Re: breaking the string of pearls without knowing the culture

[Leopold N Friedman <apikoyros...>]

Michel,
Maybe that's what you meant to say. In your attempt to be clever without 
doing your homework, you've done violence to a fairly polished
traditional
work. I am offended that you just carelessly mistranslated from German, 
thinking that would be good enough. (e.g., 'ir'n' and that's only the
first 
mistake; I don't know what or who 'palestinenish' or 'sholen' is, etc.)
Maybe few in your audience actually know any Yiddish and haven't noticed 
or cared enough to call your mistakes to your attention if you yourself
haven't
cared enough to express those words correctly. 

Yiddish material should not be made into a meta-code, puzzle, or joke for

the amusement of German (or even Hebrew) speakers, with reversions to 
"real" languages when serious points are to be made. Would you change 
a song in German or French (or Arabic) or even any language you know well

without getting confirmation that your changes were, at least
linguistically, 
correct and valid? Mistakes that might be forgiveable in the haste of
everyday
speech should not be preserved in a performance, if you take that
seriously. 
Yiddish material deserves just the same care and respect, or perhaps even

more, because it's threatened, as any other. Otherwise, it's mockery.

Thematically, Shnirele Perele is about 'moshiakh's tsaytn' (Messiah's
times)
and uses Jewish religious and messianic imagery. To inject explicit
political 
imagery in the form of a Palestinian "hot button" into this song is to
change it 
to tutti frutti. The concept that you've replaced, that the "yidn veln in
erets yisroel 
aynshteyn," appears to have been misunderstood. This religious concept,
in fact,
predates any concept of a Palestinian people or even the political
Zionism that 
established the state of Israel.  Additionally, 'aynsteyn' has
connotations of being
(settled) secure and not of "returning." The song asserts that Jews have
never left, 
in the theological sense. Without being aware of that, wouldn't it be
presumptuous 
to proceed to try to "improve" that lyric?  

Finally, 'ma yofis' (my original succinct comment) has connotations of 
"shuckin" 
and "jivin" for the goyim. Sorry, those are "Americanisms," which may
have to be 
looked up. 
Lee

On Sun, 4 Nov 2001 10:20:48 +0100 "Michel Borzykowski"
<borzykowski (at) infomaniak(dot)ch> writes:

----- Original Message ----- 
"...weln di yidn in erets isroel aynsteyn" means:
The Jews will return to the land of Israel.
and "... weln di yidn in erets isroel mit ir'n palestinenishen brider kol
sof in sholen lebn"
The Jews will finally live in peace in the land of israel with their
Palestinian brothers.

Michal