ABOUT US:

The Copenhagen Yiddish Study Circle "KOPJIK" 
(Kopenhagenr Jiddishe Klub)  have meetings almost every second week all year round except during vacations and on Jewish holydays.

KOPJIK can be addressed by e-mail:

Lets hear from you

Please write KOPJIK if you have  any corrections, complaints, good ideas, contributions, critical remarks that you want to share with us !

Share your thought and ideas with KOPJIK by writing us an e-mail - or by writing us here:
http://sites.google.com/site/kopjikinternational/your-suggestions

Classical yiddish litterature

 

Under construction

Shloyme Etinger (1803 - 1856)

Shloyme Etinger wrote tales, poems, and small stories in Yiddish but few of his 
works survived to our time, but his sketches, poetry and songs were published 
in various Yiddish-language periodicals of the time. 
His only surviving dramas are fragments of two plays "Der Feter fun America" 
(The Uncle from America) and "Freleche Yungeleut" (Carefree Youth) found after his death, 
and the play that keeps his name alive and is still performed by Yiddish theaters around the world, 
the Yiddish drama "Serkele"  (Johannisberg, 1861; 2d ed., Warsaw, 1874) which, 
while written when Ettinger was in his twenties, and performed during his lifetime, 
was first published posthumously in 1861.
"Serkele" is one of the most renowned plays in the entire repertoire of the Yiddish theater 
and owes its high reputation to its strong sense of form, sound and rhythm. The characters 
are delineated in a masterful style comparable to that of the most esteemed dramatists and 
its outlook remains alive and fresh after 180 years. The Yiddish linguistic stylization in 
"Serkele" and the two fragmentary plays is crisp and self-assured, displaying a mastery of 
the medium. Renowned Yiddish playwrights who flourished immediately after Ettinger, 
such as Abraham Goldfaden and Jacob Gordin have written how much they were influenced by "Serkele".

Y

Mendele Moykher-Sforim (1835-1917)
                              http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/Der_khilef.pdf
                              

                             
Hakdomas Mendele: הקדמת מענדעלע
                                Mendele Moykher Sforim, Hakdomas Mendele
                                http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?ID=3810

Y


Abraham Goldfaden (1840 - 1908)

Goldfaden wrote about 60 plays: comedies, variety shows, operettas, such as, 
Di tzvey Kuni-lemels, Di bobe mitn eynikl (see below), SchmendrikShulamisDoktor Almasado 
and Di kishufmakherin
These were usually Jewish folk-inspired pieces but biblical subjects can be found in Shulamis
and Jewish historical motives in Doktor Almasado (see below). 

Among the later famous songs in his plays was: 


The Two Kuni-Lemls (1880) is a farce by Abraham Goldfaden, the father of Yiddish theater. The play revolves around a well-to-do couple seeking to marry off their daughter, who calls herself Carolina. The traditional father wants to arrange a marriage via a matchmaker; the more modern wife is willing to let her daughter choose for herself. Although Carolina likes Max, a student,  the matchmaker seeks to palm off on the father a one-eyed, limping, stuttering dodo named Kuni-Leml - a name that has entered the Yiddish lexicon as a byword for a pathetic dunce. The fun begins when Max dresses up as Kuni-Leml to deceive Carolina’s father and continues when the real Kuni-Leml arrives at the house (prompting shades). At the end, after much hilarity, everyone gets their destined mate. No wonder this merry comedy has played all over the world to appreciative audiences and had a renewed life in the mid-1960s in Israel in a Hebrew adaptation.






Y

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852-1915)

                                               

Der Ziveg:                             http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Derziveg.mp3
                                                 http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/Der%20ziveg.pdf
                                                

Sholem bayis:                 http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Sholemba.mp3
                                                http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/SholemBayis.pdf
                                                

Bontshe Shvayg:                http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Bontshes.mp3
                                                http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/BontsheShvayg.pdf
                                               

                                                 http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/Oyb%20nisht%20nokh%20hekher.pdf
                                                

Zibn gute yor:                 http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Zibngute.mp3
                                                 http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/zibnGuteYor.pdf 
                                                 

                                                צווישן צוויי בערג

Y                                            


Samlbukh zum hunderdstn geboyrn-tog: 
                                                http://ia310838.us.archive.org/2/items/nybc202933/nybc202933.pdf    


Y

Sholem Aleichem (1859 - 1916)

Baym dokter                                    http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/baym_dokter.pdf
                                                  בײַם דאָקטער

Dokteyrim                                  
http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/doktoyrim.pdf
                                                  
http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Doctoyrim.
                                                   דאָקטױרים    


Dreyfus in kasrilevke                http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/DreyfusInKasrilevke.pdf
                                                    http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Dreyfusi.mp3
                                                    דרײפֿוס אין כּתרילעװקע


Kidalto vekidashto                    http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/KidaltoVekidashto.pdf 
                                                    http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Kidaltov.mp3
                                                    קדלתּ וקדשתּ


Nakhes fun kinder                     http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/NakhesFunKinder.pdf
                                                    http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Nakhesfu.mp3
                                                                      נחת פֿון קינדער


Di fon                                        http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=2431
                                                    די פאָן

                                          כתרילעווקער פּראָגרעס


Abraham Cahan (1860 - 1951) 
Abraham Cahan wa a founder (1897) and editor of the Jewish Daily Forward for almost 50 years 
and the author of several classical books in Yiddish, among them A Providential Match (1895), 
Yekl - A tale of the New York Ghetto (1896), 


Rabbi Eliezer's Christmas and ...


The rise of David Levinsky (1917) [written in engelsk].

Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934)

Abraham Reisen (1876 - 1953)
                                                       דער באַן בילעט



                                                


Sholem Asch (1880 - 1957)

A shtiler gortn                       http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/AshtilerGortn.pdf
                                               http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Ashtiler.mp3
                                               אַ שטילער גאָרטן
A dorf-tsadik                         http://www.anajnu.cl/aDorfTsadik%20SHALOM%20ASH.pdf
                                               http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/adorftsa.mp3
                                                               אַ דאָרף- צדיק


Itzik Manger (1901- 1969)


Jitchok Bashevis Singer (1902 - 1991)


Y. Y. Singer (  )
A FRUME KATZ ...  :                              http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=4647
                                                                    אַ פרומע קאַץ, וואָס האָט ליבע

Leib Raskin (1905-1942)

Shmerke Katsherginsky


Avrohom Sutzkever (1913 - 2010)


Abstracts of the book In fayr-vogn (= In the Chariot of Firecan be found at: 

"Der feygl iber Tzfat" by Avrohom Sutzkever 1949.



"Aislen in regn" by Avrohom Sutzkever 1949.


"Schehecheyanu" by Avrohom Sutzkever 1949.


"Dermondung" by Avrohom Sutzkever 1949.



The Poetry of the Vilno Poet Abraham Sutzkever: Read in Yiddish




Moishe Kulbak (1896 - 1940)
Tisree                                            http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?ID=2881
                                                        תשרי

Joisef Tunkel der tunkeler

"Joisef Tunkels works on the net.":      
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d9vr2h4_3d4kcxv&invite=9mtmfr


Nakhes fun kinder – a monolog:   http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/Nakhes_fun_kinder_a_monolog.mp3
                                                        http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/NakhesFunKinderTunkel.pdf
                                                        נחת פֿון קינדער


A teater fun kaptsonim:                 http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/A_teater_fun_kaptsonim.mp3
                                                        http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/a_teater.pdf
                                                        אַ טעאַטער פֿון קבצנים
                                                     

 
Di lamdonishe beratungen:           http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/audio/audioStories/di_landonishe_beratungen.mp3
                                                        http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/PDF%20Stories/di_lamdonishe.pdf 
                                                        די  למדנישע  בעראַטונגען
                                                  



Josef Burg (1912 - 2009)

Burg published his first professional writing in the Chernovitser Bleter, a Yiddish newspaper, in 1934. 

The Romanian government closed and banned the Chernovitser Bleter in 1938.

In 1980 his "Dos leben geit waiter" ("Life goes on"), published in Moscow, marked the beginning of his second life as a writer 

with his works appearing in Germany, and invitations to read his work in Germany and Austria. 

His "Über Jiddische Dichter, Erinnerungen" ("About Yiddish Writers, Memories"), was published, in Germany, for his 95th birthday 

as part of a series of booklets called "Der Erzähler Josef Burg" ("The Storyteller Josef Burg") and translated from Yiddish.

"In Irrfahrten: Ein ostjüdisches Leben", (2000, "Misguided Wanderings: An Eastern Jewish Life"), he revealed his 

disillusionment with life in the Soviet Union. 

The title, "Ein Stück trockenes Brot: Ausgewählte Erzählungen" ("A piece of dry bread: selected stories", 2008) 

says much about his life and why he was grateful to have lived into his 90s. It is about a survivor of the Babi Yar Massacre of 

over 33,000 Kiev Jews in 1941. Later, Gypsies and others were murdered there.

 
 
 
Book archives:
 
 
 
Some classical Yiddish books are available from:

Return