FROM SLUMBER PARTIES Sweet And Meager Calories Can you think of anything more tempting to put in your coffee? TO HOSTING PARTIES ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rex Lester Navy Dress with Velvet Trim $285 DI USE WERE ALL GROWN UP Now. BLOOMFIELD PLAZA, MAPLE & TELEGRAPH HOURS: Monday thru Saturday 10-6, except Thursday til 8 !TARNOW DOORS' GARAGE DOORS STARTING AT $62900 Glass Additional • Installed 16 FT. RAISED PANEL CLOPAY DOOR We Remove & Dispose of Old Door With Coupon Expires 10/695 24 810-478-9060 FREE I STANLEY -1 KEYLESS ENTRY $ 75 00 VALUE With Purchase Of Stanley Door Opener & New Insulated Garage Door Preexisting Orders Excluded. Cant Be Combined With Other Offers With Coupon Expires 10/6/05 ENTRY DOOR Prices Subject To Job Survey Insulated Steel $39900 Installed With Coupon Expires 10/6/95 FREE IN-HOME ESTIMATES. ca" the other evening, and while I was exceedingly disappointed that I couldn't get through to cast my vote on the important debate re- garding the swimsuit issue, I did enjoy the intellectual experience of viewing the program. I couldn't help but notice that one of the contestants performed a piece from West Side Story, writ- ten, of course, by Leonard Bern- stein. That got me wondering about other Jewish composers. Can you name a few? A: Bernstein and Aaron Copland, along with Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler (both of whom con- verted to Chris- tianity) are probably the most famous, but here are some other leading names you should know: Jacques Offen- bach of France (1819-1880); Reinhold Gliere of Russia (1874-1956); Arnold Schoen- berg of Germany (1874-1951); Darius Milhaud of France (1892-1974); Giacomo Meyer- beer of Germany (1791-1864); and Ernest Bloch of Switzer- land (1880-1959). Q: I once heard a reference to a dramatic 18th-century story in- volving a get in Germany, the kind of thing that might make it on "Un- solved Mysteries" if it happened today. Does Tell Me Why have the inside scoop? A: Does Tell Me Why have the inside scoop? My friend, Tell Me Why has the inside scoop on everything. Not a day passes when we don't get a call from the National Enquirer and "Inside Edition" in search of hot tips. You must be thinking of the Cleves Get, and it is indeed a cu- rio-us tale. It began Aug. 14, 1776, when Itzik Neiberg of Mannheim, Germany, married Leah Guen- zhausen of Bonn. Less than one week later, on a Shabbat, Itzik disappeared. So did 94 gold crowns which had been part of the dowry. Two days after he vanished, Itzik was discovered at the home of a gentile in a small village. He said that he was on his way to England, that he had been forced to run because his life was in danger if he stayed in Ger- many. He promised to give his wife a get, a Jewish divorce, an offer her family accepted. Two weeks after their wed- ding date, Itzik and Leah met in Cleves, on the German-Dutch border, where Leah received her get. Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer Lip- schuetz, head of the Cleves belt din, oversaw the proceedings. Leah then returned home to Mannheim, and Itzik went on to England. Meanwhile Itzik's father, Eliezer Neiberg, was getting sus- picious. He had doubts concern- ing the wife's family and financial arrangements between the couple, and so turned to Rabbi Tevele Hess of Mannheim. His son, Eliez- er told the rabbi, had expe- rienced a kind of temporary insanity when he fled that Shabbat. He asked that the get be invalidated. Rabbi Hess appealed to the beit din of Frankfort, which sup- ported Eliezer's position and de- clared Leah and Itzik still married. So began a controversy that split the German-Jewish com- munity, not to mention the rab- binical authorities, and resulted in something of a cause celebre throughout the nation. For while many of the leading German rabbis of the day, such as those on the Frankfurt beit din, sup- ported Eliezer Neiberg, anoth- er contingent — including Jewish leaders in Pfalz and Fuerth, did not. At one point the matter be- came so heated, literally, that one group publicly burned the responsa of the opposing group. The matter finally was brought to leading Jewish schol- ars throughout the world — in Chelm, Prague, Hamburg and Amsterdam, virtually all of whom held the position that the divorce was valid. Exactly what motivated Itzik to leave that day, and why he said he feared for his life if he remained in Germany, may never be known. But the mys- tery doesn't end there, for yet another strange, inexplicable twist took place in this mystery. In the middle of all the dis- putes about their divorce, Leah and Itzik remarried. Their wed- ding, however, included none of the traditional blessings, but consisted only of a ceremony in which Itzik said to Leah, "With this ring you are still married to me." Q: Neither I nor any of my fluent Jewish-speaking friends know how to say "tpipetrdlioyi" in Jewish. The w4.010tv",-4110 everyone stumped:049rd*eiling also eludes !=,4' From readeail.g. in Jupiter, Fla. A: Tell Me Why has ap- pealed to an expert in Yiddish who assures us that "ceiling" is no problem to translate: it's stelyeh or suit. "Sweet and Low," the expert concedes, is more complicated. It's a cute play on words in English, he says, but it doesn't work in Yiddish. In Yiddish, "sweet" is zis (pronounced "zeace"). In most cases, "low" is translated as niderig, meaning of little rela- tive height. Yet such a usage is not appropriate to the / RNS PHOTO/REUTERS Q:I was watching "Miss Ameri- After a calorie-laden meal like that, big guy, you better reach for some "Sweet and Few Calories" to go with that coffee. phrase "sweet and low," where low" means limited in calories, and not 2 inches off the ground. Because of the ambiguity, you will not be able to use a three-word Yiddish translation of "sweet and low." Instead, you'll need to employ one or more qualifying words to con- vey the idea of "sweet, and low in calories." A couple of possibilities are zis un vaynig caloryes ("sweet and few calories") or zis un k'napeh caloryes ("sweet and meager calories"). Send questions to "Tell Me Why" c I o The Jewish News, 27676 Franklin Rd., Southfield, MI 48034 or send fax to 354-6069. C_ /