Abraham Sutzkever: "At thirty"
Arn Glants-Leyeles: "Sabbath in California"

I translated these poems for the first issue of the new journal Passport. Enjoy!

Up All* Night

If I lived within walking distance I'd be going to this, but I'm going to, and teaching a bit at, a Yiddish-speaking tikkun [scroll down for English]. Please come! Eve makes a damned fine cheescake, I'm sure.

*(Well, some of the)

Conspiracy of epidemiologists

Now there are at least three of us in the blogosphere. I was very happy to stumble upon epi (beta), an epidemiology blog from the frozen labs of Minnesota. They're just getting started, so welcome to them.

(If any epidemiologists happen upon this blog and get confused by all the Jewish stuff, take a look at some of my greatest-hits posts at left, specifically Ghetto miasmas, and other apologias and Getting rid of polio.)

What separated early Judaism and Christianity?

Not much, says Daniel Boyarin in his new book, Border Lines, which I talk about this week in the Forward.

Does Job Strain Increase the Risk for Coronary Heart Disease or Death in Men and Women?

Apparently not.*

*The link is to a scientific abstract, not an article in the Times or elsewhere. If I get around to reading the article, I'll try to explain it in lay terms.

Hair today

Sheitel-gate was fun, wasn't it? Let's post-mortem. Or, rather, let's me talk about what I found interesting. [None of what follows is original with me, and I haven't yet bothered to do the legwork to cite "in the name of the person who said it." If I'm not bringing the redemption, at least I'm getting this post written with reasonable dispatch.]

1. The psakim of the rabbis involved seemed to be uniformly sans detail, that is, willfully closed-mouthed with regard to metzius (the facts of the matter). They all ran like this, generally speaking: "We have received information that these wigs are associated with an idolatrous religious ceremony, therefore [varying halachic conclusions here]." Now, in a case of suspected idolatrous taint (in Jewish: khshash avoyde zore) it would seem important to define that taint precisely. Was the hair a sacrifice, an integral part of a religious ceremony, or neither? What religious role, if any, does the hair play after tonsure? And, finally (a question I saw nowhere addressed in the various Hebrew-language religious publications), why is Hinduism avoyde zore?

For one thing, of course, it's unfair to expect this level of detail from these psakim. They are not closely reasonsed defenses of a complicated argument, but simply emergency directives for the sake of "the many who ask." Do I wear the wig -- yes or no, rebbe? And, as far as that goes, that's the sort of answer many people want from their rabbis, across the religious spectrum. Aluminum pans: toyvel or no? Plastic: to be kashered or not? It's only when the questions transcend the ritual and border on the moral that more detail is demanded by the balebos, the layperson. You'll notice, for example, that precious few go to their rabbis and ask, "Gay marriage - yes or no? Withdrawal from Gaza - yes or no?" These are questions which already presuppose a moral or political stance irreducible to a two-sentence fax.

But maybe that's the point. The job of the posek is not (just) to give answers, but to help their audience - or, more precisely, their students - understand the ramifications of the questions they are asking. A proper psak, to my way of thinking, should incorporate and present such reasoning as can be disagreed with by any thinking Jew, and if the Jew on the receiving end doesn't appreciate such reasoning - well, then, they're not thinking enough.

2. The speed of psak-propagation. Connected to the questions of metzius I mentioned above is the suspicion, already pointed out by a number of people, that the facts of the matter have not changed very much in the past twenty years, that is, since the last time this matter was publicly decided. A reasonable conclusion is that psak, and halachah in general, is susceptible to fads and fashions as is any other realm of human activity. This is an obvious point, but it's important for a liberal Jew to make it when observing an Orthodox phenomenon. Many a time and oft have I heard right-wing critics of, say, Conservative Judaism remark, "I can predict future innovations in Conservative practice or ideology based on today's political or social trends!" True enough. But sheitels, believe it or not, have been controversial in the ultra-Orthodox community for many years now, due to their ever-increasing quality (almost indistinguishable from the hair of a single woman!) and expense. (If you read some of the recent psakim, you can almost hear the rabbis grumbling as they point out that they do NOT necessarily approve of sheitels in general.) Given sufficient expertise in the sociology of the ultra-O. community, it would not have been difficult to predict that such a sheitel revolution might come up over the Indian horizon.

This is just to say that oylem keminhagoy noyheg - the world has its practices, and these influence the workings of the Jewish world, though perhaps not in the same way as the non-Jewish world.

3. But the truly pluralist Jew, considering the stories of those self-sacrificing women who throw out or burn their sheitels for nothing other than the glory of God, must be able to disagree with regard to her practice (if she does indeed disagree), yet dramatize this powerful and valuable diversity with the cry Mi keamkho Yisroel! Who is like your people, Israel!

Postscript: As several folks in the comments section have pointed out, it's important to distinguish between full-length shayles-utshuves (responsa), like this one by Rabbi Y. Sh. Elyashiv (which itself acknowledges the need for more detailed knowledge of the ritual), and the short faxes, sent out by numerous rebbes, which have driven the current trend. (Thanks to The Town Crier for the Elyashiv link.) The reason I characterized Sheitel-gate as an example of a halachic fad is that, unless I'm mistaken, no evidence points to a change in the metzius. Moreover, the long responsa addressing the question in detail were only researched and brought up after the wave of prohibitions first began. The reasons for Sheitel-gate, I still maintain, are probably sociological.

With regard to Hinduism (which, as Naomi Chana points out, is even less helpful a term than "Christianity") and its identification as avoyde zore, I have no expertise, nor would it surprise me if it were, in fact, classifiable as AZ. But I haven't seen a thorough analysis.

Post-postscript: A real, honest to goodness rabbi and talmid-khokhem has already expressed much more concisely and authoritatively my doubts about Sheitel-gate.

Virginia is for Haters

How many of Virginia's synagogues will protest their state's new anti-gay legislation? (Note: anti-gay, not anti-gay marriage.)

Check it out

Joseph Berger writes in the Times about the newly re-opened Seward Park branch of the New York Public Library. In the next few months, the entire staff (and mascot) of Twenty-Fourth Street Books will be moving down Grand Street way, so I was happy to see the piece. The elegy for the Jewish Lower East Side makes its requisite appearance:

But [the librarian] also pointed to another bookcase that captured an era's passing. The library's Yiddish and Hebrew collection was reduced to three forlorn shelves, and almost all the books were still there.

Now, I agree that the audience for these books certainly isn't all that large, and must be overwhelmed many times over by the Chinese-reading public. But "an era's passing"? There must be a number of readers of Hebrew and Yiddish still around on the Lower East Side, which is home to a sizeable Jewish community.

I think two factors explain this paragraph. One is that the "disappearing Jews of the Lower East Side" is a cliche, and the coverage of Jewish culture by non-Jewish media (and by Jewish media too, as far as that goes) is generally a montage of cliches. Yiddish is dead, too, dontcha know? Orthodoxy (or Israel) is the repository of "true Judaism." Etcetera, etceterorum.

Second, I bet there are people (yeshive-bokhrim, Charedim, old folks, academics, us weirdos, and the like) who do read these books. I wonder, though, if New York's Hebrew and Yiddish readers use the NYPL's extensive collections in these languages. The Library's 2003 report, though interesting, lacks specific information on non-English use. Most Yiddish speakers I talk to aren't even aware that the NYPL has books in Yiddish.

In other library news, some government officials in Kiryas Joel want to quit paying taxes to support the Monroe Free Library (the closest public library to KJ). These officials say the KJ residents don't use the Monroe library, so why support it? But the director of the Monroe library says no, there are Chasidim there all the time. When I looked into this story a bit deeper (for an upcoming Forverts piece), it turned out that this controversy, as with everything else Satmer, is a Zalman Leib/Aron dispute [an old link, but informative]. One group says Let's start our own library that isn't so goyish! And the other says: No! Starting our own library would mean we have to own goyish books!

(I am not misrepresenting the argument here. Trust me.) Of course, the Chasidim must be finding something to read in the Monroe Free Library, no?

I'll translate the Forverts piece if someone asks me to.

"These Lines are Written in Memory of the Teachers of my Youth"

Bar Pakhti, one of the better-written Yiddish blogs (of the, oh, half-dozen or so total), remembers melamdim of his youth, Holocaust survivors who mostly taught children the taste of their own pain.

. . . The children of [Holocaust survivors] were also "war victims." Though they didn't suffer in the camps, they were still victims of victims, survivors of survivors. Aside from "you shall strike them forty times" they didn't learn much from these teachers. Whether the tractate was Blows or Lashes didn't make much difference for the final halachah -- the bottom line was red. If they be red as scarlet was the simple meaning of every verse under their staff, and no discrimination was found there. Everyone merited it without exception. Every tenth shall be holy was reserved for special days...

A new poem by Yehudah Amichai

Neat trick, huh?

That is, a posthumous poem, published in Haaretz on the anniversary of his birthday, May 6th. This will be the first year for the awarding of the Amichai Poetry Prize (presumably for poetry in Hebrew, though I don't know).

It's called Onot, or Seasons. The first few lines could be translated this way:

So summer kept dwelling on the blood,
burning, bright and quick in dealing judgment.
The wind, afterwards, moved over our faces, but
someone ushered it away, over
the mountains. After that the rains came
and washed the stains from the highway.

Or maybe that's not how it should go in English at all. Maybe I'll try the rest of it, but t looks like it requires a lot of thought, and who knows who I would have to get permission from to publish any translation in a journal.

I just received the new issue of the Jewish Quarterly (London) with a new article of mine in it. (With other interesting material as well, of course.) Unfortunately, I doubt anyone in this country has heard of it, and their web site is sorely lacking. Please buy the new issue (Spring 2004, Number 193), but failing that, here's my piece.

New York’s Jews, religious and secular: Some unwelcome questions

The most popular synagogues in Manhattan are those that bestride the bounds of denominational identity with verve, creativity, or brazenness – or out of sheer necessity, because they have no other choice. Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, the “gay shul,” is liturgically too traditional for the Reform movement, and too homosexual for the Conservatives. B’nai Jeshurun, which packs hundreds of single young worshippers on Friday nights into the sanctuary it shares with a church on the Upper West Side, is definitely not Orthodox (look your best for the attractive davener next to you), and, since it uses musical instruments at the Shabbat service, can’t be Conservative either.

Then there are the grass-roots mini-minyanim which have sprung up so that like-minded young people can find friendly faces to daven among. Perhaps the oldest of such minyanim, Kehilat Orach Eliezer (KOE), is an Orthodox prayer group meeting on Saturday mornings and holidays, which seems to tremble chronically on the edge of schism and ideological transformation, too liberal for other established Orthodox synagogues and too conservative for the other smaller groups that have sprung up. For example, Kehilat Hadar, a minyan of some hundred attendees, coming together regularly in temporary quarters, is marked by liturgical conservatism and a love of singing. Darchei Noam is a minyan that calls itself Orthodox, and indeed there is separate seating at its services – but its extensive women’s participation would be out of place at most Orthodox synagogues. Kol Zimrah, a minyan that takes its inspiration from the Reconstructionist and Chavurah movements, is another newcomer to this scene, not to mention a couple of other such groups in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Why do so many twenty- and thirty-somethings find a need to daven outside the strictures of organized, denominationally centered synagogue life? What does this say about Jewish life in New York, both among religious Jews and among those still hardy and independent-minded enough to identify themselves as secular?

There are two reasons for the mini-minyans, one prosaic and one philosophical. The first is demographic homogeneity. Many of these new prayer groups are frequented by twenty- and thirtysomethings who prefer to socialize – and to pray, sing, and enjoy a kiddush – with those of similar age and marital status. Anyone over the age of thirty-five who attends such a “demo-homo” minyan will often feel out of place, not because the daveners themselves are unfriendly, but because they are not in the in-group. But what will happen to those currently active in such mini-minyanim in five or ten years, when they are either older and married, or, worse still in the Upper West Side taxonomy, older and unmarried? Will they still feel comfortable presiding over a second-generation, newly arrived crop of fresh-faced, Conservadox Ivy League graduates?

But there is a more charitable explanation for this phenomenon. Committed, intelligent young New Yorkers are more and more coming to find that the institutional orientation of American Judaism does not overlap with their own interests and commitments. Luckily for them, New York is preserving its reputation as a sort of laboratory, where beakers of young Jews, bubbling away in dark, hip corners, produce innovative substance that can be exported to the rest of the country.

Each of the large denominations has justified its existence to the present day on the basis of a handful of issues. The Reform movement liberated its members from the yoke of halachah, only to refashion that yoke according to the individual will, and then, most recently, to place that new yoke over its own necks, a la Sinai, with communal consent. But where do social action and the ethical imperative, the highest and irreplaceable mitzvot of Reform Judaism, fit in this new rightward tilt? The institutions of Modern Orthodoxy came out of an urge to prove the success of strict halachic practice within the framework of modern American life. But neither the strict halachists (who are attracted to the fundamentalist Orthodox groups of Brooklyn), nor the adherents of modern scholarly-intellectual practice (who are splitting off into their own minyanim and seminaries) are satisfied with the trends of their movements. Will there be a modern Orthodoxy in fifty years? And the monkey in the middle, Conservative Judaism, is having its strength sheared from it by Reform on the left and Orthodoxy on the right; egalitarianism, the burning issue of Conservatism’s 80s and 90s, is now taken for granted even by the movement’s neighbors on both sides. Is there a Conservative passion left for the next millennium that will not consume the bush planted by Schechter and Heschel?

It goes without saying that many lay Jews are not proficient in the inside-baseball differences that characterize Jewish interdenominational squabbling – after all, it’s pretty late in the century, and somewhat late in American Jewish life, to blame the widely recognized American Jewish apathy and ignorance on one particular group of Jews. But many involved New York Jews go one step farther: their flexibility and experimentation in matters doctrinal, halachic, and cultural are precisely at those junctures where organizations and institutions have planted red flags. They walk across the minefield not even looking at the danger signs. So Maimonides’ thirteen principles, the authorship of the Torah, and the binding nature of mitzvot are topics freely discussed by Orthodox and non-Orthodox scholars at a number of forums. Recognition of intermarried couples and of homosexual relationships, a danger zone for the Conservative movement, is approached more and more often, albeit quite gingerly and only in lay organizations. And the Reform leadership, seemingly heedless of a disconnect with the membership such as is bedeviling the Conservatives, is inching ever closer to an appreciation, if not a binding understanding of halachah.

If committed, religiously observant New York Jews don’t respect the denominational boundaries of the last fifty years, how can they be pinned down? While their principles vary, of course, one can try to summarize their approach. Institutions require strict divisions between “in” and “out” – an intermarried Jew must be thrown out because there is a chance that his or her spouse might find their way into the community, which would then, ipso facto, no longer be Jewish, or at least be less so. The truth, individuals and communities know, is somewhat more complicated, because those intermarried couples who bother to associate with a Jewish community are often more committed than couples in which both members are Jewish. This explains why New York’s Jewish cultural institutions, which play the role of venues for ideas that synagogues cannot entertain without unlooked-for repercussions, provide myriad discussion and support groups – not to combat intermarriage, as Jewish communal leaders would characterize the main goal of American Jewry, but to integrate such couples into the larger community.

At the same time that denominational boundaries are being crossed, the influence of two very large, nearly homogeneous communities is strongly felt. The fact that most Jews are to be found under the influence of one or both of these groups will determine to what extent post-denominational Judaism will succeed in the city. On the one hand, fundamentalist ultra-Orthodoxy, a group notable both for its internal power struggles (one would not be amiss in classifying Brooklyn Chasidim, for example, as three, six, or even ten “denominations”) and for its sociocultural homogeneity, like a giant mini-minyan. On the other hand are the Jewish secularists, who would probably not acknowledge, even if it were pointed out to them, their affinity with both Eastern European and Israeli mass-market, urban Jewish cultures.

Most of the Brooklyn ultra-Orthodox, though not all, are Chasidim, and many of the Chasidim, though again not all, are Yiddish-speaking. Though their oft-proclaimed adherence to the traditions of their ancestors occasions much admiring or scornful comment about the “shtetls [sic] in Brooklyn,” such statements betray an ignorance of the thoroughgoing yet disciplined innovation that is the source of these communities’ energy. Mass communication, popular culture, best-selling merchandise, rock-star personalities: the success of the Chasidim in creating a new culture on American soil, and their ability to convince themselves and others of their absolute fealty to the “old ways,” owes everything to these modern phenomena. At the same time, however, the uniquely Chasidic home-family nexus made possible by these modern walls of Yiddish (or merely English-language ultra-Orthodox) mass communication and consumption is also liable to be influenced precisely by the accoutrements of modernity that have made it possible. Chasidic rebbeim, for example, are ever more frequently inveighing against the influx of non-Chasidim into their communities, and the use of the Internet to popularize extra-fundamentalist tendencies. These troublesome tendencies, however, are either already used by the Chasidim or are about to enter their repertoire.

Surprisingly, then, the ultra-Orthodox communities of New York, who the city’s other Jews view with a mixture of fascination, envy, and trepidation, are confronting the same problems as the by now well-established, even traditional, American Jewish denominations. Institutional success leads to cooptation of the institution’s elements by those who would not have been originally allowed inside the tent, at the same time that looser boundaries of definition give rise to the fear that the institution will lose its native constituency. Add to this that Brooklyn’s Chasidic population is growing the fastest of any New York Jewish population (and therefore of any group of American Jews), and the question for New York Jews is obvious: if the Chasidim maintain their bloc, how will that affect the rest of us? And, by the same token, what can we expect if the Chasidim fragment, as has happened in other historical circumstances?

There are a number of Jews in New York who will understandably complain at being left out of the above summary. They call themselves by a variety of names – “just Jewish,” “cultural Jews,” “secular Jews” – but what they aren’t is clearer than what they are. They neither attend synagogue regularly, nor participate frequently in religious ritual, nor involve themselves in the minutiae of traditional observance. What, then, does a cultural or secular Jew do in New York? All manner of things, because New York is possibly the only city in the world where a non-religious, Jewish cultural diet can be pursued twenty-four hours a day, six (or even seven) days a week. Flyers and schedules for concerts (from Jewish hip-hop to klezmer to folk-inflected classical), lectures, classes, discussions, art exhibits, theater, readings, etc., etc., lie thick as manna upon the Manhattan ground.

Though it was only in the twentieth century, in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, that Jewish secularism became a live option, it has quickly become the modus operandi that feels most familiar to the Jewish urban dweller. Early in the twenty-first century, however, it appears that such an option cannot live on for long as an independent choice on the committed Jew’s menu. This observation is made with regret, for a counterbalance is sorely needed to the tendency of American Jews to see their Jewish life as primarily “Judaism” – a religion bled dry of extra-legal content found somewhere between Protestantism and Catholicism. However, Jewish culturalism (if one can call it that) suffers not just from this Americanizing tendency, but the very assimilating nature of urban cultural life. That is, the questions cultural Jews have to answer include not only the same one that all Jewish religious denominations have to answer: what makes their Jewish life different and valuable in comparison to other groups? As they produce and consume an enviably rich and varied cultural output, Jews who identify themselves predominantly with non-religious Jewish culture must ask themselves: what makes their cultural life Jewish? If the denominations find it difficult to deal with their one question, rare is the cultural Jew who bothers to answer both. Let’s hope, for the sake of Gotham’s Jews, that they forthrightly discuss these matters across their picket fences, subway lines, and bagel counters.

The alluring Shabbes siren

Any first-hand reports on the high-volume music made by the Sabbath klaxon of Yeshiva Toras Emes Kamenitz?

Mango for lunch

This fruit is so fleshy as to be almost fleyshik.

If you think I'm writing off-topic, the mango bears a close relation to Indian food.

And perhaps you wonder where the word came from? I did.

The OED to the rescue!

< Portuguese manga (early 16th cent.) < a Dravidian word such as Kodagu mage, Malayalam ma, or Tamil mky mango, perh. via Malay mangga (which may itself, however, be < Portuguese). Portuguese manga also Middle French manga (1540), French mangue, mengue (1604), whence the appearance of the last 2 forms in the work cited in quot. 1678 at sense 2. The origin of the -o ending is not clear: Dutch and Spanish mango are < English.

The first occurrence of the word in a European language appears to be in a passage referring to Calicut (Kozhikode), and is therefore prob. < a Dravidian language:

1510 L. DI VARTHEMA Itin. f. lviiv, Se troua quiui anchora unaltro fructo che se chiama Amba, el pede suo se chiama Manga.

Its first recorded occurrence in certain languages, e.g. post-classical Latin (1511) and French (1540) (both as manga), appears to be in translations of this text. The relevant passage was not translated into English but may have had an indirect influence.

Breaking news
From The Times (London), Friday, Jun 3, 1785; pg. 2; Issue 136; col A
(Thanks to Language Hat for alerting us to the limited-time-only free access to the archives of the Times and a wealth of other material.)

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

Yesterday arrived the Mail from France.
Vienna, May 11.

To prevent in Gallicia [sic] the confusion frequently occasioned in contracts, from the uniformity of the Jewish names, his Imperial Majesty has ordered, that for the future the Jews shall take family names, to which shall be joined the names of their fathers; but that they may place before these distinctive names any others they shall choose to adopt.

How to remember

Often it's not clear to me what people mean when they talk about remembering the Holocaust. I'm not sure of much, but I do know that any commemoration or attempt at understanding has to take many approaches. Here's what my reading list (or, for the tradition-minded, seder limud) was for today. (Needless to say, I didn't get to even a small fraction of it this year.)

Telling the story: Geheymshtot, an epic poem by Abraham Sutzkever. Ruth Wisse says of this poem, and another epic in Sutzkever's oeuvre:

The enormity of the history to which he bore witness inspired Sutzkever to write epic poems as well as lyrics. The narrative poem Geheymshtot (Secret Town, 1945-47), in several hundred stanzas of amphibrach tetrameter, depicts a symbolic ten survivors who hide in the sewers beneath Vilna. The epic poem Gaystike Erd (Spiritual Soil) commemorates the arrival of Sutzkever with his wife and infant daughter in Eretz Yisrael aboard the ship Patria. In each work, a constellation of dramatic personages represents the human and ideological variety of Jews who share a common fate -- the crucible of destruction in the one case, and the reclamation of national sovereignty in the other.

Understanding the events: Among the hundreds of works witnessing the Holocaust that one could spend a lifetime studying, there are two I would like to read sooner rather than later: Togbukh fun Vilner Geto (The Diary of the Vilna Ghetto), by Herman Kruk, a new translation of which is available; and Emanuel Ringelblum's Togbukh fun Varshever Geto (Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto).

Prayer: The siddur of the Masorti (Conservative) movement in Israel, "Ve'Ani Tefilati," has an insert for Yom Ha'Shoah. I'm not a hundred percent sure I agree with the theology, but I included it in my davening this year. (The insertion used to be available on the Web, but no longer, it seems. Instead there's a dvar Torah on the connection between parshes Shemini and Yom Ha'Shoah.) Here's the text, to be inserted in the berachah "Al ha'tsadikim":

נחם, ד´ אלוקינו, את עמך ישראל, שארית הפליטה, אוד מוצל מאאש, כי בשבת אבותינו בטח בגלותם קם עליהם שונא אכזר מכל, גוי עז פנים אשר לא ישא פנים לזקן ונער לא יחון. ואמר: "לכו ונכחידם מגוי ולא יזכר שם ישראל עוד." לבי לבי עם חלליהם, מעי מעי על חלליהם – ומאנה ופשי להנחם. עלי היו כולנה. ועף-על-פי-כן ולמרות הכל, נצח ישראל לא ישקר.

Just as one tells and retells the Exodus from Egypt in many different ways, so must one tell and retell the anti-redemption, the abandonment.

Postscript: It appears that David Roskies' Nightwords: A Liturgy on the Holocaust is available on-line. I'm not sure why, copyright-wise, but I'm not tzadik enough not to take advantage of it.

Post-postscript: The Warsaw Ghetto Web site, in Hebrew, is a mass of sobering detail.

How to Speak Yeshivish

A friend of mine is a linguist researching Orthodox Jewish English, or what a layperson like me can call Yeshivish. Most of the features she's listed are neither new nor surprising, but what a linguist (like any scientist) does is to empirically back up phenomena and classify them in a systematic way. I think this is the first list I've seen that does that for "frumspeak."

Distinctive features of Orthodox Jewish English
Sarah Bunin Benor
4/11/04

Orthodox Jewish English: English used by Orthodox Jews with distinctive features in several areas, mostly influences from Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic:
1. Lexicon
2. Phonology
3. Syntax/semantics/pragmatics
4. Discourse markers
5. Prosody
6. Subtractive features

Lexicon
Many loan words from Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic (500-2500 depending on speaker, audience, topic, setting)

A rabbi teaching a co-ed class on Hilchos Pesach:
“The mitzvah of the matzah by the seder should be- We’re machmir, it’s a chumra to have shmura mishas haketsira, that the wheat that is harvested for peysach should be already watched from the time...”

A 19-year-old man from California learning Gemora with his younger brother:
“[begin chanting intonation] Whenever you’re shaych, then you can be an eyd; whenever you’re not, you’re not [end chanting intonation]. So why does Rashi say-? That’s cause dina d’malchusa dina. It’s because they’re- even if not dina d’malchusa dina, Rashi says later cause al din hu nitstavu bney noyach. The goyim are shaych to dinim; they’re not shaych to gitin. That’s why it’s good.”

Phonology
Frequent /t/ release/aspiration where general American English would use glottal stop or flap
1. at the end of words (right, not)
2. between vowels/liquids and syllabic [n] (certain, button)
3. between vowels (humanity, spirituality)

Final devoicing (wrong[k], bird[t])

Non-raising of pre-nasal /ae/

Syntax, semantics, pragmatics
Modal constructions
1. Would: If you would have seen it, you would have believed it.
2. Should: I want that you should get her number.
3. Could: I could do that.

Phrasal verbs:
give over ‘communicate, impart’
< Yiddish geb iber
speak out ‘say aloud, utter’
< Yiddish red oys
tell over ‘recount, retell, tell [a story]’
< Yiddish dertseyl iber

Prepositions: “by”
1. at [a location/structure]: “by the mikvah (‘ritual bath’),” “by the table” “by the restaurant,” “by the bus station”
2. at the house of: “Are you eating by Rabbi Fischer?” “I’ll stay by them.”
3. with, among: “By Chabad, it’s different,” “Things they’ve seen by their parents,” “By us, monarchy, unity did not mean individuals losing their individuality.”
4. according to the opinion of, in the mind of: “Who’s Reb Yehuda holding by?” “I pasken (‘rule halachically’) by him.”
5. at [an event, time of year], on (coincidence): “If you have children by the seder (‘Passover ceremony’),” “by the rehearsal,” “by Pesach (‘Passover’)”

Prepositions: “to”
1. You should come to us for Shabbos.
2. I went to Rivka.

“Hold”
1. hold/halt (‘be located in one’s religious observance’): “Who am I to judge where they’re holding religiously?” “Where are you holding?”
2. hold/halt (‘be located in a text’): “Where are we holding?” “We’re holding here.”
3. hold/halt (‘opine, practice’): “He holds that, if it goes out, you don’t have to relight it.” “The shul holds like that.” “He holds like Reb Yochanan.”
4. hold by/halt bay (‘accept, believe in’): “We don’t hold by the eruv.” “If you hold by Reb Aron,...”
5. hold by/halt bay (‘be on the verge of’): “With all that handshaking, I guess they’re holding by an agreement” (Weiser 1995:37).

Other words with semantic/pragmatic influences from Yiddish:
1. bring (‘cite as part of an argument’ < breng): “examples brought by Rav Hirsh”
2. learn (‘study traditional texts’ < lern): “Are we going to learn next week?”
3. be well (‘take care’, used to end a conversation < zay gezunt): “OK, be well.”

Extra connective “so”:
“If I see someone who’s using the wrong language, so I’ll realize that they’re just becoming frum (‘religious’).”
“Since we don’t have a Temple nowadays, so we don’t do that.”
“Since they were here early, so they can start now.”

Tense: progressive
“I’m a BT fifteen years, and I don’t say that” (‘I have been a BT’)
“I know someone who’s already frum for 20 years” (‘who’s been religious’).

Word order:
Post-verbal adverbial phrases
“You’ll be stuck studying all day Torah.”
“I was able to pick up pretty well the lingo.”
“If it’s warping, it’s for sure kosher.”

Word order:
Fronting / Y-movement
“180 days worth of party he has there.”
“This word I didn’t know.”

Verb-first: narrative sequentiality (in classroom settings)
“We said before that that the mitzvah is from sunset til ... the feet leave the marketplace. Asks the Gemora, how much time is that? In other words, how much time is that til the feet leave the marketplace? How much time? Said Raba, ...”

Preposition dropping (***):
1. Her bus gets in *** 10:15. (FFB woman)
2. *** Chol hamoed (‘down time between the holiest days of a long holiday’) I’m not going to work, bli neder (‘without a vow’).
3. Next year *** Tisha b’Av (‘Ninth of Av holiday’), we will have another one.
4. I’m already frum (‘religious’) *** 20 years.
5. What are you doing *** Sukkos (‘Feast of Tabernacles’)?

Discourse markers
Navigating Gemora study:
1. Zogt di gemora
2. Zogt di gemora vayter
3. Zogt rashi

Inside
“Let’s go inside”; “Why don’t you read inside”
Outside
“We’ll talk outside”
In other words
Over here
Over there

Markers of praise:
1. Oh!
2. Psshhhh!

Hesitation click from Israeli Hebrew:
“But sometimes it’s more- [click] I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Boys are more- [click] boys are more interested in that kind of thing.”

Prosody
Chanting intonation – text reading, translation (underline = higher pitch, italics = lower pitch)
“Kagon she’oyrach shtey hashuros min hamizrach u’mayriv - The length of the two rows, it was from east to west.”

Chanting intonation in discussions about the text, esp. if-then sentences
“He says that had they not been rushed out of Egypt, they would have made their matzas in Egypt itself.”

High-falling pitch boundary: dramatic point
1. “And they should be, and they are, done together.”
2. “By saying that, that would make other groups feel uncomfortable.”
3. “Years back, they would have maybe just had one video... So now, they make it a point to make ... two videos.”

Rise-fall intonation: laid-back attitude
1. “As I was becoming frum, I got more interested in it.”
2. “If you’re going to the store, get me some milk.”

Rise-fall “whatever” – dismissive
1. “Somehow it just leaks out [that someone is a BT]. Whatever, it’s not the worst thing.”
2. “He was, whatever, not that frum.”

Speech rate: sometimes faster?

Subtractive features
Less loshon hora (‘gossip’)
Less obscenity
Less slang

Horseradish Report 5764 (from a friend)

I wept.

If you insist on the full connoisseur's report: Vintage 5764 from the Chateau d'Mullen is the result of firm, fresh fruit. The bouquet is startlingly arresting. With a beguilingly titanium core, the aroma is pugilistic. Devastatingly acidic aroma. Sensations of battery acid give way to a nuclear confiture in the mouth; ripe and full. Accents of earth, fire and arsenic followed by a crippling finish. Suggested accompaniment: gefilte fish and slivovitz by the mugful.

Perhaps it will age well. I'm not.

Israel and Yiddish

Robert Rosenberg's review in the Forward of Aharon Megged's Foiglman, a novel about a Yiddish poet in Israel, is not bad. The last paragraph, though, cries out for a bit of the old context sauce.

"A poet's homeland is his language," laments Foiglman toward the end of this brief, complex book. But this is too pat. A poet has no homeland: Language is but a small, wooden boat carrying one across the water. Yiddish was shattered beneath the perfect storm of Hitler, Nazism and hatred of the Jews — not by the resurgence of Hebrew, though that rebirth was accompanied by all the contradictory love and hatred of two siblings vying for their parents' love. The poignancy of "Foiglman" lies in its portrait of a castaway hanging onto the bow of that shattered vessel by the skin of his teeth, and the remorse it evokes in us, the onlookers, as we peer helplessly from the safety of shore.

Poignancy? Sure, I can go for that. Unfortunately, though, the truth about the shattering of Yiddish is even more depressing. Though Hitler's blow was determinative ("perfect storm," connoting an act of God, is certainly a strange description of the Final Solution), the post-war decline of Yiddish was aided by Yiddish-hating Jews themselves. None other than the government of Israel participated in the elimination of Yiddish culture. I'm not talking about the assimilation common to all transcultural ("melting pot") nationalisms, but about shuttering of publishing houses, laws designed to discourage Yiddish publishing, and silent acquiescence in gangs' destruction of Yiddish newspaper kiosks.

So the real story is not poignant, but tragic. Poignant is leaving your lover at the train station in Paris. Tragic is the mistakes made by your own people. Tragic is Jewish.

The yahrzeit of Daphne Merkin's father

I hope that Ms. Merkin's father rests in peace, and that her rich, detailed memories of him, versified in this week's Forward, are for a blessing.

Poetically speaking, however, sodden sentimentality does not make up for a lack of novelty. "The dead are so gone"! At the risk of violating de mortuis nihil nisi bonum, or (in Jewish) akharey mos kedoshim emor, perhaps we can Merkinize other poems:

April is so the cruellest month.
I am so the emperor of ice cream.
And I, so their sexton slave!

Or perhaps:

So holy, so holy, so holy is the Lord of Hosts,
The whole earth is so filled with His glory.

Language curiosities

I.

The Southwest terminal at LAX has something they're calling a Security Queue. Is this (a) some misguided attempt at European style, or (b) some new sort of people-moving strategy which is not sufficiently distinguished by the word "line"? E.g., is a "queue" (in LAX usage) more labyrinthine than a line?

Anyone out there seen this usage before in the U.S.?

II.

An acquaintance was telling a story about "those Chasidics." I think I've heard this usage before but never really noticed it. Is this modeled on any other English words? Do we say, for example (and lehavdil), "paralytics"? "Democratics"? (Yes, I know it's mistaken. But once I hear a mistake a few dozen times I start getting interested in the why of it.)

III.

For your participatory, or nit-picking, pleasure, a probably-incomplete list of two-letter Hebrew/Loshn-Koydesh palindromes. Have I missed any? (Their rough meanings, in order: roof, breast, hook, moved, nostril ring [see last week's parasha], God's name, the letter mem, was silent [in piyut only, I think], six, was joyful, under- or sub-.)

גג

דד

וו

זז

חח

יי

מם

סס

שש

שׂשׂ

תּתּ