Re: Shmaltz and Patinkin

[Ingemar Johansson <hebanon...>]

Dear Paul.

The word "Shmaltz" is no enigma to us, northern Europeans.

In my own language, Swedish, it is roughly the same as "smaelta" as a
noun, meaning "melted butter" or "melt-down", like in  Harrisburg, you
know. As a verb "smaelta"  just means "melt", which among other things
means fat dropping from meat. The German equivalent is "schmeltzen". All
this points to a common indo-european origin. Looking at it in that
wonderful  "Webster's Third New International Dictionary" I find that you
can track it down to the Romans: the Latin "molere" (just put in an "s"
first of all!) means "to grind". For a Swede there is the immediate
similarity of this Latin word and "Shmaltz" (as you might have found out
I'm
not at all sure that this is a Yiddish term) with the Nordic "maeld",
grinded crops, or "mjoel", which means "meal" etc. 

Leaving the etymology besides, I would like to say that "Shmaltz" as a
musical term brings a lot of syrup to my ears. If you force me to exemplfy
it musically I would say - Mandy Patinkin. I think that his recent CD
should be discussed on this list. In my ears it's all shmaltz. And kitsch.
The very idea of presenting "White Christmas" in Yiddish makes me vomit.
Swedish is a minor language too, but the thought of it being presented and
after (hopefully) years of studies executed by a man ( or woman) who
originally doesn't know the tongue at all would just be ridiculous, even if
the language was threathened - this is the Patinkin case, and I just cannot
see the meaning of it, as there are many true Yiddish singers, ranging
from, say, Jaacov Shapiro to Wolf Krakowski, who could do this better.
Patinkin, on the other hand,  is a name of course (at least in the US), but
he's certainly no Yiddish personality, has nothing to add to Yiddish
culture, and just seems to make money out of a trend -  his record is
nothing but  - SHMALTZ.

All yours,
Ingemar Johansson