מענדעלע

Benjamin Gebiner, first Executive Secretary of the Jewish Labor Committee and a former Education Director member of the Workmen's Circle. For many years, khaver Gebiner had a Yiddish news and commentary program on WEVD. He has had recently survived a stroke. For those who would like to communicate with him I am posting contact information.

Ben Gebiner is at the Parker Jewish Geriatric Center, 271-11 76th Ave., New Hyde Park, NY 11040. He is receiving some kind of physical therapy; it's not clear how long he will be there. He is happy to receive cards, but sometimes is too tired to talk for long on the phone. His phone is 718-470-1394.

Roland Millman

Of course Joachim Neugroschel is right and "zayt azoy gut" can be used where "please" is used in English in almost every instance. Today my cardiologist (nit oyf aykh gedakht) told me when I entered her office, "Zayt azoy gut, zits zikh avek" and shortly thereafter, stethescope in hand, "Zayt azoy gut, heybt oyf ayr hemd". Last week when someone tried to push ahead of an elderly gentlemen in a supermarket line, I heard him say indignantly, "Zayt azoy gut!". And I don't think Joachim Neugroschel goes a bit too far in asking that if "please" is the preferred word, why bother using Yiddish at all?" To those "please" advocates I can only say, tut mir a toyve; ikh bet aykh azoy gut tsu zayn un leyn mit a groysn alef!

Mechl Asheri

Part of the problem might be the fact that most of our kids have a Yiddish that is somewhat conditioned by English. It is not clear that a sentence with 'I want' or 'Can I have' requires a 'please' modifier. Perhaps we only need a 'please' modifier with imperatives, because they suggest a non-polite formulation. Furthermore, there is an alternative to 'can I?' and that is 'may I' (meg ikh), which I don't think needs a 'please' modifier at all. 'I want' when it needs a modifier, is perhaps appropriately formulated as a question. This needs consideration of specific examples. Clearly, not all 'I want's require 'please.' Lemoshl, ven a mame fregt, 'vos vilsti, an ey tsi kashe?,' the reply 'Ikh vil kashe' clearly doesn't need 'please.' If the need is felt because of the English influenced sociology, then the answer may also have to come from English. In this case, of course, there is no tayne on the language; one cannot except a language to be able to properly express concepts that were not felt to be needed by the speakers of that language. (For example, it is difficult for me in the house with my kids, that my kids cannot use a word in Yiddish for 'elder sister' rather than simply 'sister' and that they cannot distinguish between maternal uncle and paternal uncle and between paternal uncle who is older than father, and paternal uncle who is younger than father. All these distinctions are very important in the sociology of Tamil, but I have to do without them when the kids are speaking English or Yiddish.) And, that may be the resolution between Dovid's point of view and that of others' like Neugroschel.

More recently, though, Joachim wrote that it was indeed possible to formulate a sentence in Yiddish, like: Zay azoy gut, ikh vil kashe. (tsum badoyrn hob ikh nisht zayne genoye verter far mir). Dos hob ikh nisht gevist. Tsi iz dos take emes? Un oyb azoy, hot men dos shtendik gekent ton? Oder hot men antviklt azoyne formen af yidish afn hashpoe fun andere leshoynes?

Meylekh Viswanath

Thanks to Mechl Asheri for citing evidence that Zangwill knew Yiddish (6.119,4).

As to Sholem Aleichem's opinion that Zangwill _didn't_ understand Yiddish, I now have the reference in front of me. Perhaps he was mistaken. In any case, a letter to Israel Cohen from Galatz, Rumanian on April 27, 1906 contains that statement according to the English translation published in Commentary, December, 1949 (Vol. 8, page 583). I quote:

"I am writing also to my great colleague Zangwill, but I'm afraid that he doesn't understand Yiddish, not even a lick!"

Louis Fridhandler

Sholem Aleykhem's letters are probably the best and most reliable indicator of languages he used with his family members. Sholem Aleykhem was an enormously prolific letter writer. For example, during just two years (1888-1889) he wrote 1,500 letters (which makes more than two daily).

Six-volume edition of Sholem Aleykhem published in early 1970s in Moscow contains a small sample of 177 letters. 91 of them were written in Yiddish, the rest in Russian. ALL letters to the family members from this sample are in Yiddish. Among them letters to: Dov Berkovich, son-in-law (1905, 1908, 1913, 1914), Ernestina, daughter (1897, 1902, 1904, 1905), Misha, son (1908, 1909), Mikhail Kaufman, son- in-law (1914), Tamara, granddaughter (Berkovich's daughter) (1914), "to the children" (1904, 1906), Olga, wife (1914).

It does not seem that Yiddish was abandoned in Sholem Aleykhem's family.

Iosif Vaisman

The subject title may seem a silly question at the outset but considering that the term 'Yiddishist' implies a dedication to the purity, elevation and preservation of Yiddish, and after reading the correspondence between Louis Fridhandler and Bernard Katz [6.110, 6.114, 6.116] the question seems pertinent and worthwhile asking.

I have read somewhere ('Funem Yarid'?) that Sholem Aleichem started his writing career in Russian. It was only after he was unsuccessful in Russian that he switched to Yiddish. This indicates that Yiddish was not his preferred choice. Indeed I believe I have read here on mendele that he sometimes refers to Yiddish as 'dzargon'.

Though he went on to become the most famous and popular Yiddish writer, his use of Yiddish may have been for practical reasons rather than a devotion to the language. He clearly liked the shtetl and he could only have immortalised it in the way he did by using the shtetl language. Even more than the shtetl he liked the 'poshete yiden' (common Jews), amongst whom he said he wanted to be buried. The only way to reach the Tevye's and the Golde's; the Menachem Mendel's and the Sheine Sheindel's; the Paysehe's and Pedotsir's was through Yiddish.

When reading his works one never gets the feeling that he is concerned with the language. His prose is folksy and lacks the elegance and purity of Y.L. Peretz or some other Yiddish writers. One never detects that he is seeking to scale new heights with Yiddish. There is none of Peretz's 'un nokh hekher' in his writings.

To use a khazones (cantorial) analogy, Sholem Aleichem can be compared to Yosele Rosenblat and Peretz to Dovid Roitman. While Roitman is the more polished and sophisticated khazen of the two, Yosele Rosenblat in his warm, at times sentimental voice became the more loveable of the two. It is the lack of sophistication and the popular style that has endeared both of them to generations.

If we are to accept all of this then it explains rather well why Sholem Aleichem did not bring up his family in Yiddish. I think Louis Fridhandler is accurate when he says [6.114] that Sholem Aleichem's use of Yiddish in his personal life was because it was 'haymish, bakveym in natirlekh (homey, comfortable and natural)'. He saw it as a tool for preserving history rather than as a key to the future.

Fridhandler's quote from Sholem Aleichem's will [6.117] that his stories should be read on his yortsayt in any language further enforces my point.

I note Louis Fridhandler's phrase [6.107] 'not _yet_ a yiddishist' (my emphasis) but I have not read anything about Sholem Aleichem that suggests he ever became a Yiddishist in the full sense of the word.

While it may sound strange that the most famous Yiddish writer should not have been totally committed to the language it fits in well with a point I made some time ago that it is a supreme irony of Yiddish that where it became elevated and sophisticated with its own literature it was usually a harbinger to its demise.

David Herskovic