May 29
View the discussion on YouTube:
From Bova Meises to Broadway and
Start Up Nation-The Birth of Jewish Language
Other approaches to modernity-
hand
-in-hand, yet sometimes disconnected from religious Judaism of any kind
A)
Total
absorption into the dominant culture- a Jew is a German
of Mosaic Persuasion, or a Russian of Mosaic persuasion.
It is great when everyone is singing
With the French:Les Marsailles
Allons
enfants de la patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé ! Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé ! (bis)
with Beethioven
Alle
Menschen werden Brüder All People are
brothers
Or,
with Internationale Refrain:
So comrades, come rally And the last fight let us face The Internationale unites the human race.
This is
wonderful- the Jew blends in, is absorbed, all is solved by a United Nations
Kumbaya. Jews were now filling occupations previously closed to them,
taking up seats in the universities previously closed to them. Jews were becoming
the scientists and philosophers and financiers of Europe.
But what happens when that international camaraderie fails and is replaced
by the Romantic reaction,
Cold reason is replaced by the
warmth of feeling and will. A fear of science sets in -Frankenstein.
And now, instead of the “brotherhood of all
humanity” or the ideal of
Europe”—there is an exploration of
notions of “ der volk” or “ “ narodny” or “plain old folks”. On the beautiful
side, peasant songs become the source of great music.
Now, where are we Jews when Germans
think of Germans, and Russians of Russians or French of French?
Think of the reaction of the
new Pharaoh who ascends to the throne
after Joseph’s death, as he sees Jews prosper in his land:
נֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל פָּר֧וּ וַֽיִּשְׁרְצ֛וּ וַיִּרְבּ֥וּ
וַיַּֽעַצְמ֖וּ בִּמְאֹ֣ד מְאֹ֑ד וַתִּמָּלֵ֥א הָאָ֖רֶץ אֹתָֽם׃ {פ}
But the
Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very
greatly, so that the land was filled with them.
What happens when the anthems are
replaced by the luscious operas of Wagner, with their tempestuous melodies and
the story of the evil dwarves in the Ring of the Nibelung- you know who the dwarves represent.
Richard Wagner writes of "the Jew" that he is "incapable
... of artistic expression, neither through his outer appearance, nor through
his language and least of all through his singing." Instead, Wagner
believed Jews could only "imitate art."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberich#/media/File:Ring11.jpg
This narrow perspective of the nation was
especially pronounced in eastern Europe, under the auspices of a Russian
Tsarist regime that didn’t know what to do with the vast number of Jews they
inherited when they conquered parts of Poland and the Ukraine.
So, we now have new Jewish responses, in
addition to the formal religious perspectives –we are now rediscovering
ourselves as a people. This takes place well before the start of Zionism.
It starts with the recognition that we have a
culture and a civilization, as well as a religion-Kultus and kultur.
B The creation of a new literature
Nations have a literature-
But what did we have in our common language- Yiddish-
Yiddish is
fairly old as a spoken language and common for ordinary business affairs.
But nothing
serious was ever written in Yiddish—unless it was for the women: Tsena- Reena
Rabbi Jacob ben Isaac Ashkenazi in 1616, the Tseno Ureno (צאנה
וראינה)
(from my own library)
This page tells of the change of Sarah’s name, verteitshd
and embellished.
Or for the
common folk- Bova Meises- which you know as Buba Meises-not
grandmother’s takes, but the tales of the Night Bova.! : בָּבָא-בּוּך,
בּאָבאָ-בּוּך), written in
1507–1508 by Elia Levita, based on Anglo-Norman romance of Bevis of Hampton, but given a Jewish flavor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovo-Bukh#/media/File:Bovo-Bukh_1541.jpg
Chasidism was another source of literary Yiddish, because it was intended for
the “Amcha”. The collections of Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav.- prime example. The
Hasidc tales, with their flights of fantasy, were an influence on Franz Kafka,
from whom we get “kafkasesque”.
1st
truly modern literature: 1864 of Sholem
Yankev Abramovitsh’s
novel Dos kleyne mentshele ("The Little Person"),
known as Mendele Moykher Seforim. Mendel the Bookseller.The same author
became one of the father’s of modern Hebrew literature as well!
The most important of the early writers to follow Abramovitsh
were Sholem Rabinovitsh, popularly known by his alter-ego, Sholem Aleichem, and I. L. Peretz.,
The Jewish Mark Twain and the American Sholem Aleichem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholem_Aleichem#/media/File:Sholem_Aleichem.jpg
From thence, to
Yiddish theater, and then , in America, 2nd Avenue. After most
Yiddish-speakers had been murdered by Hitler- we had a Nobel Prize for
Literature for I B Singer( Yitzhak Bashevis) , whose stories were first
discovered by Playboy!
I had the privilege of seeing him in a lecture-I was taken to
it by a Yiddish poet, with whom I had worked as a tutor in an Arbeiter ring
school. What does a Yiddish poet tell me of a Nobel Prize winner- His brother
was greater! ( I J(Yisrael Yoshua Singer- The Brothers Ashkenazi).
How else would we have gotten early Broadway or Fiddler on
the Roof thrilling audiences in Japan, if not for the creation of literary
Yiddish.
Images from my
library
Alle Verken fun Sholem Aleichem
And Chasidish,
a collection of tale of Y L Peretz
One Jew-two
ideas. One Jew- two languages- Yiddish , as
much as it was loved, was limited to only part of Jewry. About the same time as
the Boba Meises, there was the first literary work in Ladino: Moses ben Baruch
Almosnino's writings from the sixteenth century—the Crónica de los
reyes otomanos and several of his letters— Almosnino is considered the
most famous Ottoman Sephardi writer, known to both Jewish and Christian
audiences. But the Sephardic world in the 19th century was also
grappling with what should be the official language of Jews.
A people aware
of themselves needed a universal language that could encompass Jews of all
lands and all ages- only Hebrew.
As a student-
NYU-uptown, we fought with administration to get Hebrew language. Faculty
senate objection- it’s a dead language- or- it’s a modern language with no literature,
like Swahili. Fortunately, our Hillel director was from South Africa, and at
the Senate faculty hearings, he taught the professors about modern Hebrew
literature and Swahili literature!
So, we have a
renewed interest in using Hebrew for more than just praying and study: before
there is an idea of a Jewish state, there is an idea of Hebrew as a language of
a modern Jewish civilization.
Italian Rabbi Moses Hayyim Luzzatto's allegorical drama "La-Yesharim Tehillah" (1743) may be
regarded as the first product of modern Hebrew literature.
Mendelssohn’s associates began publications in
Hebrew. Ha-Me’assef (meaning "The Gatherer") was the first
Hebrew publication of the Haskalah. It was founded in Konigsberg, Prussia, by
students of Mendelssohn and appeared quarterly between 1783 and 1790 and
irregularly until 1811.
The first Hebrew Novel-Abraham Mapu (1808–67), the creator of the
Hebrew novel, whose historical romance "Ahabat Tziyyon" exercised an
important influence on the development of Hebrew.1853.
The Greatest Event in
the History of Language- the restoration of a language
reserved for worship and study, and often, international business, and transformation into a living spoken
language to meet the needs of the modern era. There needed to be the
creation of a pronunciation of a fossil language to accommodate the traditions
of the broad spread of Jews- Ashkenazic and Sephardic. The modern Israeli
Sephardic pronunciation is the invention of Yiddish speakers who adapted
Sephardic sounds.
When I was a Rabbinical student,
I directed the center for Jewish students at New York University- I had as a
guest speaker, Ehud, the son of Eliezer Ben Yehudah. In those days, every one
learning Hebrew relied on his Ben-Yehudah-Weinstein English/ Hebew dictionary. That
takes me to Eliezer, his father, who had the crazy idea of not just writing
Hebrew, but of actually using it on a daily basis. He came to Israel in 1881,
and within 40 years, had all the Jewish community using Hebrew actively, that it
was recognized by the British as the official language. He could do this only
because he was absolutely obsessed by this- raised one of his children only in
Hebrew and forbade the child to play with the other children. So that he
wouldn’t learn any other language!
How to make a dead language work
in a new world- Israel’s most famous fruit- The Jaffa Orange! No such thing in Hebrew. So you take an apple-
Tapuakh- make it gold- zahav- tapuach zahav and you get “ Tapuz”.
There was an outpouring of
creativity in Hebrew. My father’s uncle published the Hebrew language newspaper
in Vienna, Davareinu. The father’s of modern Hebrew literature- Chayim Nachman Bialik,
Tchernochowsky, to Amos Oz
And a Nobel Prize- for Shai
(Shmuel Yosef) Agnon!
Today, writers in Hebrew are
creating stories and filmed productions that are now being transposed into
American film and TV.
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
No comments:
Post a Comment