מענדעלע

Shura Vaisman who assumed a formidable role of Shtetl's baleboste when her promiscuous husband started an unplanned affair with Mendele several months ago, invites all Mendelyaner to the recently built and remodelled corners of Shtetl (http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/shtetl.html).

The khanike party will take place in the Shtetl's kitchen that has been completely renovated (http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/kikh). According to the well-informed sources, Shura's excellense in an authentic _Yiddish_ cuisine is unmatched in the Western hemisphere. In the new kitchen Shura shares her cherished recipes of latkes, varnichkes, kreplakh, gefilte fish, kugl, tsimes, etc., etc. Even those who are interested exclusively in the spiritual food will find something interesting in the kitchen: all recipes are richly spiced with the appropriate shprikhverter from the Ignats Bernshtein's and other collections. Please stop and taste: es lost zikh esn! The kitchen also equiped with the doors to many other Yiddish food sites.

Shtetl's song collection was complemented by the "Afn pripetshik" set of pages (http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/songs/pripetshek). There you can read the text in Yiddish and two transliterations (Southeastern and Northern dialects), see and hear (provided you have a soundcard and audio plug-ins in your Web browser) three slightly different versions of music played on different instruments, learn about Mark Warshavsky's other works from the brief article by Noah Prilutsky.

I am sure that Mendelyaner would enjoy reading the first online full-text edition of Zellig Bach's wonderful book "A Child's Longing for Home", originally published in installments in the New York Times and Forward in 1986-1987, and as a book in 1995 (http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/Book/Bach/).

Those who cannot answer a simple quiz question "What is the connection between Yiddish and Sacred Heart?" should visit Mame-Loshn'97 page (http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/ML97). The third Mame-Loshn festival last Spring was a great success. An article by Lila Zeiger and hundreds of photographs by Shtetl's own correspondents would bring back memories to those Mendelyaner who attended the festival and stimulate others to come to Mame-Loshn'98. Warning: unless you have a relatively fast Internet connection, be patient with the image-rich Mame-Loshn pages.

Shtetl provides a new link to _Der Moykher Sforim_ (http://members.aol.com/msybooks), an independent, well organized online bookstore where you can order virtually any book in print about Yiddish or translated from Yiddish.

Mendelyaner in need of the YIVO romanization rules should look at the page based on the discussion in Mendele three years ago (http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/Translit).

Those in search of Yiddish maps can visit the bibliography of Yiddish terminology and subject textbooks page in the Shtetl's library (http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/Bibliog/term-yi.htm). There you will find information about the books covering a good deal of the Earth surface: "Geografye fun Poyln", "Geografye fun F.S.S.R.", "Geshikhte un geografye fun Rumenye", "Erets-Yisroel geografye", and even "Kine un Mandzshuryen: Mongolyen, Tibet, Koriye".

For questions, comments, critique, and other correspondence (except e-mail romances) Shura can be reached at avaisman@med.unc.edu.

Iosif Vaisman Chapel Hill

While I love to be cheered, I must clarify what my suggestion was. It was not quite what Martin Horwitz renders it as: "I wish to second heartily Ellen Prince's very cogent suggestion that all readers of Mendele will gain more pleasure if the Shamas will be so kind as to group subtopics which receive a large number of posts which are very similar and do not add mew information (while taking up down loading time and patience). This is especially true of topics which may not be of general interest. If not the flood will cause more and more Mendele readers to sit with one finger on the delete button. And this would be a pity. I think even those of us with an interest in serious etymologies would agree."

In particular, I was *not* suggesting that grouping be done only for certain topics! And I certainly don't know what he has in mind by posts 'which do not add new information...' The fact is that there probably is NO topic that is of 'general interest' here -- I for one have *zero* interest in literature, in Yiddish or in any other language, to name just one large target of MY delete key.

Perhaps a probationary division into 'literature', 'language, 'announcements', 'nostalgia', and 'misc.' would fill the bill. Or perhaps some other -- I don't care what they are. But I certainly wasn't advocating that we simply segregate certain topics that *some* people feel are boring.

Hope I've made myself clear this time around.

Ellen Prince

I was reminded by your chanike oy chanike correspondence of another favorite song of my grandmother's, shiker iz a goy. (I was also reminded of the song c 40+ years ago - when I worked for the Yale Center on Alcohol Studies, which was running a comparative study of comparative ethnic drinking behavior, and I was asked about that song.) Can anyone (not too fettered by political correctness) tell me something about the song, give me the words, tell me where the music can be found, etc

Neyekh (Norman) Zide

ikh ver mer un mer ibertzaygt az mir darfn zukhn a mitl tzu shraybn mit hebreyishe oysyes -- vi ken men baredn loshn-keydesh-shtamike verter eyb me hot nit kin "bild" funem oysleyg -- a bayshpil - lo b'kharote (dos iz gring) v'lo b'd'roeh (nusen fishman)-- onem oysleyg vi ken men derkenen dem shoyresh fun a h/a vort?

i become more and more convinves that we need to find a way to write with hebrew letters - how can we talk about hebraic words if one has no picture of the spelling -- example -- lo b'lharote (that's easy) v'lo'b'd'roeh (nusen fishman) -- witout the spelling how can one recognize the root of an h/a word?

sylvia schildt baltimore, maryland

Peter Kluehs taynet (7.127, 7) az oyb me shmuest do vegn yidish zol zayn AF yidish. Ikh bin maskem. Take. Ober shraybn af beyde shprakhn iz avade logish. Ikh shrayb af yidish un oykh af English iber tsvey sibes.

Ershtns: in mayne khaloymes redt men English, a simen az mayne makhshoves antviklen zikh af English, amol vi af redlekh. Af yidish vern zey amol fartshepet. Azoy bin ikh gevoynt gevorn. Ober dos iz af mayn eygenem khezhbn un nisht der iker. A mer vogike sibe iz di tsveyte.

Tsveytns: Kemat ale Mendelistn farshteyen English un andere farshteyen nor getseylte yidishe verter. Oyb ikh bin mesugl tsu helfn yunge oder alte talmidim vos viln lernen, vil ikh es ton mit an iberzetsung af English, oder stam a por makhshoves af English. Der iker iz bildung, far mir un far andere.

Nu, un vegn daytshmerizmen. Daytshmerizmen gefeln mir nisht. Avade ken men zey gefinen. Zey klingen nisht mitn yidishn nign, mitn yidishn tam. Lemoshl (nisht tsum bayshpil): amol leyent men az _a sakh mentshn viln lernen yidish_. Un amol leyent men az _fil mentshn viln yidish lernen_. Klingen, klingt der ershter moshl mer yidish in mayne oyern. Mayne oyern zenen dokh mayne, un andere hern efsher epes andersh.

Translation: Peter Kluehs argues (7.127, 7) that since here we discuss Yiddish, it should be _in_ Yiddish. I agree. Really. But writing in both languages is quite logical. I write both Yiddish and English for two reasons.

First: in my dreams people speak English, a sign that my thoughts develop in English, sometimes as though on wheels. In Yiddish, they sometimes stumble. That is what I have become used to. That is entirely on my account and not the main thing. The second is a more weighty reason.

Second: most mendelistn understand English and only a few Yiddish words. If I am capable of helping young or old students who want to learn, I want to do it with a translation or simply some ideas in English. The main thing is education, for me and for others.

As to daytshmerisms (Germanizations): I just don't like them. Of course, they exist. They don't ring with the Yiddish lilts, the Yiddish flavors. [Then come untranslatable examples.] The first example rings more Yiddish in my ears. My ears, though, are mine, and others may hear something different.

Louis Fridhandler

Lekoved khanike (!?) :

Fun _Yidishe shprikhverter un redensarten_, 2te oyflage fun Ignats Bernshteyn, Varshe, 1908 durkh _Words Like Arrows: A Treasury of Yiddish Folk Sayings_ tsunoyfgenumen durkh Shirley Kumove, Nyu-york: Warner Books, 1986; drukrekht 1984, z' 121:

"Vegn aza bisl boyml makht men aza groysn yontev?"

bla"z:

On the occasion of Chanukah (!?):

"Over so little oil, you make such a big festival?"

Meyle, a likhtikn un a freylekhn, ale libe Mendelayt!

Elyet Hersh Gertl (Elliot Hersch Gertel) Boka raton (moyz-moyl), florida [Boca Raton, FL]

Nusen Fishman wondered in Mendele 07.121 about the meaning of "d'ro'o" (spelled daled - reysh - eyin - hey) in the above phrase, used in sholom aleikhem's story "khaneke gelt."

The answer is found in Nahum Stutchkoff's "der oytser fun der yidisher shprakh." Under the entry for "kharote" you will find the phrase spelled, correctly, as "b'li kharote ub'li drey," meaning literally "without regret and without trickery." The word "drey" is glossed in both Harkavy's and Weinreich's dictionaries as a noun meaning "turn, twist" and figuratively, "trick." The phrase is clearly a Yidish coinage created by analogy with such phrases as "b'li neder," "b'li sofek," "b'li neder ub'li maskone," "b'li eyn hore," "b'li g'vul."

Sol Steinmetz

(1) Booze: Dan Gilman asks about the origins of mashke, bronfn, and yayten-soref. Mashke and yayin-soref are straight Hebrew: mashke is any hard drink and yayin-soref is burnt wine, i.e., brandy (cf. German Branntwein). Bronfn is derived from Branntwein, as well, as Mikhl Herzog points out.

Mikhl asks whether there is any distinction in English between liquor and whiskey. While somewhat off-topic, the answer is yes. Liquor refers to any distilled alcoholic beverage, including those distilled from grain, from wine (brandy), and from other fruit. Whiskey refers only to those distilled from grain. The word "liquor" is also used in non-alcoholic contexts, such as pickling liquor and chocolate liquor (the stuff from which the cocoa butter is removed to yield chocolate). Aren't CD-ROM encyclopedias wonderful!

Both suggest that all these words are used interchangeably. My memory of my grandparents, native speakers of Yiddish, is that they were well aware of the distinctions among alcoholic beverages and would never confuse, say, Scotch, brandy, and wishniak. The word shnaps seemed to cover all of these, though. Is there any evidence from literary texts, one way or the other?

(2) Heqdesh: I would question many of Sema Chaimovitz Menora's explanations.

The derivation of kadesh from 'kad esh' seems to be the sort of folk etymology that is frequent in Hebrew and occurs in religious literature, often with a homiletic purpose, but has little validity. Semitic three- letter roots do not work this way.

Similarly, the meaning of kadesh as separate is part of the root meaning and not derived from sacrifices. The holy is what is separated from day-to-day life.

Also, the kadeshah (harlot) was so called not because she was separate from society but because she was engaged in holy activities as part of the cult of the Canaanite peoples.

Finally, I suspect that the hekdesh as poorhouse got its name not from being a separate place for the poor but because taking care of the poor is a religious duty.

B'sholem, Arnie Kuzmack

re "vay iz tsi mane yorn" [07.124] -- see my record "Of Lovers, Dreamers, and Thieves: Yiddish Folk Songs from Eastern Europe" (Traditional Records, TR-008, 1977 and 1981). It's all there--plus...

a brumberg