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Oy! Yiddish Festival Spotlights Colorful Language

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By MICHELLE BEARDEN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 30, 2008

So you know bupkis about Yiddish?

You may know more than you think. If you've ever had a glitch in your plans, dreamed up a cockamamie idea, schmoozed with co-workers or marveled at a friend with chutzpah, then you've spoken the almost-lost language of Eastern European Jews.

Mazel tov! There's a little Yiddish in all of us.

"It's like Silly Putty: colorful, fun and it borrows a little something from everything else," says Neal Karlen, author of the new book "The Story of Yiddish: How a Mish-Mosh of Languages Saved the Jews" (William Morrow, $25.95).

It's the melting pot of languages, claiming more than two dozen native tongues from nearly every land where Jews once lived before they were banished from their communities at various points in history. Though displaced Jews didn't abandon their unique words and expressions when they settled elsewhere, Yiddish did get lost and diluted as they adopted the languages of their new homes.

Still, we're not here to kvetch (complain) over all that meshugass (craziness) from the past.

Colleges are offering degrees in the subject. Klezmer musicians are putting a new spin on old Yiddish recordings. And here in Tampa, the first-ever Yiddishstock will be held April 6 at Congregation Rodeph Sholom.

Yiddish is no longer relegated to old Jewish comedians and Brooklyn bobes (grandmothers). Nosh on this: Yiddish is cool again.

Before 1939, 75 percent of the world's estimated 11 million Jews spoke Yiddish. Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah, Karlen says, dictated by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and reserved for prayer and scholarly discourse. Yiddish was considered more the gutter jargon - spoken mainly by gossiping yentas, uneducated peasants, women and children.

Then came the Holocaust, and more than 6 million Jews were killed. Their culture and language nearly died with them.

"It was never wiped out," Karlen says. "But it took a huge hit."

That Yiddish didn't die - and is now experiencing an American revival - is testimony that "Hitler didn't win," says retired Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Ralph Steinberg, 77. That's why he takes lessons in the language from Cantor Moshe Friedler of Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Tampa.

Growing up in New Jersey, Steinberg says Yiddish ruled the household. His parents - Mom was from Poland, Dad was from Romania - brought the language with them when they immigrated to the United States. Like most first-generation American Jews, Steinberg embraced his new country and had little interest in customs and languages from a land he knew nothing about.

"My mother spoke Yiddish to me, and I answered in English. She would take me to Yiddish theaters, and I was bored," he says. "But when you get older, you become melancholy. These are memories I want to hang on to."

As a senior judge, Steinberg fills in when needed on the bench at the courthouse. He still loves the work, even though it means dealing with a fair number of shlemiels (fools who are always screwing up) who are basically farblondget (lost and/or dysfunctional).

"I just love the sound of the words," Steinberg says.

Leave Them Wanting More

So does Tampa lawyer Russell Leisner. So much so that he went to Friedler and proposed a Yiddishstock concert. His selling point: You can win a lot more converts to the language through music. An afternoon of Yiddish songs sung by the synagogue choir just may pique interest.

"You think Woodstock, and you think fun. Well, you also think sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, but we won't go there," Leisner says. "I wanted this to be an event that sticks in people's minds and gets them wanting more."

Friedler, an enthusiastic type who grew up speaking Yiddish in his native Argentina, embraced the idea immediately. The congregation's 20-member choir began rehearsals for the concert a year ago. It will be joined by a children's group and an Israeli folk and classical ensemble.

Friedler has watched the transformation in the singers, who have met nearly every week for a few hours to learn the 45-minute, four-part harmony cantata. They not only had to master the music; but they also had to learn the language.

"When people in America think about Yiddish, all they can think of is 'Fiddler on the Roof.' Yet it's everywhere - on TV, in the movies, in expressions we all use," he says. "It's been around since 900 years after the birth of Christ. And God willing, it will be around for another 900 years and more," Friedler says.

Much of the language's revival can be credited to the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., founded in 1980 by 23-year-old graduate student Aaron Lansky. While researching a project, Lansky learned that hundreds of priceless Yiddish books were being discarded and destroyed by a younger generation that couldn't read the words. He went on a mission to save them, putting out a call for donations.

Within six months, Lansky had 70,000 books. The collection would grow to 1.5 million. That's when he decided to create the center as a guardian of all things Yiddish. The center now distributes the books to colleges and institutions around the world, and it is lauded as singularly responsible for taking an endangered form of literature and making it safe and accessible.

With the center as a resource, the study of Yiddish is becoming much more prominent in American school curriculums, internship programs and seminars, linking one generation to the next.

"As more young Jews are searching for their identity, the riches of Yiddish culture are being examined and celebrated in a new light," says Nancy Sherman, the center's executive vice president. Next month, the nonprofit will break ground on a new education building dedicated to student programs focused on Yiddish culture, dance, music and film.

"Jews are listening to the language with new ears," Sherman says. "Except in the Hassidic community, where it never left, this is a new experience for so many of our people."

Breaking The Code

Ariel Steinman, 11, is a part of that Yiddish revival. The Tampa fifth-grader will be singing at the Yiddishstock concert at her synagogue. Learning the words to Yiddish songs may help her crack the secret code older Jews use to keep their conversations private when children are present.

"My grandpa and grandma speak it whenever they don't want me hear something," she says. "Now I'm starting to get the words. I used to say, 'Huh?' and now I say, 'Come again?' I'm finally getting it."

That's just what Karlen, who learned Yiddish from an 87-year-old retired professor in Brooklyn, wants to hear. Although some regard it as the language of whining schmucks (clumsy or stupid people), the author feels otherwise.

"It's about magic, loss, tragedy and comedy," Karlen says. "Is Yiddish dead? Hoo ha! Not on your life."

YIDDISHSTOCK

WHAT: A music festival featuring a Yiddish cantata by synagogue choir, Yiddish songs by a children's group, and folk, klezmer and classical music by the Nobile Ensemble from Jerusalem

WHEN: 4 p.m. April 6

WHERE: Congregation Rodeph Sholom, 2713 Bayshore Blvd., Tampa

TICKETS: $15

INFORMATION: (813) 837-1911

Reporter Michelle Bearden can be reached at mbearden@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7613. For a preview of Yiddishstock, see Michelle Bearden's "Keeping the Faith" segment at 9 a.m. today on WFLA, Channel 8.

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