I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. |
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From: Moshe Reiss
Date: 25 August 2010
Subject: Re: Menorah
There are two symbols of the state of Israel; the Star of David and the Seven branched candelabra; I think the latter is to be found in Zechariah - it may be earlier, I don't have a concordance handy so I can not really check. The Nine branched Menorah came much later during the story (apocraphyl or not) of Chanukah. They found oil and it lasted for eight/nine days, during which they were able to make new olive oil. Thus your confusion is perfectly reasonable. The Fiddler is using the menorah which is the symbol of Isreal and not of Chanukah.
Dad
----- Original Message -----
From: SAGReiss
Date: 25 August 2010
Subject: Menorah
Both the menorah that you brought &
the one my mother brought have nine branches (8+1). The one I made for
Rose has only seven (6+1). I assumed I had just made a dumb mistake,
which I'm relatively good at doing. However, as I created a link from
the lily in John Keats' Belle Dame Sans Merci on the Birthday Bash page to the lily of the
valley in the Song of Songs on the Klezmer Christmas page, I noticed
that the menorah in Fiddler on the Roof (see attached screenshot) also
has but seven branches, whence perhaps my confusion. Have you any idea
why this might be so?
The Klezmer Christmas is redeemed, thanks in
part to a diligent
Maccabee, a member of the French forces of violence, in the words of Hannah
Arendt. If nothing else, he agreed to hear me at eight o'clock on a
Saturday morning. Damien, thanks for that, bro.
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Date: 5 December 2009
Subject: 1 Virgin
OK, I'll summarize, the cop was young, polite, has a Guadeloupean wife and a little blonde goatee, and he seemed to take this violation of French criminal law seriously, although he did not respond favorably to my offer to drive him to Lablachere and fetch my daughter with his help. He didn't seem to mind that I corrected his spelling mistakes. I told him I wasn't sure about "nous nous sommes separes", but that I didn't think it was too important, which is not true. (Maupassant tells me the cop was right.) I avoided granting truth status to C the G's pretext (a real or imaginary illness of Rose's) by repeating it, but I did tell him afterwards, adding that I have no idea if Rose is ill, and that I'm meeting her doctor at the Order of Doctors on Thursday to talk about this problem. I was stunned that he let me file a civil charge as well. He just called the Procurer to ask permission. That man definitely took the violation seriously. It's nine o'clock on Saturday morning, and this poor bastard's on call at home. He gets a call on the government-issue cell phone about some asshole who wants to celebrate a Klezmer Christmas & Hanukkah with his beloved daughter, and he actually spends fifteen minutes strategizing with the cop, ordering him to call C the G today to find out what her fucking problem is. I wonder how she's going to improvise her way out a cold call from the fucking pigs. It could go either way. She could tell them to fuck off and not bother her when her daughter is sick and hang up the phone. She could also charm this boy's underware off his ass. When he asked me how much I wanted to request in psychological damages, I didn't hesitate. QB VII came immediately to mind: "One euro, motherfucker." If she ever has to cut me that check, I will post it as a symbolic witness to justice.
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Rose was withheld from our Klezmer Christmas & Hanukkah celebration by Scrooge, a violation of French criminal law known as "non-representation of children", for which I will press charges at the Gendarmerie tomorrow morning. As promised, here are the pics, but they are sadly empty. The brownies I baked will go uneaten. The Messiah, son of David, is not come, nor is Rose, daughter of SAGReiss.
4 December 2009
SAGReiss: Weep with me, my friends, for the lost Klezmer Christmas.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 2 December 2009
Subject: Do It Yourself
Can't find a menorah? No problem, I'll make one instead. I've got bits of cardboard that Rose has fingerpainted green, tinfoil, glue, seven votive candles to act as the branches, and I'll melt the Hanukkah candles into them. I was hesitating in Eudora, so I began to cut this down to 140 characters in Word for Twitter, but the word "instead" kept ringing in my ears. Instead, instead, why do I need that word "instead"? Nichelle, Joy, Murder, or possibly negatron might be able to guess this (if the last is over his woe for the heartbreaking Saskatoon Elk Grey Cup football loss), but the French(wo)men can take a mulligan:
"All I need is a reindeer..."
The Grinch looked around.
But since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Grinch...?
No! The Grinch simply said,
"If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make one instead!"
So he called his dog Max. Then he took some red thread
And he tied a big horn on top of his head.
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The Golden Peacock flew away, |
Iz di goldene pave gefloygn avek, |
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Then the Golden Peacock flew away, |
Iz gefloygn di goldene pave avek, |
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The Golden Peacock flew away, |
Iz gefloygn di goldene pave avek, |
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The Golden Peacock flew away, Translation: Joseph Leftwich |
Iz gefloygn di goldene pave avek, Transliteration: Itzik Manger |
Text: Itzik Manger |
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A string of pearls, a golden banner, Amen and amen, this is sure: If he comes by chariot, Translation: Klezmatics & Tamás
Sajó |
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Shnirele perele, gildene fon, Omeyn veomeyn, dos iz vor, Vet er kumen tsu forn, Transliteration: Klezmatics |
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30 November 2009
SAGReiss: What balls the translator has to quote King James Mathew 2:20 with that beautiful phrase: "go into the land of Israel." In the real Bible they "go into the land of Egypt". In Hebrew you "go up to Israel". Are those your words, or the words you found on the CD jacket?
1 December 2009
Tamás: Yes, you are right, that line is my change. The Klezmatics translation only said there “the Jews will live in erets yisroyl”, but I preferred to give a more exact translation of the Yiddish original. I did not realize the evangelical connotation of this phrase, but you are right in pointing it out.
Anyway, this is how it stands in the
Yiddish original, and while on the one hand it logically derives from
the structure of German, on the other hand some contamination with
Christian liturgical texts quoting this verse of Matthew is not
excluded either.
SAGReiss: Contamination is kind of a harsh word, but one cannot write the English language without quoting King James & Shakespeare.
And an allusion to the wrong Bible is not unheard of in medieval Jewish song, as you can see in "Cuando el Rey Nimrod".
Tamás: Yes indeed, as I have always
thought when listening to, quoting
and performing on the lute the song del Rey Nimrod myself. This is what
I have referred to by saying “contamination”, a feature experienced
quite frequently among the Yiddish-speaking Jews of my Eastern Europe.
2 December 2009
SAGReiss: Just out of curiosity I've
checked the half a dozen instances of "go into the land of"
Caanan/Egypt in the King James Bible. Martin Luther never uses
"einstehen", and has no consistent way of translating this. The Hebrew
is "yalak" (Strong's number 3212).
1 December 2009
SAGReiss: I wonder
why King
David is holding the
cup in his left hand. That seems like a big boo-boo. Maybe it's some
kind of joke, or cabalistic allusion, or maybe the illustrator was
left-handed and
felt that was superior for writing from right to left,
since you keep your hand out of the ink.
