvelf baytog. vilst? hot der tsveyter gezogt. -- ol--rayt, fun nekstn zuntik iber a vokh, gedenk. di brider hobn gevust, az zey veln zikh nit trefn un zey zaynen nit gegangen oykh, geven neytikere zakhn. azoy zaynen durkhgegangen yorn un tate--mames kvorim zaynen geven bahaltn fun yedn lebedikn oyg, un geblit zikh in der shtil -- shtile gertner... a mol, a mol hot zikh gemakht, az eyner fun di brider hot zikh farvandert oyf dem beys-oylem mit der levaye fun a sesayeti-man (hot gedarft shtrof batsoln, ven er volt nit gekumen), hot er zikh dermont in tatns keyver. zumer iz es geven, iz er es gegangen oyszukhn, lang, lang hot er gezukht tsvishn di farvaksene grezer dem tatns kleyne matseyve. az er hot es gefunen iz er shteyn geblibn a dershrekener un a farvunderter: velkhe geheyme hant hot farflantst in der shtil dem gortn oyfn foters keyver? un er hot nit gevust az der shtiler vint un di gute mame erd hobn afile in dem kleynem shnayderl nit fargesn. --------------------------------------------------------- Anglicisms cf. Yiddish --- ay 'I' ikh areyndzhments 'arrangements' aranzhirungen; tsugreytungen bridzh 'bridge' brik em 'am' bin hol 'hall' zal; lokal kar 'car' tramvay, vagon kitshn 'kitchen' kikh meyk 'make' makhn miting 'meeting' aseyfe, farzamlung olrayt 'all right' gut, rekht parler 'parlor gasttsimer piktshurs 'pictures' bilder redi 'ready' greyt semeteri 'cemetery' besoylem sesayeti 'society' khevre, gezelshaft vi 'we' mir vil 'will' veln 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 June 2002 From: Leonard Prager Subject: 3) On Reading Asch's "A shtiler gortn" in the 21st Century On Reading Asch's "A shtiler gortn" in the 21st Century A review of Asch's writings reveals a plenitude of genres and styles, each period of his life brimming with innovation. Though infrequently exercized over a lifetime spent exploring the most somber themes, Asch's comic voice can be heard in a number of his stories, plays and sketches. In "A shtiler gortn" ('A Quiet Garden'), Asch looks at sensitive areas of American-Jewish immigrant life -- family cohesion and cultural continuity -- from a comic distance. Written around the time of World War One (to which there is an oblique reference in the story itself), before the gates of America began to close in the 1920s and long before the prosperity that began with World War Two, "A shtiler gortn" chronicles the slow disintegration of family bonds under the pressure of urban life in a new land. Little Shimen and his family are not held up as typical, but their experience says much about their generation and their milieu. "A shtiler gortn" is both a satiric portrait of one corner of second-generation Jewish life in an American metropolis in the early years of the past century, and a sympathetic sketch of the New World ordeal of that generation's immigrant parents. Neither correctional fable nor nostalgic reminiscence, the story is in fact thematically rich. Though set in an America that has since been utterly transformed, it has not lost its force with time -- connectedness and cultural continuity concern us deeply. The story turns on a halachic principle whose import is not explicitly hinted at, namely the matter of _nedarim_ 'vows'. The entire story derives much of its irony from the absence of expected Judaic content. In Jewish tradition the making of a vow is a matter of such weight that one is discouraged from the kind of impulsive promise with which our story begins. Lying in his fresh grave, the dead father for a moment becomes an object of intense interest. The older son Note addresses him with feeling, reassuring the dead man as he has often done in the past that "vi vil meyk areyndzhments" ('we will make arrangements') for his wife, their mother. The teller sees an ironic smile on the face of the deceased upon hearing the familiar refrain "vi vil meyk areyndzhments." Like Sholem-Aleykhem and others before him, Asch sprinkles his story with americanisms, in this instance and for comical effect, repeatedly sounding the choric refrain "vi vil meyk areyndzhments." Here is the story's opening paragraph: "ven der kleyner shimen iz geshtorbn hobn zayne tsvey zin, -- note un anshl -- geshvorn baym keyver, az zey veln der mame nit fargesn, un zey veln tomed in foter gedenken azoy lang vi zey veln lebn." ['When Little Shimen died, his two sons, Note and Anshl, swore by the graveside that they would not forget their mother and that they would always remember their father as long as they lived.'] The story "tests" the protestations of the opening and finds them to be false. The principal locus of "A shtiler gortn" is the cemetery, whose role and importance in Jewish life change before our eyes in this narrative. The Old World "besoylem' was not a marginal area to be visited on rare occasions. We catch a glimpse of its traditional centrality in the comic opening where the dead man's services as intermediary and messenger to the next world are eagerly sought. In popular Old World funerary culture, a new death briefly opened the gates of heaven for communications from the world below. The widow, two sons and their wives are the only mourners and the service is minimal -- "opgezogt, ales vos iz im gekumen loyt dem din" ['everything said that the Law required be said for him']. A khevre-kedishe ['burial society'] is not visible here; two gentile cemetery employees cover the grave. The teller pays scant attention to the religious dimension of the burial service, which appears to be minimal. We early learned that Little Shimen and his wife had no friends and the routine of their lives was centered on shop and on _kitshn_ ['kitchen'] (the word seems to have entered American Yiddish very early in the immigration period). In a lone passage of reminiscence Little Shimen asks his wife if she remembers the little lane where Aunt Brokhe lived, "dort vu dos kleyne plumpl iz geshtanen un shabes nokhmitog iz men gegangen mit der shep shepn frish vaser" ['where the little pump stood and where on Saturday afternoons we used to scoop up fresh water']. These were the living waters of their former -- difficult but coherent -- lives. In their bleak urban years there were no comrades from the shop, no "shifbrider" or "shifshvester," fellow passengers with whom one made the fateful passage across the Atlantic, no "landslayt" or "landsmanshaft" friends, fellow immigrants from their town or region. They did not participate in the "shil" of the observant or go to the Yiddish theatre of the secular (and observant) or even sit outside on the pavement and crack polly or pumpkin seeds with the "nekstdorike" in the warm weather days. The many paths of socialization and community life of the immigrant generations were somehow not available to Little Shimen and Nekhe. In many families the children were those who helped their parents discover America. But Note and Anshl were not of this calibre, though hardly "evil." The isolated couple and their sons of our story are not a dysfunctional family. Note and Anshl are "making it" in America and they simply have no time for their parents. They have not arranged to live close to their parents or to one another and they drift further and further apart. The sons sometimes run into one another in the "cars" -- subway and elevated cars, but the parents get lost when trying to visit their sons. This is an era before telephones were found in most homes, and it seems right for the period that in the two-room dwelling of Little Shimen and Nekhe, there was no such luxury. This general failure in communication is satirized in the story's opening, where the father is urgently addressed by a son, two daughters-in-law and a transient mourner who usurps the momentarily open line from Little Shimen's fresh grave to reach her own communicants and the large public of soldiers-to-be. Little Shimen's ironic smile controls our reading of the story and never allows the pathos to overpower the comedy. The comic turn that caps the narrative is the life-affirming floral closure. Jews and others say: "az der sof iz gut iz alts gut" ['All's well that ends well']. But this story's "happy ending" does not stem from an identifiable human source, Jewish or other; it is an accidental act of Grace bestowed by a seemingly beneficent -- and not recognizably Jewish -- Nature. Mother Nature puts "human nature" to shame. Asch the universalist was so securely Jewish that he could be playful in this way. 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 June 2002 From: Leonard Prager Subject: "Vos darft ir mer?": Yoysef Guri's latest collection of Yiddish idioms Yoysef Guri, _Vos darft ir mer?; 2000 bilderishe oysdrukn in yidish_/ Yosef Guri _2000 matbeot lashon beyidish_ [t.p.: _Vos darft ir mer? 2000 yidishe bildishe oysdrukn fartaytsht oyf hebreyish, english un rusish_/_2000 matbeot lashon yidish vehamakbilot beivrit, beanglit ubeivrit_/English t.p.: Yosef Guri, _2000 Idiomatic Expressions in Yiddish and Their Equivalents in English, Hebrew and Russian_], Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Department of Russian and Slavic Studies, 2002. [distributed by Magnes Press, POB 39099, Jerusalem 91390, Israel; fax no. 972-2-5633370. ISBN 965-90250-1-7] ------------------------- Yosef Guri has made the translation of idioms a lifetime study, starting over two decades ago with his _Idioms in present-day Russian and ways of their translation into Hebrew_ (Jerusalem, 1978). This specialized knowledge has served him well in preparing a series of multi-language lexicons, each building on its predecessor. In his _Klug vi Shloyme Hameylekh_ (Jerusalem, 1999), remaining within the sphere of figurative language, he presented 500 Yiddish similes and their equivalents in Hebrew, English and Russian. He also worked with four languages in his attractive pamphlet of proverbs, _Az der sof iz gut, iz alts gut_ (Jerusalem 1993). The tri-lingual _Kurtser yidish-hebreyish-rusish verterbukh_ (Jerusalem 1992) which he authored with Shaul Ferdman was a lexicographic pathbreaker, among other innovations the first Yiddish dictionary outside of the uncompleted _Groyser verterbukh_ to illustrate word usage in sample phrases and sentences. Thus next to _hor_ 'hair' in this abridged tri-lingual dictionary we have "hengen oyf a hor" with Hebrew and Russian equivalents. This idiom, together with many others, found its way into _Vi kumt der kats ibern vaser?_, a collection of 1000 idioms with their equivalents in Hebrew, English and Russian (Jerusalem 1997). "hengen oyf a hor" is also one of the many idioms in this collection which is reproduced in Gori's latest compilation, _Vos darft ir mer?_, which not only has twice the number of idioms as the 1997 work, but is richer in several notewothy respects. Guri's many dictionaries reinforce one another and may be thought of as a composite _oeuvre_. "Vos darft ir mer?" is a quadrilingual dictionary of idioms. An idiom "is a phrase which means something different from the meanings of the separate words from which it is formed."[p. 5] The author's declared main aim is "to help students of Yiddish who have a knowledge of Hebrew, English or Russian to read Yiddish literature in the original, particularly Sholem Aleichem and other authors whose literary works are full of idiomatic expressions." [p. 5] A number of useful features are provided to further this aim: separate alphabetical indices of the Hebrew, English and Russian equivalents and/or translations of the Yiddish idioms; a semantic index (in Yiddish); an index of all the substantives in the idioms; transcriptions for words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin, e.g. _seuda_ also given as [sude]; literal translations of Yiddish idioms into Hebrew. Dan Ben-Amotz and Netiva Ben-Yehuda in their two-volume lexicon of contemporary Israeli informal Hebrew, _Milon olami leivrit meduberet_ (Tel-Aviv: Levin-Epstein, 1972-1982) showed that one could do serious word study with a light touch. Zany illustrations accompany many of their entries, amusing the reader without detracting from the scholarly value of the whole. In "Vos darft ir mer?" Guri repeats the cheerful design of his earlier collections by including comic drawings that comment on the idioms, frequently by taking them literally. Thus next to "hengen oyf a hor" we have a cartoon of a man hanging on to a piece of string suspended in air (p. 143). The author has made his collection of idioms easy and pleasurable for laymen to use, but he also has the scholar in mind. He claims that "some twenty percent of the Yiddish idioms" in his dictionary "are loan translations (calqued) from Slavic languages, and about the same number of equivalents in Hebrew are calques from Yiddish." He offers his collection as source material for linguists studying comparative linguistics and phraseology as well as students of Hebrew and Yiddish. There are any number of interesting questions that his collection might help us to answer: Are men and women writers equally idiomatic? Is there a sharp difference in the semantic fields of idioms used by writers of different place, time and gender? Are there distinguishable universal features among the idioms collected? Is it accidental that among the substantives listed, "eye," "hand," "heart.," "head," "mouth," "finger' -- in that order -- appear most often? Guri writes that "It is not always possible to find exactly equivalent expressions to the Yiddish idioms in Hebrew, English and Russian. In such case, a free word-combination is provided." (p. [12]) Though the final decisions were his own, he was assisted by native speakers of the three languages. I cannot judge the Russian equivalents, but given Guri's background they are sure to be sound. By and large, the English and Hebrew ones hold water (to use a well known idiom), but reactions of readers may differ here. Do we occasionally espy a British or Commonwealth bias? An American (and others?) would not "be in two minds" (p. 289); he would "be of two minds." He would hardly understand "have the stomach of an ostrich" (p. 172) as equivalent to "treyfe(ne) kishke." I have never heard the expression "he doesn't know whether he is Arthur or Martha" (p. 157) -- given as equivalent to the Yiddish "zol er azoy visn fun zayn gezunt." "In a blue funk" for "nit kenen rirn mit a glid" makes sense since we also get the explanatory "paralyzed with fear," but many have never heard it used. The first idiom in the volume: "a barg falt arop fun di pleytses" (p. 1) is Englished as "he got a load off his chest," unjustifiably converting a passive event into an active one, yet it is not altogether off the mark. My relatively few reservations about English equivalents in this valuable collection are directed at such entries as the somewhat comical and colloquial English "stubborn as a mule" for the history-saturated Yiddish "khotsh bren un brot im," which alludes to the torture of Jews by the Inquisition. But having reservations doesn't mean one can offer more apposite equivalents for idioms, those illogical creatures. __________________________________ End of _The Mendele Review_ 06.006 Leonard Prager, editor Subscribers to _Mendele_ (see below) automatically receive _The Mendele Review_. Send "to subscribe" or change-of-status messages to: listproc@lists.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele mail postpone b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail ack c. 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