Mendele is a moderated mailing list dedicated to the lively exchange of views, information, news and just about anything else related to the Yiddish language and Yiddish literature. It is open to all and subscriptions are free. It is not intended for the discussion of Judaism or Jewish culture in general (please write to mailing lists such as mail-jewish or ashkenaz for that). Mendele, which began circulating among a handful of academics on May 15, 1991, now has over 2000 subscribers, on every continent but Antarctica.
Mendele's mailing address is mendele@lists.yale.edu.
Many visitors, even some subscribers, are unaware that "Mendele" is not
something cutesy. Nor is it, as many think, the nom de plume of
Sholem-Yankev Abramovitsh (1836-1917), known to all readers of Yiddish as
the beloved "Zeyde", but rather the name of his best known fictional
character, Mendele the bookseller. Abramovitch is generally regarded as the
founding father of both modern Yiddish and modern Hebrew literature.
The prototype of a moderated list is the Letters to the Editor page
in any quality newspaper. And, as with newspapers, not everything that
is submitted to Mendele gets run. Submitted material must deal with
subjects of general interest (no personal mail please) and is subject to
minor editorial revision. Messages may be written in transcribed Yiddish
or in English. They must be signed and they must have a meaningful Subject:
header.
Mendele usually appears four or five times a week. In addition we put out a Personal Notices and Announcements issue for notices of Yiddish-related events, commercial offerings, and the like. In April, 1997, we launched The Mendele Review, a literary supplement edited by Leonard Prager of Haifa University. Subscribers automatically receive all three.
Both Mendele and The Mendele Review are archived and readily available.
Read and download all of Mendele's current volume (Vol.11).
Read and download the contents of all volumes (Vols.1-11).
Read and download the contents of The Mendele Review.
Search as
well as download
files from the archives in "The Virtual Shtetl".
In addition to our regular mailings to subscribers Mendele supports an
ever-growing list of stories, poems and essays that are available
in Yiddish. These texts have been edited with respect to
orthography and reset in large, legible fonts. We plan as well to add
annotations and glossaries.
The listowners are Victor Bers (Yale University), Iosif Vaisman (University of North Carolina) and Noyekh Miller (Trinity College).
Victor Bers and Iosif Vaisman became shamosim (moderators) in May, 1997. The earlier shames was Noyekh Miller who also maintains this page, last updated on April 10, 2003.
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