South Carolina Ping
Posted on 05/12/2005 7:02:10 AM PDT by alan alda
free dixie,sw
also the largest collection of BLACK CONFEDERATE soldiers buried ANYWHERE is in Atlanta, underneath Graves Hall on the grounds of MOREHOUSE COLLEGE.
those "barefooted,hungry,lads in tattered gray uniforms" died BRAVELY for dixie LIBERTY, during the Battle of Atlanta.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Dixie Bump!
ping for later
Ping!
The freespeech, the richness and fullness of history in the South continues to set me free.
Anyway, at times I amuse my co-workers by breaking into Yiddish. Since I'm not allowed to use profanities in the workplace (dagnab "consideration of others"), I get by with an occasional "kish mine tuches" and "tsu tillas gescheften". (That last one is a Heinz-Kerry favorite.)
After my supervisor called me a "schmuck", however, I had to take him aside and explain what he REALLY called me. I let him know I wasn't offended (I've been called a lot worse, trust me), but saying that to the wrong person could result in getting his butt kicked.
Gey gezunterheyt, y'all.
:-)
I had the same experience as you did in college with Jewish friends! They taught me a bit if Yiddish and turned me on to Leo Rosten and similar authors. I consider those friendships to have been a gift and a blessing. To this day, when I get ticked off, I'll sprinkle Yiddish words in Southern Expressions. Both Yiddish and Southern English are colorful, expressive, and flavorful.
fyi, my first college roommate was an "African Jew", who spoke fluent LADINO.(his parents emigrated to the USA in the 1930s, fleeing the Italian Fascists)
the air in the room would turn BLUE when he was angered about something.
ladino "cuss words" come in REALLY handy at times, too as few Americans understand them. lol.
also, his mom sent us LOTS of Mediterranean goodies as "care packages", when he would return from a weekend at home.
i frequently wished he'd get homesick more often! (btw, have you ever had Kosher PIZZA?????. MMM-MMMMMMM-GOOD!)
free dixie,sw
I still break into a laugh during her character bits.
:-)
It was an interesting article--easy reading. I noticed, though, that Jason, while mentioning early American history, didn't mention the various circumstances that sent the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim to America. He didn't write anything about the Sephardim at all.
Given so many personal/regional/ethnic situations on writings of history, a very positive piece is good, once in a while, to offset so many write-ups that concentrate on the negative. I regret, though, that objective documentation including tasty and bitter facts is rare.
And yes, Alia, character--whether optimism, avoidances of certain topics or pessimism--is really pronounced from some in the "South," which "nation" seems to be flowing a little up and down the east coast, these days. ..."Maryland?" ..."Delaware?" LOL!
I work with and have several clients that are old Southern Jews. Talk about draaawwwlls. They are excellent deer and bird hunters, poker players and love to get out and crawl around the bars at night. Come to think of it, they're...good 'ol boys.
How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!
The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep
Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,
While underneath these leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their burial-place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down
And broken by Moses at the mountain's base.
The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes.
Alvares and Rivera interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.
"Blessed be God! for he created Death!"
The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace;"
Then added, in the certainty of faith,
"And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease."
Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,
No Psalms of David now the silence break,
No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue
In the grand dialect the Prophets spake.
Gone are the living, but the dead remain,
And not neglected; for a hand unseen,
Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,
Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.
How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o'er the sea -- that desert desolate --
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?
They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.
All their lives long, with the unleavened bread
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears,
The wasting famine of the heart they fed,
And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.
Anathema maranatha! was the cry
That rang from town to town, from street to street;
At every gate the accursed Mordecai
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where'er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,
And all the great traditions of the Past
They saw reflected in the coming time.
And thus forever with reverted look
The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a Legend of the Dead.
But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.
- H.W. Longfellow, 1854
For years the hoity-toitys up at the Piedmont Driving Club would not admit Jews, so they said the heck with them and started the Standard Club (now CNN's administration building, BTW). The PDC has horses' heads up on the gables of the buildings, and some of my Jewish friends always said, "It's the wrong end of the horse."
I can swear a little in Yiddish myself . . . comes in handy on occasion.
""During the Great Confederate War southern Jews enlisted at a many fold rate higher than northern Jews."
...don't know if I'd go that far with it.
"Sergeant-Major Abraham Cohn, one of the 9,000 Jews who fought for the Union (some 2,000 Jews fought for the South),..." [RMC Mark S. Starin, USNR (Ret.), Post 100, Jewish War Veterans of the USA, Sergeant-Major Abraham Cohn: Jewish-American Civil War Hero, jewish-history.com . http://www.jewish-history.com/sergeant_cohn.html)"
During the civil war there were 150,000 Jews in both the north and south, of that population, only ten percent, or 15,000 resided in the confederacy, versus 135,000 in the north. In the south Jews enlisted overwhelmingly to fight for their country, not so in the north, there they were for the most part conscripted. (read drafted)
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