מענדעלע

In Mendele 11.018, Al Grand, whom I respect for his talented rhyming and his admirable love for words, speaks of " the embarrassing borscht circuity, tasteless, badly edited and inaccurate _Joys of Yiddish_ by Leo Rosten".

The Forward (Kovi Weitsner) has scorned the newly updated edition for being politically correct, and I think many academicians on our list would feel scorn for the Yiddish in the book, even as it tries to update to YIVO standardizations.

I have long wrestled with ivory tower Yiddish as the only acceptable standard. It would be a world to win if everyone who loves or 'knows' mameloshn could read the poetry of Manger and Sutskever, and delight in Chaim Grade or Perets. What a goal - to speak like a Weinreich.

Yet I think Yiddish wore a tattered coat when it was at its peak, in its prime in the shtetl. All dialects were respected; grammar was not apparent on many tongues. But it was how Jews communicated, vibrant and alive, and it came to America with them in their souls.

And then Leo Rosten created a lexicon in English of Yiddish words, (yes some are tasteless), and jokes and stories, (yes some are badly edited), but he writes of our Yiddish language, of its history, of its influence on English, of Yiddish linguistic devices.

Rosten's genuine warmth, sense of fun, and love of the language, are felt on every page. Like the Hasidim forsaking di, der, dem, and dos for d, but speaking Yiddish! Rosten calls upon us too to remember Yiddish is alive for speaking! If not perfect, it may become so, as long as he blows breath into it.

I congratulate his daughters, Madeline Rosten Lee and Margareret Rosten Muir, and editor, Lawrence Bush, for re-presenting a book (The New Joys of Yiddish ISBN o-6o9-6o785-5 Crown Publishers/New York) that many readers enjoy, talk about, (even learn from!)and identify with as a part of their heritage.

Mirl Schonhaut Hirshan Boynton Beach, Florida

LIVING TRADITIONS ANNOUNCES ITS 17TH ANNUAL KLEZKAMP

Living Traditions announces its 17th annual "KlezKamp: The Yiddish Folk Arts Program" to be held December 23-28 at the Hilton at Cherry Hill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The theme "The Yiddish Media: On the Page, On the Stage and On the Air" celebrates the contributions made by pioneers in Yiddish journalism, broadcasting, film and publishing. Among the lecturers will be Samuel Norich, chairman of the Board of the Forward Association, on the history of the Forward, the world's most successful Yiddish newspaper, Eric Goldman, on the Jewish cinema, and KlezKamp founder and director Henry Sapoznik on the rise and fall of Yiddish radio.

Our famed music staff of over 35 teachers includes singer Adrienne Cooper, Klezmatic's fiddler Alicia Svigals, clarinetist Margot Leverett, Klezmer Conservatory Band's Jim Guttmann and Philly area drumming legend Elaine Hoffman-Watts. We will also be honoring our "Yiddish Living Treasures" with "Meetings with Our Masters" a unique opportunity to study with the great veteran exponents of Yiddish culture. They include theater artists David Rogow, Lillian Lux, Mina Bern and Shifra Lehrer, clarinetists Howie Leess, Danny Rubinstein and Paul Pincus, drummer Julie Epstein (last of the famed Epstein Brothers), pianist Pete Sokolow and actor/choreographer Felix Fibich. This, in addition to a full schedule of instrumental and vocal music programs, literature, three levels of Yiddish, visual arts, cooking seminars, our renowned KlezKids and KlezTeens programs plus a new commuter option for local residents.

Evening programs -- many of which are open to the public -- include our popular staff concert, a "Meeting With Our Masters" special discussion and concert/dance party featuring great veteran klezmer musicians of the1940s, and a World Premier of a documentary from "The Yiddish Radio Project" a multi-part series on the history of Yiddish radio which will air on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" in Spring 2002. That, plus concerts, klezmer jam sessions, sing-a-longs, and dancing to live music. The Hilton at Cherry Hill is a modern, full service conference center located just minutes from Philadelphia airport and less than 90 minutes from midtown Manhattan. It features comfortable class settings and beautiful plush bedrooms and a new outstanding kosher menu by famed Hilton executive chef Darius Peacock under the rabbinical supervision of Star K Tri-State Chabad.

KlezKamp, the world's leading Yiddish cultural event, brings together the finest exponents of traditional Ashkenazic music and folk arts in an innovative, exciting and challenging environment. KlezKamp combines old-fashioned intergenerational mentoring and apprenticeships with innovative and cutting edge presentations to create a vibrant and relevant context for Jewish cultural continuity. Since1985 over 10,000 participants from around the world have come to study and share this unique cultural experience.

For additional information write: klezkamp@aol.com or check our website at http://www.klezkamp.org.

Dan Peck

Sholem aleykhem tayere fraynt!

Ikh vil aykh betn vegn a toyve: efsher emetser veyst dem tekst funem lid, vos shvester Beri hobn gezungen - "Tsigayner lid" oder "Tsigayner romans".

Ikh vel zayn aykh zeyr dankbar.

Anatoly Kerzhner

Tayere Mendelyaner, I'm looking for information regarding a song called Neyn Neyn Neyn. The words are:

Neyn (repeated several dozen times) S'vet undzer folk nit untergeyn.

Ven fun sonim, vilde sonim, Vet nit zayn kayne zekher, kayn gebeyn, Veln mir do shvern az di velt zol hern Neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, neyn, S'vet undzer folk nit untergeyn.

Does anyone know who wrote it? Where? When? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

A sheynem dank.

Libe Gritz Somerville, MA

The famous lyrics by Jacob Jacobs to "Bay mir bistu sheyn" include the line "un ven du host Vayzosos seykhl". To what exactly does this refer? Megilas Ester mentions a Vayzoso as the tenth (and presumably youngest) son of Haman to be put to death. Louis Ginsberg's _Legends of the Jews_ gives adds an irrelevant detail about Vayzoso's death, but nothing that could refer to his "seykhl." Is the expression "Vayzoso's seykhl" Jacobs' own creation or does it stem from another source? More importantly, what exactly is its nuance?

Adam Levitin

Khaveyrim,

I am looking for information on the shtetl wedding. I would like to know about all aspects that I can learn: the food and people who prepared and served it (hey, recipes if you know them), the clothing that would have been worn, decorations, dances done, music played, gifts given, duration of festivities, etc.

Any ideas on sources?

A dank in foroys, Lorele Cahan-Simon

Dear Mendelianer,

I'm a historian from Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Now we - I, and my husband Rafal Zebrowski, are preparing a big lexicon (two volumes) about history and culture of Polish Jews (polish title Polski slownik judaistyczny). Pruszynski and S-ka should print it at the next spring (2002).

I hope, that some Mendelianer will be able to help me. I look for information about two painters:

1. Herman Josef (born 1911 in Warsaw), from 1940 -in England ; 2. Bernstein Moshe (born 1920 in Bereza Kartuska), from 1948 in Israel

Are they still alive? If not what are the dates?

A grojsn dank far ajer hilf Zofia Borzyminski

Tayere Mendelyaner,

Have you ever heard about Psoy Korolenko's one-man show and singing?

He is a Jewish poet/singer/artist/performer from Russia, whose main point is to integrate the spice of Yiddishkayt into the context of contemporary art. In Russia he had been compared with Theodor Bikel for the cultural diversity of his repertory. He sings in many toungues in order to express his vision of various traditions, but often he appeals to the Yiddish folk, Klezmer and Theater contexts.

Recently, the Russian 'Forverts' told about his show in Saint-Petersburg in which contemporary hassidic tales of his own were supplemented by Shubert's most popular songs sung in Yiddish. Here is, e.g., the Mamelushn version of Shubert's 'Serenade':

shtil antloyfn mayne lider durkh der nakht tsi dir inem shtiln veldl, liber, kim arup tsi mir!

gib a kik vi shpitsn royshn in levune-shayn, in levune-shayn, zay zhe azoy git, mayn sheynster kim tsi mir arayn kim tsi mir arayn

herst, vi soloveyen shrayen? oy, zey betn dir, mit di zise taynes-klangen betn zey far mir.

oy, farshteyen zey rakhmunes, libe-veytik oykh, libe-veytik oykh, in di shkhine mit ir fligl shvebt in himl hoykh shvebt in himl hoykh

loz mir nor dayn brist barirn, liber numen mayn oy, ikh vil mit dir shpatsirn in levune-shayn in ganeydn-shayn in shtiler shayn...

More information about Psoy Korolenko: http://www.psoy.ru/main_eng.html Psoy Korolenko plans to visit the US in mid-November and to stay there until the New Year. He will perform in DC, NY/NJ, Boston, Chicago, LA and Bay Area. If any of you and/or your Jewish Communities feel interested in arranging his Yiddish gig in your city, please write us to the address: urport@cityline.ru

Katia Belooussova

The previous posting about upcoming Psoy Korolenko's tour to the US inspired me to share few thoughts on the subject.

Three years ago browsing the Internet I came across Ru.Shtetl, one of the Russian internet discussion groups. Being interested in everything eponymous to the real _Virtual Shtetl_, I started reading the postings. A refreshing stream of phrases that I haven't heard since attending my high school gym locker room did not evoke any strong associations with any shtetl. Further down the screen, the rich idiom of drunk Russian coachmen was sprinkled by occasional corrupted Yiddish words and calls to all Jews to leave Israel ("ersatz-yisroel" in Ru.Shtetl's parlance), and resettle in the "Shtetl of Spirit, illuminated by the Truth of Semitic, Turkic, and Arian Egregors". Ru.Shtetl contributors agreed that

everyone should speak Yiddish and offered a recipe on how to achieve it:

"add 'azokhnvey' after each [Russian] word". Strong smell of New Age and

Eastern Orthodox varieties of Jews for Jesus rhetoric penetrated most messages.

At first glance, everything looked like either an elaborate but tasteless spoof on post-postmodernist ethnophilosophical discourse, or a

weird new strain of neo-nazi ideology. However, a closer look revealed a different story: a small collective of Russian counterculture types used Yiddish simply as a methaphor for vernacular of a fringe group and shtetl as a methaphor for place for such a group. Never mind that a number of people may find it offensive, Ru.Shtetl members could not care less (nor did they know anything) about the "other" Yiddish culture. Those conservative academics who claim that "Jewish (and non-Jewish) spokesmen for gays and lesbians, feminists and neo-Trotskyites freely identify their sense of personal injury with the cause of Yiddish" would have had a field day analysing Ru.Shtetl. It is difficult to imagine better illustration for their thesis. One of the few key players in Ru.Shtetl and the author of its manifesto was Psoy Korolenko.

Psoy Galaktionovich Korolenko is _nom de guerre_ (cultural _guerre_, that is) of Pavel Lion, a literary critic from Moscow, who moonlights as a self-defined "junior phallologus, bodysinger and modern skomorokh". Psoy Korolenko belongs to the generation of Russian intellectuals that came of age in the time of breakdown of Soviet restrictions on cultural consumption and production. The newly acquired freedoms led to the fast (sometimes too fast) assimilation of assorted postmodernist theories hastily adopted to the realities of post-Soviet cultural space. On the expression front, the major breakthroughs occured in the complete destruction of carefully maintained during the Soviet era taboos on explicit sexuality complete with obscene vocabulary and abusive, derogatory comments of various types. The results of liberation were not always pretty: in Korolenko's case it is a second-hand deconstructivism in cheap punk rock packaging.

Later I learned that Psoy Korolenko is a popular performer and that his recordings are available on the internet. Their musical part is often interesting, for example, the only Yiddish song in the collection, "Afn pripechek", is done in almost flawless Bessarabian Yiddish with unusual rhythmical interpretation. However Korolenko's own songs lexically, stylistically, and semantically are very similar to the texts in Ru.Shtetl. The same macaronic arrangements of primitive verses where vulgar Russian is interspersed with quasi-Yiddish. Korolenko is well versed in Derrida and Lacan, but it seems that his knowledge of Yiddish culture is limited to the few albums of Theodore Bickel and the Barry sisters plus a number of off color "Jewish" jokes. He may be trying to deconstruct old (or create new) myths, but is often confusing archetypes and stereotypes. And stereotypes, in particular the antisemitic ones, are exactly what feeds his lyrics. I am not inclined to discuss any details of the songs: my personal red line is drawn where the word "Auschwitz" is used in a mocking context, followed by loud laughter in the recording made with a live audience.

The new show mentioned in the previous posting, besides Andrey Bredstein's Yiddish renderings of Schubert songs, contains familiar motifs about Israel as a place where "voynen torn yidn dokh nit" and some fairly graphic descriptions of castration of violinists Rabinovich, Tsyperovich, and a cat named Moyshe, and mutilation of Dr Frumkin and a number of his patients. So much for "integrating the spice of Yiddishkayt into the context of contemporary art". I, for one, would rather stay segregated.

Disclaimer: the above comments are made about the internet and show-biz personality Psoy Korolenko. Conceivably they do not apply to Pavel Lion,

whom I do not know (nor have I read anything he has written).

Iosif Vaisman