Translatable But Debatable - Some Hebrew Postnominals

Translatable but Debatable:
Some Hebrew Postnominals

I hope that you’ve been having a pleasant week and that you haven’t confronted too much uncertainty over whether to write it as Sukkot, or Succoth, or Succos, or the Feast of Tabernacles, or what.  Of course if you’re writing in English, or translating into English, you’ll be looking for the best fit for the context and for the kind of Hebrew, if any, that the reader is accustomed to.

One thing that you would never write, I’m sure, is that the holiday starts on the 9″6 of Tishrei.  Even a Hebrew speaker to whom the number ט″ו is second nature would be taken aback to see such a thing in English, where not only do we hold strictly to the decimal system but we don’t throw the double-prime symbol into the middle of a number or a word.

So I’m always irritated when I see a deceased person’s name followed in English by Z-doubleprime-L — z″l — for זכרונו לברכה.  Such punctuation no more belongs in English than a smiley belongs in the prayerbook.  And more often than not, the symbol between Z and L isn’t even a proper double prime, it’s a straight double quote or, worse yet, a left-hand double quote (z“l). The font that you’re using may not show much difference, but a change of fonts down the line may result in more ugliness than you ever imagined.

How then can we render ז"ל into English?  Here again it depends on the context and the readership.  I imagine that well-educated Jewish readers would recognize zal or z.l. If a translation into English is necessary and the ז"ל is not meant to carry more than an indication that old Avram Braun is dead and gone, then I think that in running text the late Avram Braun is fine.  In a list of people, Avram Braun, deceased. For a bit more respect and mournfulness, what we normally append in English is may he rest in peace; but by occupying more space than a ז"ל, a may he rest in peace comes across more emphatically.  If only Avram is involved, then there is nothing wrong with lingering slightly on his memory; but if there are seven or eight zalnikim on the page and the purpose of the text is not related to memorializing them, then repeating may he rest in peace will overly darken the atmosphere.

English does provide us with an abbreviation, RIP, and I would feel free to use it in a translation, but only in a translation that does not have to read smoothly in English.  In English, the abbreviation RIP is not a common expression to see in running text, and in our day it verges on facetious.  In Jewish writing, I’ve seen OBM used instead, meaning of blessed memory — a slightly tweaked translation of זכרונו לברכה.  Of course of blessed memory can also be spelled out; I doubt anyone but Jews understands OBM.  The more literal translation in common use is may his memory be for a blessing, seven words for the two in Hebrew.

When our case is not just the death of the hired man but the death of a great rabbi, a martyr, or a despicable evildoer, we have to contend with different postnominals — that is, different standard expressions that follow the name.  Instead of may his memory be for a blessing, we get may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing (זצ"ל), or may the Lord avenge his blood (הי"ד), or may his name and memory be obliterated (יש"ו). Given the freedom to translate freely, in the case of the righteous I would prefer to do the work before the name — the great rabbi Avram Braun, or whatever.  The same goes for the postnominals that attach to prominent living rabbis, such as שליט"א — rather than translate it in its expanded form (שיחיה לאורך ימים טובים אמן) to may his life be long and good, amen, I would simply call him something like great or eminent — the characteristic that qualifies him for the blessing — if permitted.

Postscript: For a while, a technical problem prevented the posting of comments beneath this article.  The following comment from Perry Zamek arrived in the meantime:

Unfortunately, a large portion of the blame lies in a simple editorial decision by Artscroll. They decided, years ago, that - as a measure of respect for all the various rabbis that they would refer to in their books - the word Rabbi should be abbreviated as R' (upper case R, apostrophe). Considering the significant amount of translated rabbinic literature that preceded Artscroll, which used R. to stand for Rabbi (see the Soncino translation of the Talmud), the decision by Artscroll seemed to state, "We don't hold by those academic translations, they aren't faithful to Jewish tradition, and so their abbreviation isn't appropriate for real rabbis." The use of z"l, zt"l, shlit"a, and all the rest, is merely an extension of this style folly. And, the insistence that these terms have to be used in their Hebrew/Jewish style, postnominally, is evidence that the writers are not writing English, but a language known to many of us as Yeshivish.

Unfortunately, a large portion of the blame lies in a simple editorial decision by Artscroll. They decided, years ago, that - as a measure of respect for all the various rabbis that they would refer to in their books - that the word Rabbi should be abbreviated as R' (upper case R, apostrophe). Considering the significant amount of translated rabbinic literature that preceded Artscroll, which used R. to stand for Rabbi (see the Soncino translation of the Talmud), the decision by Artscroll seemed to state, "We don't hold by those academic translations, they aren't faithful to Jewish tradition, and so their abbreviation isn't appropriate for real rabbis."

The use of z"l, zt"l, shlit"a, and all the rest, is merely an extention of this style folly. And, the insistence that these terms have to be used in their Hebrew/Jewish style, postnominally, is evidence that the writers are not writing English, but a language known to many of us as Yeshivish.