Ot Azoy!
Yiddish Resource List for Learners Yiddish Book Center (formerly National Yiddish Book Center) Here referred to as YBC www.yiddishbookcenter.org This is a nice organization to join, and brings you a member discount! 1021 West Street Amherst, MA 01002 Telephone: 413-256-4900 Fax: 413-256-4700General: yiddish@bikher.org Membership: members@bikher.org Yiddish Books: orders@bikher.org Book Center Store: bookstore@bikher.org Visitors Center: glansky@bikher.org For used Yiddish books speak with Kathryn in Yiddish Books Or order online from the Steven Spielberg Digital Library Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring Here referred to as WC/AR www.circle.org 45 East 334d Street, New York, NY 10016 212-889-6800 800-WC-CALLUS YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Here referred to as YIVO www.yivoinstitute.org YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011-6301General information number: (212) 246-6080 Fax: (212) 292-1892 Email: yivomail@yivo.cjh.org Some items available through Amazon (www.amazon.com) and Barnes & Noble Online (www.bn.com) Textbooks Weinreich, Uriel. College Yiddish. YIVO. Many editions. Hard Cover $35.00 The “standard” text used today in university Yiddish classes. This book presupposes a higher degree of comfort with Yiddish letters than do the texts listed below. Available from Amazon (ordering through link on YIVO website helps YIVO!), through WC/AR, and many other places. Used copies fairly easy to find. Zucker, Sheva. Yiddish, An Introduction to the Language, Literature and Culture. Volumes 1 and 2. Tapes, Answer Keys, Glossaries and Verb lists are also available. This is a good text for absolute beginners, slowly introducing the alphabet, reading, writing, and, especially with the tape set, listening and speaking. With its tapes, exercises and answer keys it can be a self-learning tool as well. Available from the author at her website (http://members.aol.com/sczucker/sheva.htm) and from the main distributor WC/AR (which offers quantity discounts) as well as other sources. Zuckerman, Marvin & Herbst, Marion. Learning Yiddish in Easy Stages. National Yiddish Book Center. $22.50 Like the Sheva Zucker materials above, this offers a first step book for newcomers, especially those who are not comfortable reading and writing the Yiddish alphabet. Now in paper back, there is also an answer key, as well as a tape, available through YBC and WC/AR. Goldin, H.E. The Yiddish Teacher. Hebrew Publishing Company. $9.95. This slim 50+ year old text is still in use in some places, and while some of its language is dated, it has a lot of information. It is available through YBC, and in some Jewish bookstores. br>Weinreich, Uriel. Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish English Dictionary. Schocken. Trade Paperback $25.00 This is the standard “school” dictionary. A must as you begin to read from various publications. Good sized print. Available through many of the listed sources. Rockowitz, Anna C. 201 Yiddish Verbs Fully Conjugated in all the Tenses. Barron’s Educational Series. Out of print for a while but now available through YBC and Amazon.com. A useful reference, especially for those irregular verbs! Niborski, Yitskhok. Dictionary of Yiddish words with Hebrew Origines. (Dictionnaire des mots d’origine hebraique et arameene en usage dans la langue yiddish.) (Verterbuch fun loshon-kodesh shtamike verter in yidish.) Compiled by Yitshok Niborski, and published by Bibliotheque-Medem in Paris, this volume collects the Yiddish words that derive from Hebrew and Aramaic. Totally printed in Yiddish and Hebrew letters, this is a wonderful etymological sourcebook for more advanced students. Also see Niborski's new and exhaustive Yiddish-French dictionary Harkavy, Alexander. Yidish-English Hebreyisher Verterbuch. A Yiddish-English (but not vice versa) dictionary much favored for literary works. A classic, now available through YBC as one of their “digitized” volumes for $29 ($21.75 for members). Harkavy, Alexander. Yidish-English Dictionary. An English-Yiddish (but not vice-versa) dictionary by the same author is also available as a “digitized” book from YBC for $29 ($21.75 for members) Harkavy, Alexander. Verterbikhl fun Noente Verter in English un Yidish. (Vocabulary of cognate words in English and Yiddish) is also available “digitized” at same price. Not recommended but included here for reference: Harduf, David Mendel. English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary. Published by D. M. Harduf. Available from many sources. $10.00. What can I say? This is a small, easy to carry “pocket” sized dictionary, at a reasonable price. Unfortunately I have not found it particularly helpful in its choice of words or its translations. Harduf’s Transliterated English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary is, by dint of the inclusion of transliteration, a larger, more expensive, version of the above and suffers, in my view, from the same drawbacks. Phrasebooks There are literally dozens of books of sayings, phrases, etc., far too many to discuss here. Many are found in general bookstores. I like the ones with Yiddish letters, Latin letter transliterations and English translations for each entry. One of the problems with transliterations is that there are so many transliteration schemes. Best are those that follow the YIVO transliteration convention, at least while learning to read Yiddish letters. I’m rather fond of Say it in Yiddish, by Uriel and Beatrice Weinreich. This is part of the inexpensive Dover “Say-it” series that you have probably seen for other languages. At $3.95 it is a bargain and a handy reference and practice guide! Available through YBC, as well as Amazon.com. Assorted Goodies Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Yiddish, by Rabbi Benjamin Blech. $11.87 from Amazon, and available elsewhere as well. You’ll love it or hate it! This book has just about everything (vocabulary, grammar, all sorts of Yiddish information and lore) – EXCEPT that it is all in Roman letters. Jaffe, Marie B. Gut Yontef, Gut Yohr. Citadel Press, $7.95. Available through YBC, Amazon, and in Jewish and general bookstores. Jaffe translates well-known English poetry, here in the original and in Latin letter transliteration. Read aloud to friends and be an instant maven! Purists may cavil, but Gus Tyler often features these in his Forward Yiddish column! Right about now you may be asking: What about the many books by Leo Rosten? Ah, but you knew about those already! Songs There are many online resource for Yiddish songs, the most important of which is Zemerl, from Princeton University. (I’m not making this up!) It is on the internet at: http://www.princeton.edu/zemerl/ Here you will find what is probably the largest online song collection. Some include sound clips. These songs are in Latin letter transliteration, and also in translation – usually, but not always – into English. There are three books which are “must-haves” for anyone seriously interested in Yiddish songs. These are often known as the “Mlotek” books because Yiddish song historian Eleanor (Chane) Mlotek is one of the authors of all three, entitled, Mir Trogn a Gezang (MTAG), Pearls of Yiddish Song (POYS), and Songs of Generations (SOG). Each one costs around $22.00. There are CDs with some of the songs in the “MTAG” and “POYS” volumes. These books have melody lines, chords, some history, Yiddish text, complete Latin letter transliteration and somewhat abbreviated English translation for hundreds of songs, and together form the heart of any serious Yiddish song library. All are available from many sources, including WC/AR, from the store at Yiddish Voice Radio (see below) at http://www.yv.org/ and from another important source for Jewish music in general – www.tara.com. Yiddish CD’s. There are so many great ones, and so little space to review them all. Many of the websites that sell these CDs have clips that you can listen to. Besides the websites already mentioned, Barnes & Noble online (www.bn.com) has a surprisingly good selection! Maybe I’ll do a review of my favorites some other time. Suffice it to say here that I regard these as an important part of my learning process, and keep them going in the background in many venues of my life! I especially look for liner notes with Yiddish text and hopefully translation as well, so that I can study and then sing along! Poetry Again, too many good books out there to review here, but I look for “bilingual” books with Yiddish (in Yiddish letters) on one side and close translations on the other. These are, to me, much more enjoyable reading (at least at this point in my learning curve) than longer literary works. However, two nice paperbacks which are fairly easy to find are An Anthology of Modern Yiddish Poetry by Ruth Whitman, featuring works by many of the major Yiddish poets of the Twentieth Century, and The Fiddle Rose by Abraham Sutzkever, a major work by a major poet, with illustrations by Mark Chagall. You can also find some CD’s with poetry readings – again, nice for sharpening the ear! Online Resources and Periodical Publications With your favorite search engine (mine is www.google.com) search for Yiddish to find a wealth of information, including sites for Yiddish learners. For a good list of Yiddish links, go to www.derbay.org – the website of the San Franciso Bay Yiddish Club, with information about many resources. A nice organization to join. As your reading improves, see the following periodicals online: Tam-Tam. This is produced by Medem in France, and you will find it at http://www.yiddishweb.com. When you get there, click on Tam-Tam (this is written in Yiddish) and you can download this newspaper for the Yiddish learner, which features a controlled vocabulary and vocabulary footnotes in English and French. Forverts online. Go to www.forward.com and then click on Yiddish Forward. You will go to the online edition of this venerable Yiddish newspaper, and can read short articles taken from that week’s edition. When this begins to feel too easy, you’ll be ready to subscribe to the hard copy Forverts – a Yiddish language weekly of news, culture, and so much more! For directions on how to download the Yehoash Chumash (the most important Yiddish translation of the five books of the Torah) go to my website: www.jdlevin.com. When you feel a bit more proficient you can download the week’s portion to read along with your own English translation at hand – a great way to study! One example of the many online Yiddish resources is this one, from Mexico. http://www.arele.yiddish.com.mx/autora.html. It uses Spanish as well as Yiddish and English, but you can click on pages of a lovely Yiddish workbook online, and even join a Yiddish e-mail “pen pal” club through this site. Yiddish Radio! YES! Go to http://www.yv.org/ You can listen to Yiddish Radio clips at this website! You’ll need Real Player software for this, which you probably have already – but if you don’t, you can easily download a free version from the internet. Then you can sharpen your listening skills by playing clips from these classic radio shows whenever you want! While you are there, check out the merchandise (and support this Yiddish Radio project while doing so) at: http://store.yv.org. You’ll find more Yiddish sound clips from all over the world – including broadcast in Yiddish from Israel both in sound clips (that play on Real Player – which you can download for free online) at www.yiddishvoice.com. Yiddish Learning in Chicago Chicago YIVO www.chicagoyivo.org Presents programs in city and suburbs Chicago YIVO Society 141 West Jackson Blvd. Suite 1910-A Chicago, IL 60601 usa-jmo@msn.com Chicago YIVO Society sponsors lectures, musical programs, etc. They also sponsor a monthly Yiddish Leyenkrayz (Reading Circle). Call or write for information. Local Yiddish classes include programs at Spertus College (www.spertus.edu), and through the Dawn Schuman Institute (www.dawnscuman.org). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes to Readers: 1. This is by no means an exhaustive survey of Yiddish resources, but is intended as a preliminary guide for learners. The opinions expressed here are my own, based upon how helpful these materials were to me in my own learning process. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revised October 3, 2002
An Online Tanach -- April 22, 2002 The Yehoyesh Tanach is online! You can find it at "The World of Yiddish" http://research.haifa.ac.il/~yiddish. (Note – there is no “www” in this URL – begin with the word “research.” Also, the ~ is the Spanish “tilde” which you will probably find at the upper left of your keyboard.) When you get there, click on the word “Yehoyesh.” That is the name of the translator of the best known Yiddish Tanach. There you will find the entire Tanach, book by book, in Adobe PDF format, and many other interesting things. If you don’t have Adobe reader on your computer, download it for free at "Adobe.com" http://www.adobe.com. These Chumash portions are printed in large Yiddish letters and are MUCH easier to read than the original printed volumes! The following is for PC/Windows users. This is a huge file so my suggestion is to download whatever you might want in the near future into your “My Documents” file. Your regular “file” window won’t work here. But at the upper left of each Tanach book you will find a “diskette” icon – this is how you save PDF files. I would suggest making a “Tanach” folder in your “My Documents” file for this purpose. Also, the books are given transliterated Yiddish names for the website buttons, but when you download them they just have numbers, so I would suggest that as you save each file, you give it a name you can remember, being sure each name has the .pdf extension. I don’t know how to save these as text or doc files, but Adobe pdf files are easy to use. Also, note that this Tanach uses the Hebrew numbering system. To review this consult one of several internet sites or a Hebrew language textbook. To print the parsha for the week go to that book and scroll down until you see its name in large letters. You’ll be able to read it. Note what page it is on at the bottom of the text box. Then scroll down until you get to the end of that parsha – you’ll see the beginning of the next one. Note that page. Then press the print icon (still in the pdf file – again, your regular “file” box won’t work here). You’ll get your usual printing window. Where it says “page range” write in the two page numbers, separated by a hyphen. Now you will have this portion, and you can read it alongside your regular Chumash and learn a lot of new words that way! Be sure to care for these printed documents properly!
Views of Women in Yiddish Songs Joan D. Levin From teaching English to speakers of other languages, I appreciate the value of songs in language learning. Songs can remove affective barriers, improve pronunciation, and increase enthusiasm for learning the target language. Repetitive passages with new words increase vocabulary and offer practice with new syntactical patterns. Songs provide both a window and a door to a new culture. The window is the opportunity to observe the values of a culture as expressed in its song, and the door is the opportunity to actually step into that culture by joining native speakers in singing the songs that “everyone knows” in that culture. Yiddish songs offer all of these to the student, and as a learner, I immersed myself in Yiddish songs. In time some specific themes caught my interest, especially those involving women. I found many songs written about women, which were, as far as I could tell, written by men. Many of these songs were about sad events – or at least events that I found to be tinged with sadness. Some of these – which I suspect were written by women – were set to tunes and harmonies reflecting that melancholy. But many other songs about women – some of which moved me to tears – were set to tunes that could only be described as merry. It also seemed to me that many of the songs written by men about women were implicitly or explicitly more judgmental in their view of women (even those that presented the woman in a positive light) than the songs in which men were the central figures. Some of these songs, in fact, could even be viewed as cautionary tales for women. Here are the songs that I will discuss. Sources will be found at the end of this paper. Some are true “folk” songs in the sense that we do not know their authors, others are more in the nature of the Russian “Bard” songs, written by authors we know, but which have functioned as widely sung folk songs. Some are theatre or vaudeville songs. While my nine selections do not purport to represent a broad sample, they are intended to illustrate my view. Margaritkelech Reyzele Schmendrick’s Kalle Sapozhkalekh Mekhuteneste Mayne Di Grine Kuzine Ikh Bin a Border Bei Mein Weib Jeckele Shik Mir a Chekele Shtil di Nakht Margaritkelach. Here the heroine, a young maiden, goes into the deep woods to pick daisies – margaritkelech. She is hums a song in a dreamlike state – tra-la-la-la-la. Along comes a dark handsome stranger who makes his move. She protests weakly: My mother will object! He responds: Where is your mother? I only see trees here – love me! At last he leaves her, alone at nightfall, still in her dreamlike state singing tra-la-la-la-la. This picture of a young woman is clear: she walks in a dream and cannot take responsibility for her own sexuality. The warning is equally clear: girls wander off alone at their peril only to have their hearts broken. The tune of this cautionary tale is appropriate – hauntingly dreamlike in its series of arpeggios shifting from major to minor keys. Reyzele. Here is an exemplary young woman, and the tune is appropriately upbeat as well. When a suitor whistles under her window, Reyzele tells him that it is not suitable for a Jewish fellow to whistle like that. She urges him to be more pious, attend synagogue, and for this she will make him a bag for his tefillin with a Mogen David on it. He promises to do so, and although the maiden never leaves her house to be with him, he saunters off (cracking his nuts!) joyfully after this exchange. This is a picture of proper behavior for a young lady: be flirtatious, demand propriety, and above all, don’t go off with him! Again, there is an implied judgment here, albeit a positive one. The tune is appropriate: a lively quickstep! (I should note that Reyzele is depicted as remaining in her “heyzele.” This word is the diminutive for house, but in every dictionary that I checked “heyzele” was defined as a brothel. This led me to wonder if it were not an ironic depiction of the classic “good hearted prostitute” letting the underage fellow down gently. But Yiddishist Barry Davis assured me that the author, Mordechai Gebirtig, had no such intent here). Schmendrick’s Kalle. In this lively, raucous song the eponymous Schmendrick is congratulated for taking a wife. But verse after verse ridicules the bride, her height and her appearance, and, implicitly, the foolishness of (the) Schmendrick in choosing her! The message: only a fool chooses a tall, ungainly woman as his bride! Sapozhkalekh. This song – translated as “Little Boots” – was collected by Michael Alpert from a Ukrainian émigré, Branya Sakina, a woman who first sang him this folk song. Here the singer tells what she would do to be with her beloved: She would sell her little boots, ride in a rough wagon, sell scarves in railroad stations and clean the floors of strangers, among other things, just to be with her beloved. I suspect this song was written by a woman, because I doubt that a man would sing about doing these things. Before I learned this history, I thought the song was written by a man because it was sung by a male singer on the one CD I had of it – but this version only had the lines about selling the boots and riding in a rough wagon. It did not include the verses about selling scarves in the railroad station or washing the floors of strangers. I thought perhaps it was a mournful tune written by a man about his own distress, but now I believe it was written by a woman about HER own longing, and equally mournfully. In any event, the song, which is most likely NOT written by a man about a woman’s longing, is set to an appropriately sad slow and mournful waltz. Mekhuteneste Mayne. In this wedding song, the mother of the bride sings to the mother of the groom. Each verse begins with a declaration that there should be enduring friendship between the mothers-in-law, but is followed with a hint of what life may be like for the girl sent away from her home to live under the control of her mother-in-law. No doubt this girl is quite young, probably in her teens, and will no longer enjoy the care and loving protection of her mother. She has probably never spent a night away from her mother’s house. We learn that her hair – her crowning glory – now hides beneath a wig. My surmise is that a) her hair has been shorn and b) the wig is nowhere near as attractive. She will live under the dominion of a new mother-in-law who will have the power to awaken her each morning, and who may not be pleased to be replaced in the affections of her son. Ill-treatment by this mother in law could cause this pretty girl to lose her good looks. All this young and inexperienced girl will have to protect her will be her own wit. My guess is that the male-dominated community is unlikely to side with the young bride in any event. This must be the most poignant moment of her young life, and certainly a sad and fearful one for her mother as well, who probably remembers her own experiences as a young bride. Yet all this mother can offer are her petitions to her daughter’s new mistress, and thinly veiled threats that her young daughter – sent away in a wig as a daughter-in-law – can take care of herself! From the point of view of the mother and daughter, one would think a lament in more order given the theme of this song, yet it is set to a merry dancing tune – probably better reflecting the view of the girl’s father who now has one less mouth to feed. (And if this is last, his youngest, he can celebrate most of all in yet another song – Di Mizinke Oysgegebn – equally upbeat – not discussed here!) Di Grine Kuzine. This song reflects the experience of a beautiful young woman who immigrates to America – the Goldene Medina – and who, after years of tedious work in a millinery shop, has lost her looks and probably her health as well. The speaker is her cousin who helped her find this job when she first arrived. While many immigrants, male and female, were similarly worn down by their harsh lives in America, Yiddish songs involving men or laborers in general are, for the most part, more martial, resolute or defiant in their tone, while Grine Kuzine, despite it’s sad theme, is framed in lively, up-tempo music. Ikh Bin a Border Bei Mein Weib This pointedly funny vaudeville/theatre song has as its premise a man who has divorced his wife, and now looks for other living quarters. His wife persuades him to come back and live with her as a boarder with no obligation beyond paying rent. He finds this a perfect arrangement and notes that they now get along better too! What a great male fantasy! Like a grown child at home, he enjoys a comfortable place to live, good meals, and no responsibility beyond the rent. He doesn’t even have to be jealous when the butcher delivers the meat! Only a man could have written this, and one, Rubin Doctor, did! Jeckele Shik Mir a Chekele Another vaudeville/theatre song, again, wickedly funny, presents a searing caricature of women. Written in an age when married women were discouraged from meaningful work outside the home, this song shows the wife – now at her summer colony rental while her husband toils in the hot city – urging him to send her money so she can play cards with the girls, all the while expressing her wish that he is well at home and reminding him how much she loves him! This song presents the male view of women (deprived of real power), resorting to guile and persuasion. Shtil di Nakht Written in 1944 about the first act of sabotage by Jewish partisans in the Vilna ghetto, the singer – presumably a man – desribes how he taught the woman how to shoot, and how, with a single shot, she brings down an enemy munitions caravan. Here, the woman is heroic beyond a doubt, and a crack shot besides. And the grave music is appropriate to this text. But the framing of this song has the presumptively male singer describing this woman in almost kittenish terms (a young girl with a coat or cape, beret, and face like velvet) whom he instructs in marksmanship, and even her remarkable act on behalf of “our new, free generation” is described ironically as her “little victory.” All of these are wonderful songs – well-written and seductively singable examples of the songwriter’s art. All have a kernel of truth in them – however overstated or distorted – which only adds to their poignancy. Many hit on themes in ways that tickle the funny bone. In a few cases, I do not know who wrote them, but I suspect that all were written by men. And in them I found recurrent subtexts including passing judgment upon women, minimizing their accomplishments, and finding in their misfortune an occasion for gaiety. This is admittedly a small sample from an enormous body of literature. And my general observations here are not in any way meant to suggest that there are no exceptions to the general themes set forth herein. Songs and Sources This is the best information I have about the songs discussed here. Corrections are welcome! Where I only found one or two recordings I listed them. Margaritkelech. Zalman Shneour, in Eleanor Gordon Mlotek, Mir Trogn a Gezang (hereinafter MTAG), p. 40, and on many recordings. Reyzele, by Mordechai Gebirtig, MTAG p 48, and on many recordings. Schmendrick’s Kalle, Joseph Kammen & Louis Gilford, Most Popular Jewish Songs for Voice and Piano, p 54, recorded by Mauro Wrona, The Best of Yiddish Vaudeville. Sapozhkalekh, traditional, found in Eleanor & Joseph Mlotek, Songs of Generations, p. 30, under the title “Little Boots,” and recorded in a somewhat abridged version by Mauro Wrona in The Best of Yiddish Vaudville. Mekhuteneste Mayne, Beregowski & Feffer, modified by Bastonski, MTAG p. 58, and on many recordings. Di Grine Kuzine, A. Schwartz & J. Leiserowitz, MTAG p. 142 and on many recordings. Ikh Bin a Border Bei Mein Weib, Rubin Doctor, recorded by Paul Zim, A Yiddish Delight and Mauro Wrona, The Best of Yiddish Vaudeville, also fuller lyrics at http://www.library.upenn.edu/friends/freed/sampler/ikh.html You can listen to this song by clicking on the link to my Interaccess website. Jeckele, Shik Mir A Checkele, Yesha Kretzberg & Jacob Jacobs, Kammen Folio of Famous Jewish Songs, Volume 2, p 38, and recorded by Mauro Wrona, The Best of Yiddish Vaudeville. Shtil di Nakht, Hirsch Glik. In We Are Here, Songs of the Holocaust compiled by Eleanor Mlotek and Malke Gottlieb, recorded in We are Here, Songs of Remembrance, Hope and Celebration in the Jewish Tradition by Rosalie Gerut & Friends. © Joan D. Levin 2002