The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature
and Language
(A Companion to MENDELE)
---------------------------------------------------------
Contents of Vol. 11.001 [Sequential No. 178]
Date:
Special Khulyot issue
Editorial: The fact that this
issue of TMR celebrates three Israeli Hebrew-language publications on or
related to Yiddish demonstrates the continued centrality of
1) This issue
of TMR (ed).
2) Special Evening 5 Feb.2007 Celebrating Publication of Khulyot
vol. 10 (flyer)
3) Khulyot Volume 10 (front cover)
4) On the Appearance of Volume 10 of Khulyot
(A Talk by Shalom Luria, tr. ed.)
5) Table of Contents (Khulyot Volume 10)
6) Davka 2 (front cover) [Yiddish: dafke]
7) Davka 2) Table of Contents
8) Avraham Greenbaum's Perakim baHistoriographia
shel Yahadut Rusiya [Studies in the Historiography
of Russian Jewry]. Jerusalem: Merkaz Dinur/Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2006 [Kuntresim Mekorot uMekhkarim 96] ISBN
965-227-217-5. Front cover. [Photo of Mendele Moykher-Sforim and Shimen Dubnov (Shimon Dubnow)]
9. Greenbaum's
Perakim
: Abstract.
Click here to
enter: http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/tmr/tmr11/tmr11001.htm
1)----------------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: This issue of TMR.
In
this issue of TMR we welcome the publication of the long-awaited tenth
volume of Khulyot, Journal of Yiddish
Research, whose table of contents we give as well as facets of the celebration
the chief editor's talk, notice of a special meeting of Jerusaelm's
Yiddish Cultural Society. We briefly announce the publication of two other
works which well deserve more space Davka 2
and Avraham Greenbaum' s book on the historiography of Russian Jewry. All three
publications discussed in this issue of TMR, as we mention in our (first-time)
Editorial, are in Hebrew, which we regard as a necessary tool for all
serious students of Yiddish.
2)----------------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Special Evening
The
Yiddish Cultural Association in Jerusalem, 10 Shalom Aleichem St. (corner Jabotinsky) announces a special evening to celebrate the
appearance of the tenth volume of Khulyot,
Journal of Yiddish Research jointly published by Haifa, Hebrew, Tel-Aviv and
Bar-Ilan Universities.
3)----------------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Khulyot
Volume 10 (front cover)
4)----------------------------------------------------------
Date:
From: Shalom Luria
Subject: On the Appearance of Volume 10 of Khulyot
(A Talk by Shalom Luria)
[Brief words read on
On the Appearance of Volume 10 of Khulyot
By Shalom Luria
1. The publication of the tenth volume of Khulyot is occasion for celebration, one to
which I invite all my friends -- but warning them in advance that I intend to
speak only Yiddish and only about Khulyot. We
all know how much effort is expended year in and year out
on research and teaching in Yiddish and on Yiddish in our universities. This is
a subject in and of itself and one I am sure some able person will faithfully
explore.
2. Khulyot
means 'rings' or 'links'. Rings are forged to make a chain. "Es mont in undz a fayer" ['We are called on to respond passionately']
writes our great poet Avrom Sutskever,
who defines this need in one of the deepest and most feeling poems in his
entire works(1), calling on us to attach ourselves to
the almost millenium-old golden chain of creativity
in Yiddish, for Yiddish is surely the most beautiful, the very finest pearl in
all we have inherited from the world of Ashkenaz and
Eastern Europe.
3. Therefore what else but Khulyot,
a Hebrew-language journal whose mission is to collect and publish essays and
scholarly articles in the broad field of Yiddish studies produced in many lands
and in many languages, a journal that deserves the interest and respect of
Hebrew-language researchers, authors and readers in Israel and abroad -- and,
indeed, merits their love.
Who
would have thought that readers of Hebrew would be incapable of understanding
Yiddish treasures directly from their original source? We know quite well,
however, that a younger generation (our children and grandchildred)
is growing up in
4. No manner of propaganda or preaching is
capable of rousing human hearts from cold indifference. Yet one tries to do
something tangible, to place black on white. Establishing a journal such as Khulyot -- especially given its uncertain
financial basis -- can matter in this realm like a drop of water in the
ocean.
Nevertheless,
it seems that for a society that years long carried on the now
difficult-to-grasp struggle against Yiddish (now named "riv haLeshonot" -- the
Language Quarrel), it would be a virtuous deed [a mitsva]
to throw open even a tiny window -- in the hope that deep, curious readers
would begin to interest themselves in Yiddish culture.
5. The idea of issuing a journal such as Khulyot was not a new one. In the summer of
1986 Benjamin Harshav and Ittamar
ibn Zohar, editors of the
Tel-Aviv University-sponsored journal HaSifrut
['Literature'] devoted a section of their periodical to "Hebrew and
Yiddish." This section of interesting and weighty research papers set an
example that a number of Yiddish-lovers in the academic community thought worth
emulating. The latter followed and found their own
path.
6. Let me say a few words about the first volume
of Khulyot, printed fourteen years ago in the
winter of 1993. I must confess that we were surprized
at the reception. The first volume was snapped up "vi matse-vaser"
[the demand was great]. We printed three hundred copies and were warned they
would lie like "an unturned stone" [keEven sheEyn la hofkhin]. But I only
have one copy left. Subscribing libraries and individuals increase in number --
truly a surprize. On the other hand we lack the funds
to print far larger editions than we do.
7. A great many talented individuals have
assisted us in issuing volume after volume. Four universities and several
public organizations (e.g. the munificent Lerner Fund and Bet Shalom Aleichem)
help us, as do distinguished scholars, students, poets and writers. May they
all be blessed, and may all who have unceasingly helped with their smiles be
blessed as well. We thank them all. And I ask your forgiveness for not being
able to meet you all, face to face, in
8. In Vilna, a city in Yiddishland,
a year after the birth of the YIVO [Yiddish Scientific Organization] (1925),
the savant Max Weinreich founded Bin ['Bee'], a scout
youth movement modeled after the Zionist HaShomer HaTsair ('Young Guard').(2)
Tens of thousands of Bees organized in numerous branches sang their
scout songs with gusto and joy. One of their songs was a solemn two-stanza hymn
whose first stanza went as follows:
"We
pound by day and by night,
We never stop hammering links,
We never cease forging and filing,
We join the links together
Into a golden chain."
Unfortunately
I can't recall who the composer and lyricist were, but in the spirit of Max Weinreich's intentions, let us continue the first stanza
with the final three lines found in the second one:
"We
dare not rest, we must go on forging,
We must not sever Today from Yesterday, ['Men tor nit
bafrayen dem haynt funem nekhtn.']
Eternal play, eternal play."(3)
This far
...
-----------------------------
1.
Avrom Sutskever [Abraham Sutzkever]: "Unter dayne vayse shtern,
Poetishe verk, band
eyns ['Under your white
stars', Poetic Works] vol. 1, 1963, p. 285.
2.
For detailed discussion of the Bees scout movement see Leyzer
Rand, "'Bin' [dvora] -- irgun
sotsialisti shel noar oved veLomed beVilna
veSvivateha, Gilad daled
[4],
3.
The original line sounds somewhat different: "Mir muzn
bafrayen dem haynt funem nekhtn."
[We must free the Today from the Yesterday.] But considering the Jewish people's
history of the past 60 years we can alter our cultural orientation a bit. VeD"l.
5)-----------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Table of Contents (Khulyot Volume 10)
6)---------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Davka
No. 2 (Yiddish dafke)
(front cover)
7)---------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Table of Contents , Second
Issue Davka (Yiddish: Dafke
2)
8)---------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Avraham
Greenbaum's Perakim
baHistoriagraphia shel Yahadut Rusiya [Studies in
the Historiography of Russian Jewry].
9)---------------------------------------------
Date:
From: ed.
Subject: Greenbaum's Perakim
: Abstract
On the back cover of this volume, the 96th in the
"In the final quarter of the eighteenth century, many Jews of
the disintegrating
The book deals with historians of the Haskala
period who wrote their works in Hebrew, and those of the Soviet period who
wrote in Yiddish. A central chapter is devoted to the greatest of
Russian-Jewish historians, Simon Dubnow."
-----------------------------------------------------------
End of The
Mendele Review Vol. 11.001
Editor, Leonard
Prager
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