Hershl Hartman
Blog-Shmog
More on Harold Ramis and Yiddish
July 1, 2016by Hershl Hartman READERS OF BLOG-SHMOG may recall that, on March 5, 2014, following the death of Harold Ramis, I wrote about coaching him and John C. Reilly in Yiddish for a brief scene in the otherwise unmemorable film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. There have been curious developments of that scene in the film’s history on pay television. The first time I caught it on Starz, the scene played as it did on theater screens. The next time, it was cut down to seconds: Reilly saying “Rehab?” an...
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The Coen Brothers Meet a Yiddish Sweatshop Poet
February 20, 2016by Hershl Hartman HAIL, CAESAR!, the Coen Brothers’ sardonic spoof of big studio Hollywood in the 1950s — featuring a double-handful of big-name stars — may cause some hoo-ha over its depiction of a very upscale Malibu Beach “communist cell,” but there’s one aspect that will probably go unnoticed... until now. Jewish Currents can now reveal that part of the film relates to the almost-forgotten Yiddish labor heritage of Jewish Americans! We needn’t go into the twisting plot. Even a summary mig...
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Mameloshn: Ale Mentshn: Shvester, Breeder
December 30, 2015Ale Mentshn: Shvester, Breeder by Y. L. Perets, to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," adapted and translated by Hershl Hartman, ©2010 Ale mentshn: shvester, breeder — broyn, royt, gele, shvartse, vayse — felker, lender un klimatn, s'iz an oysgetrakhte maynse. vayse, shvartse, broyn, royt, gele, misht dee farbn oys tsuzamen. ale mentshn: shvester, breeder, fun eyn tatn, fun eyn mamen. ale mentshn: shvester, breeder — shvartse, vayse, broyn, royt, gele — andersh zaynen nor di farbn: dee natur iz dokh d...
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Remembering the Jewish Resistance
May 4, 2015Why Has It Been Downplayed? by Hershl Hartman [caption id="attachment_36465" align="alignright" width="203"] Hashomer Hatzair 1946 commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.[/caption] THIS WILL NOT BE a dispassionate academic paper. For one thing, I am not an academic. And, too, you may detect some passion. If my points are made clearly, they may shake up some previously held concepts. At least, they may provoke thought about things we thought we knew. There are three main, interconnected i...
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Mameloshn: Sh. An-ski's "My Poem"
August 25, 2014Translated from the Yiddish by Hershl Hartman MY POEM My poem is woven of tears and pain, I write it with blood from my heart's stain. I would not sing but sit still, calmly, If I could but conquer my melancholy... D'you hear those who pour out complaint and tears? It’s the sound of aloneness that reaches your ears. In rags, in wounds and in constant pain, Bloodied and muddied, dirtied and stained, In fear, in pity, they draw their last breath, Their troubles, their poverty drives them to dea...
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