It’s a funny word, “schmooze.” It comes from the Yiddish, shmuesn, and before that from Hebrew, approximately shemuoth, according to my Webster’s.
Leo Rosten, in The Joys of #Yiddish, says it refers to a “friendly, gossipy, prolonged, heart-to-heart talk.” No other word, he avers, “conveys ‘heart-to-heart chit-chat’ as warmly.”
A cloud hung his tears on my window
and clothed me in his fears
If I were a small crying grey cloud
then someone would see my tears
but I’m not a cloud
no one sees my grief
and my tears have no power to reach
anyone’s windows
Join the Workers Circle for a conversation on original Yiddish art with Mikhl Yashinsky, a bold new Yiddish playwright and actor. Also a co-writer of the Yiddish textbook In eynem, Yashinsky teaches Yiddish for the Workers Circle and at Columbia, and created our video series #YiddishAlive. Yashinsky's controversial drama Di psure loyt khaim (The Gospel According to Chaim), recently put on by New Yiddish Rep, was noted as the first new full-length, entirely original Yiddish play that had been professionally produced in America for a number of decades, and was hailed by the Forward for having "jolted the repertoire with a work that is both traditional and delightfully submissive." Yashinsky will discuss this latest piece and present excerpts from it...
In English with excerpts of work in Yiddish, given alongside translation.
Jewish Culture for a Just World
Sun Mar 31, 2024
1:00-2:00 PM
Heading down to Seattle today for a 4 day weekend to participate in Seattle Yiddish Fest which seems rather expanded in scope this year. A few highlights for me are seeing Ilya Shneyveys, accordionist and multi-instrumentalist who'll be teaching and leading events, and Michael Wex, the Canadian Yiddishist and raconteur. #klezmer#Yiddish#MusicFestival#Seattle https://www.seattleyiddishfest.com/
I knew about this newly published book of old #Klezmer because two colleagues of mine helped typeset it, but it was going to be too expensive to ship to Canada. So I was glad to be able to buy a copy from Hoffman's great granddaughter Susan Watts who is teaching at the festival this weekend.🎺🎶 Great stuff!
Festival finished last night and I'm heading back to Canada this morning😭 the final concert was livestreamed and was a lot of fun, including a Michael Wex comedy routine that had the house in tears.
Concert starts around 42 min into the livestream. #yiddish#klezmer https://www.youtube.com/live/qhA4as8zExM?feature=shared
Super special thanks this week to @peribotsarah for her help in figuring out a technical challenge we were having on the backend of the service.
While @serge does a lot, there are some absolutely incredible volunteers on the Community Team that keep the site running smoothly and well.
If you're looking to help support the site, we have our Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/BabkaNet ) but we could really use your help on the Community Team.
In addition, we have an exciting announcement from @raf and his company SunnyThinking, which provides Babka's translations. This includes Yiddish and Ladino translations, which lets our Babka Community connect more with its roots. More information at https://babka.social/@raf/112009792781159544
I've pushed support for #Yiddish and #Ladino to my translation server. That means #Babka will now have support for translating from and to those two languages
Just to temper expectations, these models have a BLEU score of 18-25 while typical models score at 40-50 BLEU
As always reach out to me if you see translations that seem off or if you'd like to see other languages supported!
Aaron Lansky, whose quixotic efforts led to the creation of the Yiddish Book Center, is retiring. Good writeup of his efforts over the years, his book Outwitting History (2004) is also very accessible but a lot has happened in the 20 years since then.
🥺 📰 I was thinking I want to finally start writing an article about the failed lawsuit by #klezmer musician Max Leibowitz against Columbia Records for copyright infringement. It's strange but I can't find any coverage of it in the #Yiddish press at the time. Maybe it was just too niche of a thing, despite it involving some music celebrities (Leibowitz, Schwartz and Brandwein). #MusicHistory
(here's a 1925 article I found about a similar copyright case about the theatre composition Eli, Eli)
I don't know if I'm searching the wrong terms; nothing under the names of the people involved, name of the melody or Columbia.
According to modern dictionaries the word for copyright in #Yiddish is דרוקרעכט (drukrekht), אויטאָררעכט ,(oytorrekht), מחבר רעכט (mekhaber rekht) etc. However those bring up even less press results than the very literal transliteration קאָפּירײַט (kopirayt)...