wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Comments

• [1] markBrown from sos-newdeal.blogspot.com and markbnj.blogspot.com February 12, 2009 - 01:19PM

  There is going to be a showing of the 1921 German silent film, "The Golem" at Kean University in NJ on March 11, with live orchestra accompanist

  
  
• [2] eva February 12, 2009 - 04:50PM

  Just about to hear the clip on Aleichem, but remember hearing something about Mark Twain being the American Sholem Aleichem - and vice versa - is that right?

  I've recently become a big fan of Isaac Babel's work (I know, not in Yiddish, but....) They recently republished Babels work in its entirely, and I think Cynthia Ozick wrote a great intro for it. She basically wrote that Babel lived, in his Communist trial, what Kafka had only imagined in his "The Trial." Pretty chilling. But his stories of riding with the Cossack army are unbelievable - the literary equivalent of the jump cut. So modern.

  
  
• [3] Henry Carrey from San Francisco February 12, 2009 - 05:59PM

  Great show . Minor points . Leonard : it should be Sholem A-LEY-khem , not Al-E-khem as . As to your comments about history of Yiddish literature , although there were Yiddish writers before mid part of the 19th century , the first recognized great Yiddish writer was Mendele , then I.L. Peretz and then Sholem Aleichem . S.A said that if Mendele was the grandfather , he was the grandson . Although S.A. was the most popular among the general public , Peretz was the one all the writers flocked to . He was their role model .

  
  
• [4] Henry Carrey from San Francisco February 12, 2009 - 06:09PM

  Ironically they all died with a few years of each other, Peretz in 1915, SA in 1916, and Mendele ( S.Y. Abramovitch) in 1917. SA was known as a humorist ( as Aliza said "bittersweet" ) and was called by some the Yiddish Mark Twain as was already commented on . The way I heard it , when Twain was told this , he said , " No, I am the American Sholem Aleichem."

  
  
• [5] Henry Carrey from San Francisco February 12, 2009 - 06:17PM

  One last comment on translation . For me , the hardest part is not only understanding all the talmudic references in Hebrew/Aramaic and the jokes he is making with these - plus all the obscure Russian words not found in modern dictionaries - but understanding the context both of the Hebrew & religious expressions and the non-Jewish ones . ( BTW Aliza meant that SA and Olga spoke Russian to their children , not that SA or Olga grew up in Russian speaking families ) I wish we had annotated translations of works by Yiddish writers .