"Whenever you say their names, they live again"
I cannot remember where that quote came from.
Bert De Bruin (Yonathan Dror Bar-On), on his website 'Dutchblog Israel' (available here:
http://yonathanbert.blogspot.com/) posted a lovely poem by the Yiddish poet and writer Binem Heller (1906 - 1998) which I cannot resist pasting here also (without the translation - sorry, but I don't feel like it; but he has it on his site, which you really should visit).
Mayn shvester Khaye mit di grine oygn
Mayn shvester Khaye mit di grine oygn,
Mayn shvester Khaye mit di shvartse tsep -
Di shvester Khaye, vos hot mikh dertsoygn
Oyf smotshe-gas, in hoyz mit krume trep.
Di mame iz avek fun shtub baginen,
Ven oyfn himl hot ersht koym gehelt.
Zi iz avek in krom arayn fardinen
Dos bidne-drobne groshedike gelt.
Un Khaye iz geblibn mit di brider,
Un zi hot zey gekormet un gehit.
Un zi flegt zingen zey di sheyne lider,
Far nakht, ven kleyne kinder vern mid.
Mayn shvester Khaye mit di grine oygn,
Mayn shvester Khaye mit di lange hor -
Di shvester Khaye, vos hot mikh dertsoygn,
Iz nokh nisht alt geven keyn tsendling yor.
Zi hot geroymt, gekokht, derlangt dos esn,
Zi hot getsvogn undz zi kleyne kep.
Nor shpiln zikh mit undz hot zi fargesn -
Di shvester Khaye mit di shvartse tsep.
Mayn shvester Khaye mit di oygn grine,
A daytsh hot in treblinke zi farbrent.
Un ikh bin in der yidishe medine
Der same letster, vos hot zi gekent.
Far ir shrayb ikh oyf yidish mayne lider
In teg di shreklekhe fun undzer tsayt.
Bay got aleyn iz zi a bas-yekhide -
In himl zitst zi bay zayn rekhter zayt.
- - - - - - - -
I believe that Binem Heller may have been a native of Metzeritch - yes, that Mezeritch, where the Maggid was from. It is spelled Miedzyrzec now.
I do not know more about him than that; the internet is scant help.
Bert, thanks for posting that poem.
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2 comments:
Is that Yiddish? Wow - I thought it was Dutch. It looks a lot like Dutch. It (Yiddish) is kind of a German dialect though, no?
Hello Justine,
Yiddish is indeed a Germanic language (not dialect - the grammer is somewhat different, and there are woords which are distinctly different).
It originated further down the Rhine than high German, though not as close to the coast as Dutch. Its closest relatives are probably some of the dialects in Dutch Limburg and the adjacent area of Germany.
Yiddish split off from Rhhineland German about eight centuries ago - at approximately the time of the plagues that swept Western Europe.
Perhpas Steg or Mar Gabriel can add more data?
(And please, Steg and Mar Gabriel, zeit azoy git)
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