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Harry Belafonte, singer and civil rights activist who popularized ‘Hava Nagila’ in the US, dies at 96
(New York Jewish Week) — Barrier-smashing singer, actor and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who once boasted of being “the most popular Jew in America” because of his rendition of a Hebrew classic, died Tuesday at his longtime Upper West Side home. He was 96.
The New York City native was the one of the first Black artists to achieve widespread commercial success in the United States, and while he was raised Catholic, his life frequently dovetailed with Jewish causes, values and people. Among Belafonte’s many Jewish connections — which included brokering a meeting between Nelson Mandela and Jewish leaders in 1989 — was his marriage to his Jewish second wife, dancer Julie Robinson. The couple, who were married from 1958 to 2004, raised two children, Gina and David.
In 2011, Belafonte revealed in his autobiography, “My Song: A Memoir” that his paternal grandfather was Jewish. Belafonte’s parents were both Jamaican immigrants: his mother, Melvine, was the child of a white mother from Scotland and a Black father, and his father, Harold George Bellanfanti, who later changed the family name, was the son of a Black mother and white Dutch-Jewish father. In his book, Belafonte describes his paternal grandfather, whom he never met, as “a white Dutch Jew who drifted over to the islands after chasing gold and diamonds, with no luck at all.”
Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr., in Harlem on March 1, 1927. His father was largely absent during his childhood; his mother, who struggled with finding work, forged a relationship with a Jewish tailor who taught her how to mend garments. “That tailor gave me my first sense of kinship with Jews, which would deepen over time,” Belfonte wrote in his memoir. He spent a portion of his childhood with his grandmother in Jamaica, but he returned to New York to attend George Washington High School in Washington Heights — where Alan Greenspan and Henry Kissinger were also educated — before dropping out.
Following a stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Belafonte was bitten by the acting bug when, working as a janitor’s assistant, he was given a pair of tickets to the American Negro Theater as a gift. “It was there that the universe opened for me,” he told NPR in 2011. “I decided with any device I could possibly find, I wanted to stay in this place. What I had discovered in the theater was power: power to influence, power to know of others and know of other things.”
In the late 1940s, Belafonte enrolled in acting classes, where he met his lifelong friend Sidney Poitier. The impoverished pair would often share a single theater ticket, trading places at intermission. He also befriended Jewish actor Tony Curtis, writing in his memoir: “He lived in the Bronx with his family; why live downtown, he’d say, when he could live uptown for free? And who cared if they still greeted him up there as Bernie Schwartz?”
He and Curtis frequently went to parties together, he wrote, sometimes with the actress Elaine Stritch, “who swore more colorfully than any sailor I’d known,” and “the blunt Jewish comic” Bea Arthur, “who’d start matching wits with Elaine until the two of them had everyone in uncontrollable laughter.”
To pay for acting classes, Belafonte began dabbling in singing at nightclubs, and it was there that a true superstar was born. One of Belafonte’s early successes were his performances of the Hebrew dance hit “Hava Nagila” at the classic downtown folk club the Village Vanguard. His rendition, Belafonte joked to The New York Times in 2017, made him “the most popular Jew in America.”
In that same interview, Belafonte recalled the tough uptown streets of his childhood, and how he was drawn to the fast money his uncle’s number-running business earned. “Everybody in that world were role models in how to survive, how to be tough, how to get through the city, how to con, the daily encounters,” he said. “But my mother saw to it that unless I wanted to live life absent of testicles, she wasn’t going to have me follow her brother Lenny. Somewhere in there is a Sholem Aleichem — a rich story to be told of the lore of that time.”
With his 1953 breakthrough album, “Calypso” — which included his most iconic work, “The Banana Boat Song” — Belafonte “almost single-handedly ignited a craze for Caribbean music,” according to The New York Times’ obituary. “Calypso” climbed to the top of the Billboard album chart shortly after its release and stayed there for 31 weeks; it is reported to be the first album by a solo artist to sell more than a million copies. By 1959 he was the most highly-paid Black performer in history, according to the Times.
Known around the world as the “King of Calypso,” Belafonte recorded and performed a wide range of global and folk classics throughout his wide-ranging musical career — Jewish standards among them. In 1959, he performed “Hine Ma Tov” in England, with what appears to be an Israeli military choir; his 1963 album, “Streets I Have Walked,” includes a rendition of “Erev Shel Shoshanim” (“Evening of Roses”), a popular Jewish wedding song.
Belafonte’s greatest passion, however, was neither acting nor singing — it was civil rights activism. There, too, he worked closely with many Jewish activists, as part of the historic Black-Jewish civil rights alliance of the 1950s and 1960s. But, as he recalled in his memoir, it was racism delivered by a Jewish TV executive that first inspired him to take on racial segregation in the United States.
The executive, a Jew from Montreal named Charles Revson, asked Belafonte to stop hosting white dancers on his performance show, citing the preferences of Southern viewers. Belafonte said he rejected the instruction and let Revson cancel the show. He realized, he wrote, that TV could only reflect societal attitudes, not change them. “To change the culture you had to change the country,” he concluded.
Through his civil rights activism, Bellafonte befriended Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956; the pair remained close until King’s assassination in 1968. “My apartment was a retreat for him,” Belafonte told NPR of King and his 21-room apartment in 2008. “He had his own entrance, his own kitchen. The home became, for him, a place where he could think and reside, take his shoes off, have his collar open and be him.”
Belafonte helped provide the seed money to launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and he was one of the lead fundraisers for that organization and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was “deeply involved” in the 1963 March on Washington and helped fund the Freedom Rides.
Belafonte’s commitment to social justice endured throughout his long life and career. In the 1980s, he helped organize the Live Aid concert, and he served as UNICEF’s goodwill ambassador after Jewish entertainer Danny Kaye pioneered the role. He was also a co-chairman of the Women’s March on Washington in January 2017, along with Gloria Steinem, though ill health kept him from attending.
Though primarily famous for his singing, Belafonte continued to make movies throughout his career; in 1970 he produced and co-starred in “The Angel Levine” alongside the original “Fiddler on the Roof” star Zero Mostel. Based on a story by Bernard Malamud, Belafonte starred as the titular Jewish angel. (The “project had a sociopolitical edge,” the Times noted, as the entertainer’s Harry Belafonte Enterprises hired 15 Black and Hispanic apprentices to work on the film’s crew.)
The cause of Belafonte’s death was congestive heart failure. He is survived by his two children with Robinson; the two children he had with his first wife Marguerite Byrd, Adrienne Biesemeyer and Shari Belafonte; and eight grandchildren. After divorcing Robinson in 2004, he married photographer Pamela Frank in 2008; Frank also survives him, along with stepchildren Sarah Frank and Lindsey Frank and three step-grandchildren.
“There’s just so much left that’s in my basket of possibilities,” Belafonte told The New York Times ahead of his 90th birthday in 2017. “I’m not as young as I feel, or as young as I would consider myself to be. The 90 figure is a blur. But I do know that if there’s anything left for me to do, I had best hurry up and do it, because time is not an ally.”
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The post Harry Belafonte, singer and civil rights activist who popularized ‘Hava Nagila’ in the US, dies at 96 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A decaying historic farmhouse finds a savior in Chabad
A Dutch Colonial home, just one of a handful of pre-Revolutionary War houses left in New York City, has been vacant and decaying for years. The windows are boarded up, signs warning against trespassing cover the property, and chunks of the ceiling are missing inside.
This historic landmark has an unlikely savior: Chabad, the global Lubavitch movement, which is planting one of its thousands of outposts there.
“Dilapidated is an understatement,” Rabbi Zalman Liberow of Chabad of Flatbush said as he gave the Forward a tour.
Chabad of Flatbush, led by Liberow and his wife, Chana, bought the historic Brooklyn property in December 2024 and will soon begin renovations to make the place livable. In the meantime, the couple has already transformed the barnhouse next door into a sanctuary, where a photo of the Lubavitch rebbe hangs on the wall near a compartment once used to store hay.
As other Jewish organizations have shifted toward digital community, Chabad has continued investing heavily in brick-and-mortar real estate, ranging from modest suburban homes to multimillion-dollar towers and converted landmarks. It’s a strategy that anchors Chabad in the communities it serves, but can also be costly: For the most part, Chabad couples — each unit headed by a rabbi and rebbitzin — finance their own operations, raising their own money to buy homes and establish centers of Jewish life.
The Liberows said a generous donation of Bitcoin from a donor, Eliot Stavrach, ultimately allowed them to purchase the 22,000 square foot lot for roughly $3 million, along with securing a high-interest loan to pay the mortgage while the couple awaited the sale of their old headquarters down the street. Last week, that transaction went through and reaped nearly $1.1 million.
The seller had also cut the asking price by nearly half, offloading what had become a white elephant, Liberow said.
“For him, it was a pain. For us, it was good,” Liberow said. “And I thought, even better, this is such an important piece of United States history.”
The prior landlord had reportedly struggled to find a buyer for the landmarked home, which by law cannot be demolished, and any alterations to the facade must be pre-approved by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission. In buying the home, the Liberows are also preventing its further deterioration — to the relief of neighbors who said the abandoned site had become a hotspot for drug use and a symbol of neglect.
“I’m just happy that the house will not be torn down and will actually have a future — a good one, it seems,” said Lori Citron Knipel, a former leader in the Brooklyn Democratic Party who used to frequent the house. “So that absolutely warms my heart, because it’s been breaking every time I pass it.”
The house’s history
The Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead is likely among the ten oldest properties in Brooklyn and the 50 oldest houses in all of New York City, according to Simeon Bankoff, former executive director of the Historic Districts Council.
A 1968 report from the Landmarks Preservation Commission noted that “two hundred years of wear have done little to diminish the simple beauty of its clear-cut profile,” and described it as “the most beautiful example of Dutch Colonial architecture in Brooklyn.”
The house is also notable for its role in the Revolutionary War: During the conflict, it quartered German soldiers fighting for the British, known as Hessians. Two of the soldiers etched their names and units into a windowpane.
A historical marker at the house notes that those troops may have taken part in the Battle of Brooklyn, the first major battle after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
According to Liberow, local legend holds that George Washington once stopped at the Wyckoff-Bennett house for tea — though, “we never did find the teacup,” he joked.
Bankoff attributed the properties’ staying power partly to the fact that prior to a venture called 22nd Street Investors LLC purchasing the lots in 2021, the property had only ever been owned by three families over more than 250 years.
Hendrick H. Wyckoff, son of a Dutch settler who emigrated to New Amsterdam in 1637, is believed to have built the house before 1766. In 1835, Cornelius W. Bennett purchased it, and it remained in the Bennett family for four generations before a Jewish couple, Annette and Stuart Mont, bought the property in 1983.
‘A piece of Brooklyn’s history’
The Monts had a deep appreciation for the home’s history, Citron Knipel said, and often opened it to the community. They hosted political fundraisers, birthday parties, and even a wedding at the house, she said, and they welcomed school groups into their home for local history field trips.
Only the facade of the house is landmarked, making its preservation legally required. But the Monts also preserved its interior details, including furniture from the Wyckoffs and Bennetts, an ornate fireplace framed by decorative tiles depicting biblical scenes, and an antique Richardson & Boynton Co. stove.
“There’s a sense of being part of and having a responsibility to the rest of the community to preserve it and move it forward,” Stu said in the 2013 documentary Living in a Landmark.
“And share it,” Annette added. “Because we have bought a piece of Brooklyn’s history.”
But an effort to secure the home’s legacy fell apart in 2010. The Monts had been in talks with the city to purchase the property, only to withdraw after the city reduced the sale price, deducting the rent the Monts theoretically would have paid to continue living there.
Annette died in 2013 at age 72, and Stuart died three years later at age 76. Their children, Ira and Randi Mont, sold the property to 22nd Street Investors LLC, registered to real estate investor Avraham Dishi, in 2021.
In an interview with the Forward, Ira Mont said he believed at the time of sale that 22nd Street Investors LLC would keep the house in good condition — and was disappointed that they ultimately did not.
Dishi drew two complaints for failing to maintain the Wyckoff Bennett house: one for the poor condition of the fence, still active, and another for the condition of the facade and roof, later withdrawn.
Officials at a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing in March to discuss the Liberows’ minor proposed changes to the home noted there had been “all kinds of vandalism, fires, squatters, [and] drug users” there in recent years.
The Forward reached Dishi’s office by phone and left a message, but did not hear back.
Liberow said he has big plans for the house pending approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, including displaying a video in the front yard highlighting Jewish history in the United States. The Commission has already approved plans to install porch railings, a curb cut and a driveway at the site. And like the Motts, the couple plans to open the space up to the public. They’ve already begun hosting Hebrew school and holiday gatherings in the barnhouse next door, which they renovated for about $200,000 with rustic touches including wood paneling, barrels, lanterns and candle chandeliers.
For neighbors, the most meaningful change may simply be that the property is occupied at all.
“We got a very big welcome over here, because everyone’s so happy,” Liberow said. “Someone is going to save the property.”
The post A decaying historic farmhouse finds a savior in Chabad appeared first on The Forward.
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A staggering act of antisemitic hate proves the danger of Israel’s death penalty
A recent pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal featured something shocking: hanging effigies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, United States President Donald Trump, and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. They were the latest nauseating reminder that calling for executions only feeds the cycle of violence — a reminder that Israel itself needs, after the Knesset enacted two laws calling for the death penalty for terrorists.
There is no excuse for the antisemitic horror of this recent display in Canada, where I live. But there is also no doubt that Israel’s new death penalty laws will only ripen the environment in which this insidious kind of hate takes root and festers. The fact that the executed effigies of Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu both wore the same noose lapel pin that Ben-Gvir wore as he championed these death penalty laws through the Knesset underscores this point.
The lesson is simple: calls for death only fuel the urge for more killing.
This was made apparent by Hamas’ reciprocal call for violence against IDF soldiers in response to the death penalty acts. It is for this reason — the simple truth that killing tends to beget more killing — that Elie Wiesel prophetically warned of capital punishment: “Death should never be the answer in a civilized society.”
An affront to humanity
The Canadian effigies — captured in videos posted on social media — are now the subject of a hate crimes investigation, and drew widespread condemnation from local and provincial politicians across Canada, as well as Jewish groups. Montreal4Palestine, the group that hosted the mobilization where the effigies were filmed, wrote on Instagram in response that it “strongly condemns the defamatory accusations and deliberate distortion of events” and said that it has “stood firmly against all forms of hate, including antisemitism.”
The effigies, the group added, “were directed specifically at political figures” and were not “intended to represent Judaism, Jewish people, or any religious, ethnic, or identifiable community.”
What Montreal4Palestine missed, while advocating in its statement for “values of human dignity,” is the reality that any call for execution runs counter to those values.
Intention and effect
This holds true across countries and ideologies: once killing is legitimized, it becomes hard to control.
Montreal4Palestine should have understood that pretending to execute politicians who have called for executions can only raise the temperature, not lower it. Using this same principle, Israel could, perhaps, have anticipated that Hamas leadership would call for the kidnapping of IDF soldiers in response to the death penalty laws. That development only confirms a fear that opponents of Israel’s renewed execution push have articulated time and again: that these laws will jeopardize the safety and security of Jews across the globe.
In the document that was published by Israeli Public Broadcaster KAN News, Hamas leadership stated clearly that it is planning to intensify efforts to kidnap Israeli soldiers, describing such action as the only effective means of securing the release of Palestinian prisoners who might otherwise face the death penalty in Israel.
Hamas described one of the death penalty laws as a “fascist law.” The group also warned that if Israel were to execute any Palestinian prisoners, the result could be more clashes between Hamas and Israeli soldiers in Gaza. “Any harm to the life of a prisoner is an explosive that will lead to the eruption of a volcano,” the letter read.
A chance to turn back
There is still a chance to avoid this escalation. The Israeli Supreme Court will soon debate the legality of the first of the death penalty laws. If the Supreme Court fails to repeal the act, the ensuing executions will stain the moral fabric of Israeli society, and antisemitic extremists will assuredly blame all Jews for the escalation in Israeli state violence.
It will be yet another piece of data to fit into an already-warped view of Israel, and perhaps, as well, of Judaism. For some, that may be all it takes to replace hanging effigies with attacking human beings.
If repeal at the Supreme Court level succeeds, however, it could also set a precedent for the eventual repeal of the second death penalty law, which specifically targets convicted terrorists who carried out the reprehensible Oct. 7, 2023 massacres across Israel.
Repealing both laws would help to lower the global temperature. It would make Jews safer in Israel, in Montreal, and everywhere.
For this reason, amid many others, the Israeli Supreme Court must act. It must forcefully encourage Israel to return to the civilized, abolitionist path for which Wiesel called. Only then can we begin to halt the seemingly endless cycle of violence and killing.
The post A staggering act of antisemitic hate proves the danger of Israel’s death penalty appeared first on The Forward.
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A guide to the Corpus interviews with European native Yiddish speakers
דאָס איז איינער פֿון אַ סעריע קורצע אַרטיקלען אָנגעשריבן אױף אַ רעלאַטיװ גרינגן ייִדיש און געצילעװעט אױף סטודענטן. די מחברטע איז אַלײן אַ ייִדיש־סטודענטקע. דאָ קען מען לײענען די פֿריִערדיקע אַרטיקלען אין דער סעריע.
אַ דאַנק דעם נײַעם „קאָרפּוס פֿון דער ייִדישער שמועסשפּראַך אין אײראָפּע“ (קיש״אָ) קענען ייִדיש־סטודענטן אינטעראַקטיװ פֿאָרשן װידעאָ־אינטערװיוען מיט כּמעט 200 געבױרענע ייִדיש־רעדערס װאָס האָבן איבערגעלעבט דעם חורבן.
פֿאַרשטײט זיך, אַז אַזאַ עדות־זאָגן פֿון לעבן געבליבענע איז רײַך מיט היסטאָרישער אינפֿאָרמאַציע װעגן דעם ייִדישן לעבן פֿאַר, בעת און נאָכן חורבן. ווי עס שרײַבט דזשעפֿרי שאַנדלער אין דעם אַרטיקל, קאָנצענטרירט זיך דער קאָרפּוס אָבער, דער עיקר, אױף שפּראַך־ענינים — אױף װי אַזױ די שמועסשפּראַך װאַרפֿט אַ שײַן אױפֿן אַמאָליקן טאָגטעגלעך ייִדיש איבער מיזרח־אײראָפּע. אַזאַ טראָפּ לײגט זיך אױפֿן שׂכל, װײַל דער פּראָיעקט איז געװען די המצאה פֿון אײַזיק בלימאַן, אַ פּראָפֿעסאָר פֿון לינגװיסטיק אין בערקלי אוניװערסיטעט.
די װידעאָ־אינטערװיוען אינעם קאָרפּוס שטאַמען פֿונעם אַרכיװ פֿון דער װיזועלער געשיכטע, װאָס איז אַ טײל פֿון דער שואה־פֿונדאַציע בײַם דרום־קאַליפֿאָרניער אוניװערסיטעט. ס׳רובֿ פֿון די ווידעאָס האָט מען רעקאָרדירט אין די 1990ער יאָרן, װען אַ גרױסע צאָל פֿון דער שארית־הפּליטה האָט נאָך געלעבט. דער פֿונדאַציע־אַרכיװ באַשטײט פֿון טױזנטער אינטערװיוען אױף פֿאַרשײדענע שפּראַכן; דערווײַל באַטרעפֿט דער קאָרפּוס 172 פֿון די ייִדיש־שפּראַכיקע אינטערװיוען. אַרום די דאָזיקע ווידעאָס האָט בלימאַן געשאַפֿן דיגיטאַלישע מכשירים, װאָס ייִדיש־סטודענטן קענען ספּעציעל געניסן דערפֿון.
דאָ האָט מען צוטריט צו די אינטערװיוען פֿונעם קאָרפּוס. זײ זענען אַלפֿאַבעטיש אױסגעסדרט לױטן משפּחה־נאָמען פֿונעם רעדער. אין דער רשימה נעמען זעט מען אַ בילד פֿון יעדן מענטש צוזאַמען מיט זײַן געבױרן־אָרט אױף ייִדיש און ענגליש, זײַן מין און זײַן עלטער בעת דעם אינטערװיו. אַ „קאָד“ װײַזט אָן װאָסער ייִדיש־דיאַלעקט זײ רעדן׃ צפֿון־מיזרח־ייִדיש (NEY), צענטראַל־ייִדיש (CY), אָדער דרום־מיזרח־ייִדיש (SEY). מען קען אױך אַ זוך טאָן לױטן רעדערס נאָמען, געבױרן־אָרט, מין אָדער דיאַלעקט.
װען מען גיט אַ קוועטש אױפֿן קנעפּל פֿון אַן אינטערװיו באַקומט מען װײַטערדיקע אינפֿאָרמאַציע װעגן דעם רעדער, אַרײַננעמנדיק מאַפּעס מיט זײער געבױרן־אָרט און אינטערװיו־אָרט. יעדער אינטערװיו ווערט באַגלייט מיט ייִדישע אונטערקעפּלעך. די דאָזיקע אונטערקעפּלעך זענען ניט געשאַפֿן געװאָרן פֿון אײ־אײַ, אָבער פֿון אַ קלײנער גרופּע מומחים. פֿאַרשטײט זיך אַז אַזאַ פֿאַרלאָזלעכער אָנשפּאַר איז גאָר נוצלעך פֿאַר סטודענטן. איך אַליין האָב זיך צוגעהערט צו אַ פּאָר אינטערװיוען אָן די ייִדישע אונטערקעפּלעך (כ׳האָב פֿאַרמאַכט די אױגן, אָבער מע קען אױך „באַהאַלטן“ די אונטערקעפּלעך דורכן קוועטשן אַ קנעפּל) און אַ צווייט מאָל — מיט זײ. אָן אַ ספֿק האָב איך פֿאַרשטאַנען אַ סך מער מיט זײ. די אונטערקעפּלעך זענען אַגבֿ ניט איבערגעזעצט אױף ענגליש — מען קען זײ לײענען בלויז אױף ייִדיש.
אונטער יעדן װידעאָ געפֿינט זיך אַ טאַבעלע מיט די טראַנסקריפּציעס, אױף אַ בלױען הינטערגרונט. יעדע פֿראַזע איז אַ פֿאַרבינדונג אױף די דאָזיקע װערטער אינעם װידעאָ. דערווײַל זענען די טראַנסקריפּציעס אין דער טאַבעלע מערסטנס אױף לאַטײַנישע אותיות, כאָטש אין עטלעכע פֿאַלן קען מען אױך אױסקלײַבן ייִדישע אותיות. מיט דער צײַט װעט מען אָפֿטער האָבן אַ ברירה.
װײַטער אונטן קען מען אַראָפּלאָדן אַן אױדיאָ־טעקע פֿונעם אינטערװיו, און אַ דאָקומענט מיטן גאַנצן טראַנסקריבירטן טעקסט. פֿאַרשטײט זיך אַז אױף דערװײַל זענען די טראַנסקריפּציעס, װי די אונטערקעפּלעך, מערסטנס אױף לאַטײַנישע אותיות.
נאָך אַ קאָרפּוס־מכשיר, װאָס הײסט די „װערטער מאַפּעס“, װעט ספּעציעל צוציִען סטודענטן װאָס פֿאַראינטערעסירן זיך אין דיאַלעקטן. איך אַליין װײס גאָרניט װעגן דעם, בין איך טאַקע פֿאַרכאַפּט געװאָרן דערפֿון. מען קען דאָרטן זוכן אַ ייִדיש װאָרט כּדי צו זען אין װעלכע אינטערװיוען דאָס װאָרט באַװײַזט זיך. דאָס געבױרן־אָרט פֿון די רעדערס װאָס ניצן דאָס װאָרט װײַזן זיך אַרױס אױף אַ מאַפּע. אַזױ באַקומט מען אַ רושם פֿון די געאָגראַפֿישע ראַיאָנען װוּ דאָס װאָרט איז געװען פֿאַרשפּרײט.
מען קען אױך פֿאַרגלײַכן צװײ װערטער אָדער נוסחאָות פֿון אַ װאָרט. איך האָב למשל פֿאַרגלײַכט „געבראַכט“ און „געברענגט“, װאָס זענען בײדע פֿאַרגאַנגענע פּאַרטיציפּן פֿון „ברענגען“. אױף דער מאַפּע האָב איך געזען אַז „געבראַכט“ באַװײַזט זיך זײער אָפֿט אין צפֿון־מיזרח־ייִדיש, און „געברענגט“ ניצט מען דער עיקר אױף צענטראַל־ייִדיש. דאָס זוכן װערטער פּאָרנװײַז איז טאַקע אַ ביסל אַדיקטיװ! ס’איז אָבער װיכטיק איבערצולײענען די אינסטרוקציעס כּדי צו פֿאַרשטײן די רעזולטאַטן.
דער קאָרפּוס שטעלט אױך צו אַן אינטעראַקטיװע היסטאָרישע מאַפּע. אױף דער מאַפּע געפֿינען זיך די געבױרן־ערטער פֿון די רעדערס: װען מען גיט אַ קוועטש אױף אַן אָרט זעט מען אַ פּינטל פֿאַר יעדן רעדער װאָס איז דאָרטן געבױרן געװאָרן — די פּינטלעך זענען דיגיטאַלישע פֿאַרבינדונגען צו די דאָזיקע אינטערװיוען. מען קען אױך זוכן דעם נאָמען פֿון אַ רעדער אָדער פֿון אַן אָרט אין אַ זוך־קעסטל.
דערצו געפֿינט זיך אונטער דער מאַפּע אַ קנעפּל װאָס מען קען רוקן כּדי צו זען װי אַזױ די פּאָליטישע גרענעצן האָבן זיך געענדערט מיט דער צײַט. מען קען אױסזומירן (zoom out, בלע״ז) כּדי צו זען גאַנץ אײראָפּע אָדער אײַנזומירן אױף אַ ספּעציפֿישן ראַיאָן. מען קען אױך אױסקלײַבן עטלעכע „שיכטן“ װאָס באַװײַזן זיך אױף דער מאַפּע, למשל די גרענעצן צװישן ייִדיש־דיאַלעקטן. נאָך אַ מאָל איז עס װיכטיק איבערצולײענען די „נאָטיצן“, װאָס דערקלערן די פֿאַרשײדענע ברירות.
אינעם אָפּטײל װאָס הײסט „גלאָסעס“ קען מען לײענען אַרטיקלען פֿון בלימאַן און די קאָרפּוס־טראַנסקריבירערס װעגן דער ייִדיש־פּעדאַגאָגיק, און װעגן דער שפּראַך אין די אינטערװיוען. כאָטש די אַרטיקלען זענען מסתּמא געצילעװעט אױף פֿאָרשערס און לערערס קענען זײ אױך פֿאַראינטערעסירן סטודענטן.
מיט דער צײַט װעט זיך דער קאָרפּוס פֿאַרגרעסערן און צושטעלן נאָך װײַטערדיקע אינטערװיוען און מכשירים. פֿאַרשטײט זיך אַז ער איז שױן אַ װיכטיקער רעסורס פֿאַר ייִדיש־סטודענטן. פֿאָרשט דאָס װעבזײַטל אַלײן — איר װעט זיך אַ סך דערוויסן.
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