מענדעלע

Montik, dem 22tn yanuar, hot di yidishe velt farlorn a vikhtike tuerin un lererin. Marion (Miriamke) Herbst fun Los Angeles iz avek in der eybikayt nokh a tsvey-yorikn kamf kegn dem malakh hamoves. Marion iz geven a lang yorike lererin fun yidish, hot geshribn a populern lern bukh far yidish, Learning Yiddish in Easy Stages mit Marvin Zuckerman, un tsuzamen mit Prof. Zuckerman hot ibergezetst un aroysgegebn dray groyse verk fun di yidish klasiker, Mendele, Peretz, un Sholem Aleichem. Mir veln shtark benkn nokh Marions freylekhkayt, entuziazm, un ir optimistishn kuk oyf der velt.

Monday, Jan. 22, the Yiddish world lost an important activist and teacher. Marion (Miriamke) Herbst of Los Angeles passed away after a two year battle with the Angel of Death. Marion was a long time Yiddish teacher, wrote a popular textbook for Yiddish, Learning Yiddish in Easy Stages, with Marvin Zuckerman, and with Prof. Zuckerman, translated and published three large volumes of the Yiddish classics of Mendele, Peretz, and Sholem Aleichem. We will greatly miss Marion's joyfulness, enthusiasm and optimiistic view of the world.

Miki Safadi

Mendele deeply mourns the passing of Mendl Hoffman, a devoted lifelong supporter of Yiddish culture. For more than 50 years he was connected to YIVO, first as a volunteer librarian, then a Board member. Mendl Hoffman was an enthusiast of Yiddish computing and internet and provided important moral support for early Yiddish web projects. We extend heartfelt condolences to his wife Miriam and son Avi, both active Yiddishists and Mendele subscribers.

Iosif Vaisman

I am translating a Yiskor book from Kremenets , Ukraine and have not been able to find the translation for this word on the web nor in 2 Yiddish, 2 Hebrew and one German dictionary. Can any scholar out there help?

The word is: shpandungen Shin, pe, ayen, nun, daled, vuv, nun, gimel, ayen, nun sofit.

It occurs in this sentence: "shpandungen fun oysland".

(How I wish we all could use the Yiddish fonts. I really dislike these transliterations.)

Elliott Raisen

As a yiddishist and an active english-french-hebrew translator, I have often wondered if I could get translations from or into Yiddish. I would be delighted to be entrusted with relevant tasks.

A relative of mine in France, who doesn't have the slightest idea of Yiddish, naively sent me a few Yiddish poems, hand-written by an unknown poet who was presumably murdered. The question was whether I could translate them into French. Someone had discovered the poems in a concentration camp. The handwriting per se was already difficult to read and time had blurred many words and phrases. Nevertheless, I decided to take up the challenge, benevolently for my relative, as a personal homage to the lost Yiddish culture during the Shoah. So far, I have managed to reconstitute and translate one poem.

In the second one that I am working on, there is an expression which I never heard before and I am trying to see if others have. It is: "shifke shiva shifkes", most probably something like an ironic appreciation of a sheiner yid, dressed up like a gvir. It says exactly: "... a sheiner yid, shifke shiva shifkes, dos beichel zeins...". Please, have you an answer to suggest?

Itzhak (Jacques) Golan Kfar Hanassi, Israel

I am attempting to translate a very early letter in Yiddish, probably written before 1460 in Austria. There are three words whose meaning I can't even guess at.

bet,vav,resh,bet,shin. quf,resh,yod,tet,lamed,yod,nun. alef,yod,quf,lamed,yod,khaf,resh,nun.

If I have named the letters incorrectly in Yiddish, forgive me. If anyone has any ideas as to the meaning of those words I would really appreciate them letting me know.

Thanks, Cheryl Tallan

I assume that the 'Rafael un Sheyndele' referred to in Jenny Levison's query are the Yiddish counterparts to Romeo and Juliet in Nokhem Rakov's _Di shvue baym seyfer-toyre, oder di yidishe romeo un yulie_. Rakov cleverly turns Romeo into the son of a Hasidic rebbe, while Sheyndele's father is a staunch misnagid. The balcony scene takes place in the Hasidic shul after services on Hoshana Rabbah, with Sheyndele standing upstairs in the women's section as Rafael woos her from below.

Al-dos guts, Joel Berkowitz

Dear Mendelyaner,

A question: in H. L. Mencken's _The American Language_, he writes that ""though Dr. Zhitlowsky and his fellow Yiddishists may rail against [the] potato-chicken-kitchen language . . . it is the Yiddish of the overwhelming majority of American Jews" (634). Mencken is basing his position here on that of Abraham Cahan, who was also an advocate of accepting the anglicisms in American Yiddish. My question concerns Zhitlowsky. I assume this is the famous Chaim Zhitlowsky. But does anyone have any idea where Zhitlowski expresses a position _against_ the sort of American Yiddish Cahan and Mencken defend?

A dank, Larry Rosenwald

Tayere kolegie,

I'm working on a study of Soviet Yiddish publishing, and have been trying to find material that charts the history of Yiddish language publishing in Eastern Europe in general. I'm particularly interested if anyone has done work on the development of a Yiddish publishing industry in 19th century Warsaw, Vilna, and other Eastern European cities (less interested in American Yiddish publishing, although those references would be useful as well).

Any suggestions on where to begin?

David Shneer Berkeley, California

RE: Vivian Aldridge's recent post about Yiddish braille, and his/her search for a Yiddish braille code, let me note that the Jewish Braille Institute in New York City -- I don't have the address handy, but from memory it is 110 East 30th Street, New York, NY 10016 -- would be a good agency to contact. The JBI - where I worked as Assistant to the Library Director and then Manager of Library Services in the mid 1980s was instrumental in the solidification of Hebrew Braille years ago. When I had at one time inquired about Yiddish Braille, it was explained to me that Hebrew Braille was being developed at about the same time as the Yiddish-reading and speaking communities of Europe were being decimated during the Holocaust, and the declining numbers of blind and visually-impaired Yiddish readers and speakers made it a relatively low priority to develop Yiddish braille as distinct from Hebrew braille.

I'd strongly recommend any efforts to develop a distinctive Yiddish braille be done in consultation with the Jewish Braille Institute as well as the Central Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Handicapped in Israel, as the JBI has more than a little insight into the complexities of braille in general, Hebrew in specific.

The Jewish Braille Institute is one of the world's largest repository of material in Braille, large-type and on cassette, including a very wide/diverse collection of material in Yiddish on tape/cassette. Material from the JBI is available free-of-charge to any blind, visually-impaired or learning-disabled individual, regardless of ethnicity or religion, and regardless of location anywhere in the world. As people "here" may know, through international agreement, mail to and from blind individuals anywhere in the world is free-of-charge.

As to the specific questions, the JBI should know if there is any established Yiddish braille alphabet, of producers of Yiddish braille or individual publications or documents in Yiddish braille. Frankly, I think not. In any event, it's clear that there's no point in re-inventing something that's up and going.

More to the point, it is not clear that at this point in time there is significant need for a distinctive Yiddish braille. The only communities and individuals who, on first consideration, might need or make use of Yiddish braille would be hasidic individuals in communities in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere where Yiddish is their first language. Further, if the majority of the potential "users" of Yiddish braille are older or elderly individuals, with a low possibility of learning braille of any kind, it would be an exercise in futility or, rather an academic exercise, to try and develop a new - or further develop and old - Yiddish braille code.

I would strongly recommend against anyone who by their own admission states their "knowledge of Yiddish is limited and knowledge of Hebrew extremely rudimentary (hardly more than word recognition)" attempting to devise a new or distinctive braille code. At best, it would make sense to try and share information between the agencies in the U.S, such as the Jewish Braille Institute, and their colleague agencies in Israel, Europe and elsewhere -- assuming for a moment that the need exists.

As to the formulation of "ten points for discussion," again, someone who is not fluent in Yiddish - and I would say Hebrew as well - probably should reconsider being in the vanguard of the development of Yiddish braille.

The Jewish Braille Institute in New York, and the agencies in Israel that try to serve the needs of blind and visually impaired in that country, as well as other agencies around the world, but those two come to mind first, certainly can use the assistance of volunteers in their ongoing work to record books and other material in Yiddish, so that people can have access to the riches in Yiddish - finction and non-fiction, religious and political and other material. Mendele people can provide a true mitzvah were those interested in serving the needs of blind, visually impaired and learning disabled individuals who want to have access to Yiddish material help to add to trhe master tapesalready on shelves in New York and Israel, and publicize their availability to potential users in their local communities.

Arieh Lebowitz