Emma Goldman cartoons
Oct 2 2007
Yiddish cartoon commenting on Goldman's fight for freedom of speech, June 4, 1909
http://jwa.org/exhibits/jsp/article.jsp?&imgfile=archive%2Fimages%2Fvaegban.gif&media_id=aegwithpo
Der Grosser Kunds [=The Big Stick], June 4, 1909.
Yiddish cartoon commenting on Goldman's advocacy of free access to birth control, 1916
Der Grosser Kunds [=The Big Stick], February 18, 1916.
Oct 2 2007
#2
Hmmmm...interesting question Asher. I can never recall my grandparent's using a yiddish word for sweatshop. It was always "svetshup". The boss "di booss" and the union "di unyun". As we have here the US a term "Spanglish" (Spanish and English) I suspect we can also say that some Yiddish speakers spoke "Yiddlish" in their everyday life. Perhaps this also transposed itself in the written word as well.
Oct 2 2007
#3
Interesting, cheers for that syndicalist. My father's parents spoke Yiddish around the house, so as a child he could understand fluently, but I've never learnt. If it wasn't such a dead language, and there weren't so many live languages I wanted to learn, I might actually be motivated enough to learn it!
Oct 2 2007
#4
Not an expert on Yiddish by any means, but "union' is found in English and German, so there's a good chance it was a Yiddish word even apart from emigration to Britain or America (so there's no need to suppose "Yiddlish" in that case) and, iirc, "boss" is also Dutch, so also may well be found in Yiddish independently of English.
"Svetshup" is great though. Maybe they just thought it was a good word. After all, English speakers use chutzpah, shlong and shmutter, and there's no need to hypothesise "Engdish" for them - jusy straightforward borrowing from one language to another, like elan, fiance, bungalow and a gajillion other words...
Interesting though to know how mutually-comprehensible say Danzig Yiddish and New York Yiddish would be. Very, I would have thought, given the emigrations going on in the second half of the 19th century (in particular).
Oct 3 2007
#5
I think there are a lot of regional variants of Yiddish or Hebrew-related or "Jewish" languages in Europe -- for example, one of my grandmothers spoke a little Judeo-Alsatian, but no one could understand that or her French or German. It was a mish-mash.
Then there's the Galitzianers, and even if they spoke Yiddish, no Litvak would understand them anyhow 
I did ask someone fluent in Hebrew once, for purposes of a picket sign, how to write "boss" in Hebrew -- I suppose it could be "rosh" (Head), but that might be too flattering. They said to use the word "Boss" and everyone would know the meaning
Oct 3 2007
#6
Aye gavault, a bissel lesson in yiddish perhaps?
Ok, like any languge, Yiddish was highly susecptable to variation; dialet, regionalisms and so forth. Hebrew and Yiddish are, basically, seperate ad disticnt from each other. Of course there's cross over, but the differences are significant.
The word union is English, German and Yiddish. "Di booss" es di booss. Or, perhaps di booss es ein ganuf (the boss is a thief -:))
And so we end today's discussion of Yiddish with the following:
Dem Internazionale
Sheit oif ir ale wer nor shklafen
Was hunger leiden mus in noit
Der geist er kocht unruft teu wafen
In shlacht uns firen is er greit
Di welt fun gwaldtaten un leiden
Tzrushteren welen mir, undan
Fun freiheit gleichheit a ganeiden
Bashaien wet der arbetsman!
Dos wet seinshoin der letzter un antsheidener shtreit
Mit dem internazional shteit oif ir arbetsleit!
Oct 3 2007
#7
gott in freakin' himmel!
Oct 3 2007
#8
pghwob wrote:
I did ask someone fluent in Hebrew once, for purposes of a picket sign, how to write "boss" in Hebrew -- I suppose it could be "rosh" (Head), but that might be too flattering. They said to use the word "Boss" and everyone would know the meaning
It's probably none of my business (and I'll probably only read the response to this in two weeks), but under what context did you want to use the Hebrew word for "boss" in a picket sign?
Oct 4 2007
#9
Was thinking about it for a picket in a Chabad Lubavich neighborhood.
Oct 4 2007
#10
syndicalist - Nicely done
Oct 4 2007
#11
Heres one about Goldman and company getting deported, can anyone help me understand the wierd little bear thing in the left corner?
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/FacultyPages/PamMack/lec122sts/deport.jpg
Oct 4 2007
#12
The sleepy bear with the candle had something to do with the idea of finding hospitable lodging. Can't remember anything more than that; it also became the logo (with the addition of a sleeping cap and gown) for a chain of motels (I think it was Best Western circa 1960s-1980s), but don't quote me on that.
Oct 4 2007
#13
The bear has some text above its head, but you can't read it in that version....I wonder what it was saying?
I think the last 4 words are "we'll say it is" or "i'll say it is" but I think there's some words before that.
Oct 4 2007
#14
could the bear be related to Teddy Roosevelt, who was notorious for his hatred of radicals? He died at the begining of 1919, the same year Goldman and her comrades were deported.
Oct 4 2007
#15
David in Atlanta wrote:
could the bear be related to Teddy Roosevelt,
spot on david, i think that's it.
the bear is saying something that's cut off, maybe that would help in the i.d.
what about the key? is the US 'closed'?
Oct 4 2007
#16
The symbolic equation of the sleepy bear cub holding a candle with the man who owed his first term as president to an anarchist is a huge stretch. Roosevelt was depicted in plenty of editorial cartoons, usually as a "Rough Rider" but at the very least with his characteristic mustache and glasses. Reducing him to a bear cub makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Oct 4 2007
#17
I still think it's a key not a candle but you're probably right. On thinking about it, the bear as TR is a bit of a stretch.
Oct 4 2007
#18
i still think it's a reference to TR. the lack of glasses and moustache is a problem for those of my persuasion tho'.
Oct 4 2007
#19
slothjabber wrote:
Not an expert on Yiddish by any means, but "union' is found in English and German, so there's a good chance it was a Yiddish word even apart from emigration to Britain or America (so there's no need to suppose "Yiddlish" in that case) and, iirc, "boss" is also Dutch, so also may well be found in Yiddish independently of English.
it's from LAtin, but no reason why it wouldn't be in yiddish.
Nov 28 2007
#20
While looking up something else I came across these. Most of which I haven't seen before.
Goldman speaking about the Spanish anarchists at a May Day rally in Hyde Park, London, May 1, 1937. Photo published, 1938
Citation: Spain and the World, May 14, 1938.
http://jwa.org/exhibits/jsp/article.jsp?&imgfile=exhibits%2F%2Fimages%2Fexhban15.gif&media_id=aeghyde
"Emma Goldman, High Priestess of Anarchy, Whose Speeches Inspired Czolgosz to his Crime ." Chicago Daily Tribune, September 08, 1901.
Yiddish advertisement for a lecture by Goldman on "Tzedakah," or Charity, December 1899
Citation: Arbayter Fraynd (London ), December 1899.
Ben Reitman, Goldman's lover and manager (center), with Joe Edelsen and Ben Capes, Butte, Montana, June 24, 1912
Courtesy of University of Illinois at Chicago
Dec 2 2007
#21
Thanks for those links syndicalist, the one showing Goldman as "The High Priestess Of Anarchy" is incredible.
Odd, in the second cartoon, on the sweatshop boss, it says "sweatshop boss" in Yiddish - ie, it's a transliteration, not a translation. I wonder why that is? Surely there must've been words for sweatshop and for boss in Yiddish they could've used?