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Yiddishkayt in May
Sholem Aleykhem!
We love a month that begins with an Arbeter Yontev! And in honor of May Day, Yiddishkayt shared eight classic Yiddish songs about work and workers for the eight-hour workday. If you missed them, they're still available on our facebook page.
Our YidArts season continues this weekend as we partner with the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival to present a silent classic. This is the last of our YidArts events until we return from our summer programming in Eastern Europe. Read about Moon of Israel below.
We're busy preparing for an unbelievable summer. In a little over a month the Helix Project pilot launches, taking six college students to Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania. We're thrilled about this amazing adventure and so are the students. On the heels of April's LA Times article, UCLA's Daily Bruin wrote an in-depth piece on the Helix. You can read the article here. And for those of you who are looking for a travel adventure over the landscapes of European Jewish culture, but are not full-time college students, there are still spots left to join us this summer on our Yiddishkayt Expeditions.
Inspired by the flowers that are in bloom (and the insects they attract), we pulled the images above from an old Yiddish elementary school textbook (read more at the end of this YidBits).
--Yiddishkayt
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MAY 2012
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YidBits Vol. 7 No. 5a bisl yiddishkayt
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yidARTS 2012 * May
 THIS SUNDAY!
Los Angeles Jewish
Moon of Israel
5.6.12 * 7:00 P.M.
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Moon of Israel was directed by Mihaly Kertész (who later became known as Michael Curtiz) in 1924. This epic silent film led studio chief Jack Warner to bring Curtiz to Hollywood where he began an illustrious career with classics such as Casablanca.
It's a familiar story: The Israelites are enslaved in Egypt and an Israelite slave-girl falls for Pharaoh's son. Melodrama ensues against the backdrop of the story of the Exodus. Inspired by the global Egypt craze brought on by the discovery of King Tut's tomb, Moon of Israel was the most elaborate and expensive Austrian film of its day. This majestic silent film by a cinematic master will be introduced by The Artist's Penelope Ann Miller and accompanied by renowned Austrian pianist, Gerhard Gruber (CLICK HERE to hear Gruber's beautiful accompaniment to another silent classic). CLICK HERE to get your tickets for this rare treat! |
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Yiddish around L.A.
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Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish at the Laemmle Music Hall. Click above to see the trailer.
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5.11-17.12
Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish
Laemmle Music Hall
"There's been nothing like Eve Annenberg's rambunctious Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish since 1950-or perhaps ever..." J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Played in approximately fifty percent of absolutely colloquial/contemporary "street Yiddish" by mostly first-time, charismatic and cameragenic ex-Satmarer twenty-somethings, this is the first non-religiously produced film to sport this much Yiddish in more than fifty years.
Director Eve Annenberg and some members of the cast will be available for Q&A after every 7:00 p.m. showing.
Monthly Klezmer Jam Contines
 2:00 p.m. * 5.6.12 (first Sunday of every month) The Talking Stick
1411 Lincoln Boulevard, Venice
The Monthly Klezmer Jam continues this month, with music led by Gustavo Bulgach and dancing led by Bruce Bierman. There's a $5 suggested donation. Please let the organizers know who to expect and what instrument you play. All levels welcome. Nobody will be turned away. To RSVP, click here.
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Der Vortsman
Of Words and Wars
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Romney Dragging
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Now that the 2012 campaign is in full swing--az okh un az vey (o and woe)--the Vortsman is keeping his eye on the misuse of Yiddish (or Yinglish) in the media.
A recent report on the assumed GOP candidate said: "When told that if he doesn't switch ties, he'll be perceived as wearing the same thing two nights in a row, Romney says, it's fine with him, he'll 'look like a schlep.'"
Even if we were to put aside our insistence that Yiddish words not be transliterated as though they were German (fat chance), the writer of the report should know that the noun derived from the verb shlepn (to pull or drag) is shleper (disheveled person), in that state due to low-paid hard (dragging) labor or, sometimes, simply to poverty.
No chance that the assumed standard-bearer would ever fit those descriptions regardless of the ties to which he's bound.
The matter of spelling-in Yiddish this time-came up in a query to the Vortsman about the rendition of the Hebrew/Yiddish word for "moon" in "Zibetsn Levones (Seventeen Moons)," a poem by Yankev Glatshteyn (aka Jacob Glatstein in some circles). Glatshteyn spells the word in Yiddish transliteration: l-e-v-o-n-e-s (in the equivalent Yiddish letters, of course). The usual practice was and remains to keep the Hebrew spelling of words derived from Hebrew and Aramaic. Thus, the poet should have spelled it l-v-n-u-s (lamed,veyz,nun,vov,sof).  How come? The usual answer is that there's a "red plot" afoot. Don't be fooled by that Fox News approach. True, in Yiddish publications under Soviet rule, Hebrew-origin words were transliterated as above. In addition, them Red Rooshins eliminated the five final letters in the Hebrew/Yiddish alphabet. So Glatshteyn was a secret commie agent? Not on your life.
Starting early in the 20th century, Yiddishists were concerned that their potential readers among young people, having had a secular education rather than the traditional Hebrew religious training, tried to find more "accessible" forms. The great classic author Y. L. Perets even proposed, in 1908, that Yiddish be "romanized," that is, written with Latin characters. A compromise developed in the 1920s-the one Glatshteyn followed in the cited poem. Hebrew-origin words would be transliterated, but the horror of the Soviet five-letter execution would not be tolerated. In fact, not a single Yiddish publication around the world--pro- or anti-Soviet--jettisoned those five final letters. However, the use of transliteration continued through the mid-40s, when post-khurbn (Holocaust) writers and publishers returned to traditional spelling.
Another reader asks about the meaning of mir (me, also we) in such phrases as zay mir gezunt, hob mir a gutn...Literally translated: "be (for) me well, have (for) me a good... The reader went on to opine: "mir, I assume is dative case. Could 'with' be understood?" Said the snarky Vortsman: "Since mir follows the (understood) preposition far (for), I guess that makes it dative--though I much prefer the non-Latinate term, 'indirect object.'" Kedey tsu zen dem gantsn rubrik funem vortsman... To read more of this month's Vortsman, CLICK HERE. Der Vortsman is Hershl Hartman, Yiddishkayt Board Member and Education Director at the Sholem Community. You can write the Vortsman at info at yiddishkayt.org. |
 Historical Yiddishkayt
The images at the top of this month's YidBits come from a Yiddish school textbook series, Fun undzer natur: Naturvisnshaft farn dritn shul yor (From Our Nature: Natural Science for the 3rd Year Class), published in Bialystok in 1921. These illustrations are taken from the "Spring" volume in a section titled: "Di sonim fun eplboym (The Enemies of the Appletree)" and depict (from left to right) a healthy bliekhts fun eplboym (apple blossom), the life cycle of the frostshpaner (winter moth), and a destructive insect called a brener (the apple blossom weevil).
Like us on Facebook for more Yiddishkayt history, including Today in Yiddishkayt, where you can find out about major figures and events in the history of Yiddishkayt throughout the world.
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 YidBits and YidPicks are made possible in part by a grant
from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs 
3780 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1000 | Los Angeles, CA 90010
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