מענדעלע

Interview with Mordkhe Tsanin, Founder/Editor Of Israel's Yiddish Newspaper "Letste Nayes" On The Yiddish Voice, WUNR 1600 AM, Weds., Nov. 27, 1996

Boston's Yiddish-language radio program, The Yiddish Voice (WUNR-AM, 1600 in Brookline, MA), will feature an interview with Mordkhe Tsanin, editor of "Letste Nayes", on its upcoming program, Wednesday, November 27, 1996.

Tsanin is the president of the Yiddish Writers and Journalists Union in Israel, where he is active to this day as a journalist and novelist. He is the founder and editor of the newspaper "Letste Nayes", which was Israel's first Yiddish daily newspaper (published weekly in recent years). For many years he was also the Israeli correspondent of the Yiddish Daily Forward. His most recent novel, "Shluf Nisht, Mameshi", (the title is in Polish-Yiddish dialect) was published by H. Leyvik House in 1986. Material by and about Tsanin and his work recently appeared in a "mini-anthology" in the September-October issue of the journal "Yiddishe Kultur", published by the Yiddisher Kultur Farband.

This exclusive interview was conducted in Yiddish upon Mr. Tsanin's recent visit to New York, where he was honored by the Zhitlovsky foundation. In addition to the interview, excepts of Mr. Tsanin's remarks at the annual Zhitlovsky Foundation banquet will also be broadcast. The interview is by Yiddish Voice host and producer Mark David.

The Yiddish Voice is a weekly Yiddish-language radio program heard in Boston since 1994 that features music, poetry, comedy, interviews, news, commentary, and announcements of current events.

Additional contact information:

dos yidishe kol / The Yiddish Voice WUNR Radio International 160 North Washington Street Boston, MA 02114

Voice: (617) 738-1870 / Email: yv@world.std.com Web: http://world.std.com/~yv/ Broadcast: WUNR 1600 AM / Wednesdays 7:30-8:30pm

Mark David

Kindveis hob ikh g'hert menshn zogn "es vet helfn vi a toyten helft bankes", clearly meaning that a dead one won't be helped. Of course you have heard the story about the performance taking place in a theater at which an actor suddenly drops to the floor. A doctor rushes up and declares the man dead. A voice from the balcony shouts "Give him an enema". The doctor replies, "He's dead, it can't help". Comes back the voice, "It can't hoit!".

Sylvan (Zavi) Beer

Walter Golman asks if [6.102] _helft vi a toytn bankes_ could mean 'helped as dead cups' -- no, and we can tell that because of grammatical agreement. The adjective _toyt-_ 'dead' occurs in this phrase as an accusative or dative masculine singular, while _bankes_ 'cups' is plural. So we know that 'dead' can't be modifying 'cups' -- 'dead cups' would be _toyte bankes_. Isn't grammar useful? :-)

Ellen Prince

In response to David Berman's shale [6.101] on how children should threaten to snoop on one another I can only say that the khsidishe kids lingo is 'ikh gay oszogen', to which the response is 'moser katz'. I am not sure if it is phrased 'ikh gay oszogen of dir', but it is definitley used on its own or 'ikh gay oszugen der rebe/taty/dan mame etc.

There is another age of children when almost every other sentence of theirs begins with 'true' as in 'True that you're going to buy me a present?' and 'True that I came to your house?' and so on.

Yiddish speaking kids outside Israel say 'Emes' like 'Emes ikh hob dikh gezeyn?' etc. In Israel the children say 'ayo, the 'yo' pronounced like 'yo', yes in yidish. This word is relatively unused with adults and this lead me to believe that it is an Israeli dialecticl addition. That was until I came across the word in the works of either Sholem Alaykhem or Mendele and left me wondering why only Israelies use it.

There is another question I have: How do you teach children in yiddish to say please? The Belgians and some others use 'bite' which is a German word and the adaptation by the Belgians may be connected to their proximity to Germany. I dislike the word first because it somehow doesn't sound yidish and also because it has a very wieghty formal sounding.

Another word that appears in the dictionary is 'za moykhel'. While this contains the full taste of yidish I find it too fartsatish and heavy a word to bring kids up in.

My father used to say to us 'za azoy git' which is better than 'za moykhel' but is not always applicable and is also long winded. For eg. if a child says in English 'Can I please have a drink', he would have to say, 'za azoy git in geb mikh a trink' or 'kenst di azoy git zan in mikh geyben a trink' which is a rather long way of getting a drink.

The simple option is to drop the please and that is indeed how many khsidishe kids talk. I assume that they didn't talk much differently in the shteytl so at lease history is on their side.

My prefered choice is to use 'please'. It is short and easy to use and the khirik sound in it gives it a yidish flavour.

I wonder what others think.

David Herskovic

In response to Gary Apfel's question on shortwave Yiddish radio (vol6.102): Kol Israel shortwave broadcast in Yiddish schedule for Winter 96-97 (as of October 21, 1996):

Time (UTC) kHz Meters Target areas

17:00-17:30 7,395 40.56 West Europe/North America 7,465 40.19 West Europe/North America 9,435 31.79 East Europe/North America 11,605 25.85 East Europe/North America

18:00-18:30 7,465 40.19 West Europe/North America 9,435 31.79 East Europe/West Asia 11,605 25.85 East Europe/North America

Note that times are UTC(GMT). In the US EST=GMT-05:00, PST=GMT-08:00. In Israel these Yiddish programs are carried by the FM networks Reshet Reka (17:00-17:30) and Reshet Hei (18:00-18:30).

Schedule updates are posted regularly to rec.radio.shortwave, soc.culture.jewish and soc.culture.israel and can be found in Shtetl's Post Office (http://sunsite.unc.edu/huhem.html). To receive personal copy of updates write to IBA, Kol Israel, External Service, POB 1082, Jerusalem 91010, Israel (Fax +972 2 302327). Kol Israel is planning cutbacks, so letters of interest and support are important.

Iosif Vaisman