These past Daniel-less weeks have been a whirlwind of activity - goodbye dinners, spending time with friends, writing papers, etc.
Tonight I said goodbye to some of our closest friends of our Year in Israel by going with to see a community theater production (in English) of Oklahoma. It was a pretty good show - the singing was terrific although the dancing left much to be desired. Ultimately I was left with a strong sense of pride for America, a kind of nostalgia for good-old-American patriotism as represented by Rogers and Hammerstein. Although the play did not end in the singing of Hatikvah, as did 1776 (see my post on the Zionistic ending to that play), the notes in the program answer the question "Why Oklahoma in Israel?" in an interesting way:
"It strikes me that makes the show particume that there are many similarities between the fledgling state (Oklahoma joined the Union in 1907) and our own country. Both reflect a microcosm of conflicting interests, loyalties, sectors, and traditions joining together to form a new polity. Bit it is another, subtler, common theme that makes the show particularly appropriate for the Israeli stage. Bridging the often conflcting interests of the formers and the cowmen is Oklahoma's peddler, Ali Hakim. Despite being labeled as a Syrian (in Lynn Riggs' play, Green Grow the Lilacs, which served as the basis for Oklahoma!) or Persian (as adapted by Oscar Hammerstein II), Hakim is ostensibly Jewish, as were most ofthe peddlers in the western territories at the time. In fact, the role was created by Joseph Buloff, a star of the Yiddish stage, and his Jewish inflection was the subject of considerable critical discusion at the time. Does that make Oklahoma! a Jewish play? Not really, but iot does reflect the overwhelming influence that Jewish immigrants and their descendants had on the American musical theater."
I'm not sure that the most important point is that the 'Jewish' peddler represents Jewish influence on the American stage, as the character, a hypersexualized, irresponsible, money/business focused outsider is a conglomeration of negative stereotypes, likeable though he may be as a comic character. His Jewish character, not unlike the women who are treated as objects to be bought and sold, won and owned, are the creations of the 1943 American imagination of Jews, and performing the play in Israel, with Jews performing all of the roles and sitting in the audience, truly changes the meaning of the play and places Jews as the insiders, the active characters, and the athletic, macho heroes - truly a feit suiting the Zionist spirit.
As today was my last day of Yiddish class, and as we've been reading some poetry in class lately, I decided to end this post by translating a Manni Leib poem for you:
To the Non-Jewish Poet
An heir of Shakespeare, of shepherds and knights,
So good and fine for you, non-Jewish poet!
The earth is yours, where your uncle pig trots:
She gives him feed and gives your muse sustenance.
You sit like a bird on your branch and twitter,
And all the wild space answers you:
From you see the satieatedness, the breadth of the cities,
The complete serenity of satiated spirits.
And here am I, unwanted, a poet of the Jews,
Growing with weeds upon not-our world
Of grandfathers - tired wanderers with dusty beards -
That nourish themselves from books and markets;
And melodically I sing in a strange world the tears
Of wandering in a desert under foreign stars.
And one more for good measure (sorry about my poor translation skills, but at least this gives you the rough idea, though you are missing the patterns of the sounds). Here is one by David Hofstein:
In a Winter Evening
In a winder evening in Russian fields...
Where can one be lonlier, where can one be lonlier?
An old horse, a creaking sled,
A snowcovered dirt road - and I am in the middle
Behind, in the only corner of the paleness,
Smouldering stripes of sun's light still extinguish themselves sadly.
Ahead, a white desert spreads out
And far ahead a few houses are scattered -
There sleeps a hamlet, sunk down in the snow...
A few paths lead to the Jewish home.
A house, like all the others, but with larger windows,
And among the children there I am the oldest.
And narrow is my little world, and small is my circle:
Once in two weeks I go from the hamlet to the village.
And longing in silence for fields an for the vast wideness,
For many roads and paths, covered by snowdrifts...
And I cary in my heart the hidden pain
Of seeds that wait and wait to be sewn...
In winter evenings in Russian fields...
Where can one be lonlier, where can one be lonlier?...
Showing posts with label Yiddish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yiddish. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
FSU Journal Day 6
Day 6
After a quick breakfast, Daniel and I met Emma in the lobby of the hotel in order to go to the market and look for some interesting Russian souvenirs. The first area we came to was reminiscent of the Israeli shuk or an American flea market – stalls of clothes and household goods, people calling out to us to convince us to look at their wares, etc. The clothing that they were selling was all very Russian in the sense that it was much more fashionable-looking than you might find, say, in the US.
When we came to the end of this area, we paid a small admission price to enter the souvenir and antique parts of the market. Emma assured us that the souvenirs are of good quality and are far cheaper here than at the tourist attractions. Stall after stall sold Gzhel ceramics (a folk art produced in the village of Gzhel since 1802 – it is white with blue designs), metryoshka dolls (Russian nesting dolls – the wooden dolls that open up to reveal other little dolls inside), lacquer boxes depicting famous Russian sites or fairy tales, fur hats, birchbark decorative crafts, wooden toys, plates painted with Russian designs, porcelain dolls, and decorative eggs. We strolled past all of these gifts, calculating how many rubles we had and translating the prices to dollars (about 33 rubles to one dollar). Emma negotiated for us as we purchased a little plate, an egg, a box, and some dolls.
Afterwards, we went for a stroll in the antique segment of the market. Emma told us that she loves to walk through here because the different accents and kinds of things people discuss here belong to another time – the people play chess and discuss history among the artifacts of a bygone era. We saw samovars, swords, photographs, wall hangings, dishes, paintings, and much more. As we walked through the stalls some shopkeepers offered to explain their items to us even though they could tell that we had no intention of purchasing anything. As we were poking around, Daniel stumbled upon a beautiful silver yad (what one would use to read the Torah) sitting on a table next to a Bible with a painting of Jesus on the cover. We picked up the yad and examined the details – two little chassids danced around the top. We asked the price, but as $200 was outside our souvenir budget, we regretfully put our find back on the table for another traveler to find someday. Later we also found a channukiah perched on a shelf of decorative items. One of our finniest finds was at a coin stand, where a man was selling, among other things, New Israeli Shekels (yes, the currency that Daniel and I use every day). Daniel was thinking that if the price wasn’t too high, we could maybe make some money off of this, and he asked the price, but it was roughly equivalent to the 10 NIS coin that we would have been buying. The guy was selling half shekel coins for the same price as 10 shekel coins, and we thought that was kind of a rip off for whoever was buying… so Daniel offered to sell the guy some shekels, but he said he had enough. Too bad. As we were heading out of the antique area, Daniel stopped to admire some amethysts that an old man was selling, and found himself (along with Emma) trapped in conversation with the man, who told him about the process of polishing the stones, and about the superstitious beliefs about the stones being able to give health and fortune.
While we were in the market, Emma called Anya to see if David and Jordan had made it to the hotel, and we learned that they were milling around the same market as we were. We met them excitedly and swapped some stories with them about our travels in Lipetsk and their trip to the Ural mountains and the Western edge of Siberia.
Several days ago I had mentioned to Emma that I would be interested in seeing the place where the Moscow Yiddish Theater had once performed, and so today our first stop was to be the theater and the synagogue nearby.
When we arrived at the synagogue, two older woman greeted us, saying “Chag Sameach!” We went through a security check and at the other side a traditionally dressed man addressed Daniel, Jordan, and David in Hebrew, asking where they were from and if they would like a tour. Our translators looked on as he spoke to us in Hebrew, telling us the history of the building. It was erected in 1883 by the Jewish railroad baron Shmuel Poliakov – it had once been his home. During that time, public synagogues were not permitted in Moscow, but because Poliakov was so influential, he was allowed to open the synagogue so long as only his family would attend. He had a very small family, but he included on the list of those permitted the names of many of his friends as well. I don’t remember the whole history of the building, but as I understand it, the synagogue was closed during the soviet era and reopened as a chabad house, which is how it currently functions. Around the original building, they have constructed a larger structure with classroom and offices, so that the outside of the original building remains, encased in the later structure. In the sanctuary, the man giving us the tour showed Daniel, David, and Jordan that there is a trap door on the bimah that leads to an exit, so that if there is any trouble, the congregants will be able to escape. This is no idle threat, another Lubavich synagogue in Moscow, the Marina Roscha synagogue, has been subject to fire in 1993, bombings in 1996 and 1998 and a stabbing in 2006. This makes Jewish life seem pretty bleak in Moscow, but the synagogue enjoys a large rate of participation (too large, from the perspective of the progressive Jews we talked to) and seems to be a vibrant, active community. When we left, Anna and Emma were very angry though. They told us that the Chabadnik who had spoken to us had pulled them aside and offered them money in order that they would bring their friends to the synagogue. When they told him that they were Reform and that they didn’t think it was appropriate to pay their friends to participate in Judaism, he told them that he would give them the money and they could give their friends presents for participating instead. They left in a huff and spouted to us their frustrations about Chabad and its manipulative outreach strategies. They told us that they are shocked by this idea of Judaism and proud of their Reform practices.
From the synagogue we walked to the theater where once performed Solomon Mikhoels in the famous avant-garde Moscow Yiddish Theater. There wasn’t much to see there beyond a plaque on the wall, but we spent a few minutes reviewing the history of the place, and you can imagine I was tickled to be doing some Yiddish tourism! In brief, let me answer two questions: 1) What was the Moscow Yiddish Theater? The Moscow State Yiddish Theater (which you can read all about in a terrific book by Benjamin Harshav) was founded in 1919 in Petersberg and moved to the new capital of the Soviet Union, Moscow, a year later. Given what we know about the suppression of Jewishness in the Soviet Union it may come as a surprise that such a thing as a state-sponsored Yiddish theater ever existed, but Stalin’s policies shifted dramatically from his initial encouragement of national/ethnic cultures in ways that were in support of the Soviet project to his later insistence that all Soviet citizens must conform to the same patterns and ideals. The theater was founded by Alexander Granovsky, and as a sophisticated avant-garde theater, it became a symbol of secular Yiddish culture in the USSR and the world over. It performed mythical abstract pieces based in Jewish folklore and folk life. Two of the most famous participants were Mark Chagall, who designed sets and costumes for the productions, and Solomon Mikhoels, a very talented actor and director. The theater closed in 1949 a year after Mikhoels was murdered in a Stalinist purge. 2) Who was Solomon Mikhoels? Solomon Mikhoels was a great and famous actor and director for the Moscow State Yiddish Theater. He was also the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, supporting Stalin against the encroaching threat of Nazism. He traveled around the word trying to garner support for the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. After the war, Stalin became suspicious of Jewish contacts with other Jews outside of the USSR and with Jewish self-expression generally. He closed the Yiddish theater and the Jewish Anti-Fascist committee, eventually executing all but two of its members. Mikhoels was the first to be executed, in January 1948 in Minsk, in a staged car accident. He received a state funeral.
So, we snapped a few photos, and then we headed to lunch. On the way, we picked up a gingerbread cake, which we are told is a terrific Russian treat, and decided that when we returned to Israel we would have a tea party with it to celebrate the end of Passover. Over lunch we talked about David and Jordan’s trip – we learned about the vibrant Jewish communities they met, and the great need that these communities have for more support. They spoke to us of a para-rabbinic leader of a community who really wants to go back to school but feels he cannot leave because there is no one to replace him and the community will fall apart without him. We learned much about tensions with Chabad. But we also learned a lot of positive things about creative and energetic communities, students going to youth programming, multi-generational rich and warm Jewish life. I asked David if people there seemed as keen on leaving Russia as the young people of Lipitsk seemed to be, and he answered that making aliyah was not something that the students there really talked about. I feel somewhat relieved about this – and then I wonder if the relief is appropriate.
After lunch, we met a friend of Emma and Anya’s, Sveta, and together we visited the Kremlin, a fortress that was built on the intersection of three rivers (only two now remain) – the city of Moscow forms rings around the Kremlin itself, which was the original city, dating back as far as 1147. The Moscow Kremlin has long been the center of Russian statehood, where tsars and hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church lived. The walls, which were built in 1367-1368 were originally white stone, but were rebuilt in 1485-1495 in red brick by Italian workers (Italians were better architects than Russians) who were all executed upon the completion of the city so that they would not reveal its secrets to foreign powers. At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter I transferred the capital of Russia to St. Petersberg, but the tsars continued to be coronated in Moscow. In 1917 yhr Soviet government transferred the capital back to Moscow, and it remains the center of Russian government to this day. Since 1992 the president of Russia lives inside the Kremlin.
We bought tickets to see the famous cathedrals of the Kremlin, and we walked through church after church with paintings on the wall that read like cartoons of stories of Jesus and of various saints, especially St. George. We saw collections of jewelry and church artifacts. In one of the cathedrals, we saw the tombs of statesmen and church officials, some dating back as far as the fourteenth century.
We noticed that the time was going faster than expected and hurried to St. Basils Cathedral in order to get in before the closing, but to no avail. We were just a few minutes too late and the only attraction we were able to see was the entertainment of Emma arguing with the security guard. Nevertheless it was certainly impressive to catch one last look at the outside of this ornate and unusual building.
In place of a tour of St. Basils we went to a chocolate shop so that Daniel could have one last hot chocolate. We joked and laughed over chocolate flavored tea and coffee, and had a terrific time of it. We worked on perfecting our reading skills, tentatively sounding out words spelled in Cyrillic.
Then we went for a casual walk through Moscow. We passed a Russian bath house and went in for a peek. The walls were ornately decorated, but as we climbed the stairs and saw men sitting in towels, we decided to head back down. Daniel and David continued on and were amazed at what they saw – men lounging in towels and dining together on expensive food and drink. Baths are apparently a Russian institution – nowadays especially among the wealthy.
We walked through an area that used to be quite poor but has been renovated a bit – it is located between a convent and a monastery and no one knows why crime was so rampant in between these institutions. We walked past the KGB buildings and Emma told us that her aunt spent two years in the building followed by three years working in Sibera because she had written a letter to Golda Meir. After she returned from Siberia she continued with her activist work and one day she received ticket to Israel in the mail with the message that she was to leave in 24 hours and could not return.
We had dinner at a sushi restaurant that we stumbled upon on our walk. We spent a long time there laughing and joking, teaching silly American slang to our Russian friends, etc. As it started to get late, we took the metro back to the hotel and bid farewell to Emma. She gave us a small gift on our leaving, and we exchanged e-mail addresses – I hope that we will keep in touch.
We left early in the morning for the airport, where we said goodbye to Anya and flew back to Tel Aviv. We were surprised at how familiar Hebrew seemed after a week in Russia!
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Friday, December 12, 2008
Mendele the Bookseller
Sholem Yankev Abramovich (1836-1917) was a Hebrew and Yiddish writer, seen as one of the founders of modern Yiddish literature. He was born in Kopyl, Lithuania, and spent his childhood studying traditional Jewish texts. He became involved in the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) and wrote in Hebrew about politics and natural science. He became most famous, however, for his fictional Yiddish writing, which he published through the mediation of a complex literary devide he called "Mendele the Bookseller." Mendele's role shifted over the course of Abramovich's literary career, and he was sometimes a protaganist, sometimes a co-author or a publisher, sometimes a narrator, and sometimes an editor. His character, who was inside the culture of the small Jewish town and at an equal standing with its residents, but was worldly because he was well read and traveled widely, allowed Abramovich to successfully bridge the gap between his own Enlightened world and the small town world about which he wrote. Mendele was able to criticize both the Englightened world and the small town world, and to make each of these world accessible to the other. The writing had a sharp humor and was critical, and affectionate toward traditional Jewish life, the Jewish upper and lower classes, and history. Sholem Abramovich is often conflated with his literary creation Mendele, though they are by no means the same person.
In my class on Mendele, we are reading a selection in which Mendele Mocher Seforim (Mendele the Bookseller) introduces himself to the reading public. I couldn't find an English translation, and left with th option of reading the selection in Hebrew or Yiddish, I chose Yiddish. What follows is my rough translation, which I am posting because I am inordinately proud of it. The parts in parentheses were bits that I'm not sure I understood:
"What's your name?" This is the first wuestion that a Jew asks another complete stranger, as soon as he meets him and greets him with a handshake. (No one goes out at a bisy time entirely with his thoughts directed upwards, as they must call out in this manner), "What are you, sir, in order that you want to know what m name is? We want to become connected via marragie? I am called what people call me, and leave me alone!" No, of course not, the question "What's your name" is a completely naturl thing, it's found in nature, exactly like pulling on someone's new kaftan with a question, "What's the price? How much does 28 inches cost?" or like asking for a cigarette a the time when someone opens up their tobacco pouch, or like sticking your finger in someone's tobacco pouch and taking a pinch of snuff, like dipping your feet into someone's bath, immersing your grimy kerchief in it and rubbing it on your body, (like looking around for something in the prayerbook and revising it in a respectfut way, and turning the page when someone had not properly spoken the words of the prayer), like interrupting a conversation between two people to stick your ear in to overhear their conversation, or like asking if the cracks in someone's light skin are concerning, outlining some advice for him, although no one had ever thought of this with any urgency, and they could go on not knowing, and also he could not know, very well. The same and similar more of these things are, for us Jews, all common. Such is the order of the world from eternal times and to say otherwise would seem completely, really, clearly crazy, something strange and absurd, entirely unnatural...and not just in this world, but here in our world an angel first asked "What's your name, sir", the angel, who had wresteled with Jacobm wasn't different from the order of the world, and he soon really, as it goes, gave a question, what was his name. So is an angel, even today is a simple even a sinning man, of flesh and blood. I know very well, as in my first departure into Jewish literature, as they call it, with my stories, what the first question will be, "What's your name, uncle?"
Mendele is my name! This, gentlemen, is the name they gave me from my old grandfather from my mother's side Reb Mendele from Moscow, may his memory be for a blessing. Moscover was the name of his side because people said that he once was really in Moscow to sell there Russian wares and (safely found luck/happiness) and before he had looked around he moved out from there. A pity as I've never been there - silliness! But in Moscow, by the Russians, he was, and so he was called. Thus he procured in that shred a name of honor. Everyone thought him to be a gentleman, worldly man, who has been all over the world, and without ever a care, (a very honerable man) they used to ask his advice...But that's beside the point.
(Therefore we are done with that now) After this first question Jews continue to pose all kinds of other questions, like a father-in-law: where is this Jew from? Is he married? Does he have kids? What is he selling Where is he heading? So on and so forth, all kinds of questions, which are asked like this by every Jew of the Jewish people, so if you are going to meet with people, you should heretofore know, that I am, Thank G-d, a person, a worn down one, no (bank squeezer) and what one must even so answer, just like saying "A Gut Yor" after someone's "Gut Shabbes" or "Gut yuntif" I will not pick a quarrel with the world and I will answer these same questions quickly and succinctly, if I still may.
I am only a (?) from Tvuetsitz, a small town, a little city, Keyn ain hore, in the province of Teterivk, filled with goodness and religiosity, like Glupsk's father-in-law, with it's wisdom, Kabtzansk with its wealth, and Tuneiodevke with its factories - beautiful places - with such merits, Thank G-d, which impacted and continue to impact the Jewish condition in our corner here in the Diasopora...but that's beside the point.
In my passport my birth year is written clearly but thruth be told, I, like many a Jew, don't know my age and can't determine it. My parents, peace be with them, differed greatly in their reckoning of my age. According to both of them, I was born to the first light during the great fire of the store, which isn't remembered today. So according to my father's calculations this was during the great chill that came to our corner, exactly in the time when his parents, may their memory be for a blessing, passed away. And my mother used to say that it was really two years after the first turmoil (refers to the time when Jewish children were being taken away to the Russian army) which Jewish children don't remember anymore. An omen even, the red cow clung to us, and that Hanukah she produced for cheese-filled dumplings fpor half the town, for which one licked one's fingers, and the taste stays with a few of the old Jews to this day. One must have time and be quite skillful to prime themselves for such kidns of calculations of Jews from Tunieodevke, wise men...But tht is beside the point.
What's written in my passport is thus: average size, hair- brown and gray, eyes - brown, the nose, the mouth - middling, the beard - gray, the face - clean, (primitive??) personage, particularities - none. This means that I am entirely ordinary, nothing special, a man like many and most people, no beast, G-d forbid. You may ask, if there is a question uneventful as a passport which without these factoids would also be the same information, that a person is a person! Then where do animals get their passports? The justification is, though, that asking questions has no rationale. You know, the whole reason is just this, here are my factoids and you still don't know what kind of face I have...and really though, let's not fool ourselves, that when I come around you will still know, a father-in-law, that my forehead is high with a lot of wrinkles, that my nostirls are very big, and a bit unusual, that my face at first sight looks a bit sinister, that I look, I think, a bit nearsighted because of my small eyes, and as I tighten my lips, it seems there hovers on them a small, mild, sharp, pointy-lipped smile, sillyness, my goodness! My wife even for our wedding was not interested in such little details. She was attracted to me like a blind etrog, not looking at my face and - so-so! They told her: Mazel Tov, bride, you have a groom. And enough. What concern is it then that he has such a nose, such a face? What's the big deal and why does it matter? Pity, I know better now, my friends, that I am married and from my children I have nothing to boast. So you understand that I have, no evil eye, many children. What else does a Jew have?...I'm just like the rest.
I sell my wares, as you can tell, I sell books. I've had, in my life, all kinds of jobs. It (throws me, like a father-in-law is, for Jews, on all sides, to the end I make a living with my hands, in the whole earth allof these Jews!) And I was drawn to the books, and from that do I continue to make my living today.
You know, from my face you could think that books ar a really wild occupation. I will become rich! And from that basis will Jews - who yearn foolishlky for a job to support themselves and do one thing or another - scramble to the books like a swarm of locusts. Believe me Jewish children, that I am a Jew, a (? and to boot?) these are what I sell: chumashim, siddurim, machzorim, apologees, lamentations, supplications, bentschers, and the like, are as necessary, as they say, as water on buckwheat groats. And I must bring with me talit - ktanim from Herset, Talitot from Dobnav, tzitzit, leather phylactory straps, shofars, mezuzahs, wolf teeth, seashells, childish shoes, yarmulkes, and sometiems brass and copperware. How such brass and copperware goes with books I have no idea. But that is still our custom, just like Jewish writers must somettimes also be matchmakers, a Polish beadle in a small synagogue must have a small tavern there, a (community-man?) must sometimes during the celebration of fine skilled people cook fish an serve it, like a rabbi in a small town must be drawn to make a living as a midwife. An afer all thse things it's hard for me, I have no money to call my own. A miracle, to trade in books like mine when you need not rend a stockroom with the (?) Enough, moreover, whithout such a road I wouldn't have such a horse to ride on. My horse is old and weary, limps a little when he plants his feet, unassumingly, he is tolerable. One doesn't need to race arolund when carrying potash. So one carries all this stuff on his way, covered, as it were a booth, and one carries oneself healthily. (A bell rings excessively, one gets away with a squeak from the talkers??? Standing at inns in a separate number travel together with pomp and one doesn't need anything else, turn quickly into the shady horse.) These always stay in the synagogue. The unhitched horse stands, eats (shitskse) bu it didn't have any more, from (?) spread between the high, erect shafts of the cart. (You may ask what young boys sneak and quietly tear him from the strings?) That is also no accident, that it seems entirely without a tail, (with the fashion) you may ask what, an unfortulate animal? By all means! My shlimazel of a horse stands completely still and calm, it doesn't begin to bother him. He would sometiems therefore drop his lower lip, drooling, and furthermore he laughs with his teeth, completely like by comparison a person. He did this once, he had nothing to eat, he stood comtemplatively with perked ears, lookign around the booth at the boos, I could have sworn that he understood very well with his horsey brain and reacted with might and main, something just like a secular scholar, really...but that's bside the poing.
Never mind, the horse is supplied with the school yeard, and alone one finds a place in the study house. By day, in front of the community, one sprawls all of the books on a long dirty table which is by the entrance next to the oven and at night one lays on a bench there like a faher in a wine-house, and one sleps on that which the rest of the world stands. And this very whole piece of the world, poor and poor, gives this for fre and with great honor.
(If so, but yes like this, but sleeping wandering around and ? therefore is the question), why did I decide to go into book selling? And what do I think, no evil eye, is this kidn of work? It is hard to answer that question, it still isn't clear to me...
Friends, I confess! I have a kind of (exquisite weakness from a small distance), Heaven preserve us, which in their language they call: love for nature, this means for everything which grows, which sprouts, which lives, which is found in the world. (It makes me tremble, if only this were to become true.) Oce something crawled into my head, a pretty face, an image, a shape - a blade of grass, a tree, a ?, a bird. How come, how come, men will say, how is a Jew with a beard not ashamed of this, a Jew ?, a married one, a father of children, why does he need to talk of the way of nature...think, contemplate prayer things, and even aside from them, how is one not ashamed purely and simply as a Jew to be up to stupidity, nature, watching ? things? I know this very, very well, that this isn't fitting for a Jew, but what will I do, as this si for me, and not you, an inborn weakness, an evil impulse, which draws me forth like a magnet. And what then? I should do something in spite of this with an employer, something serious, important, as with Jewishness, a father - in- law, and with a way to support myself. (In there with the holy moon I put myself up whereas in properly speaking shaking beween the world/community - I stretch toward the beautiful starry sky wiuth my thoughts to the melancholy moon, charming, I think, G-d knows what, some light troubles, beautiful, burning, thoughtful eyes, a sigh, a poetic, two-embroidered, gentle tree. And ask me, I don't have the slightest idea - what my mouth mumbles about htis. Someone says to me "Sholom Aleychem" and I say to him "Lecha dodi likrat kalah" this is equal with the etrog, with the lulav, with the willow twig (for Hashanah Rabbah) and forget the mitzvahs, the oneness of G-d, which indoors,) the holy one belssed be G-d with the Shkhine at his side, gives us pleasure from beauty, freshness, with the smells an enjoyment. The point of going to Tashlich, a serious Jewish thing, releasing us from our sins, is for me a beautiful walk, as I say. I look with my eyes at the river, the green muck which shivers on one side far away. And it seems to me a wind murmers on the water, proudly swimming as though an animal, it blows in a corner, it whispers among high-growing berries, it rinses itself, it plays in a willow tree, beding with the twigs in the water. Pure is the sky, the wind is fresh, a divine silence in the valley, hills, and fields, around and around. It shivers a little in the soul, it loings, desires, oh Master of the Universe, (alone not to know what)... I go for walks in my life. In fields, in forests, (I am still not this, which in a town, I am free.) I shed years, what care have I for wife, children, Judaism, worries. I derive pride from the overflowing creation, I give myself over to my senses, as anyone who drinks in G-d's beautiful world!...
This evil impuls,m Heven prserve us, Jewish children, grumbled inside of me, Mendl! Your trade of books is fitting for you. Make a pledge, sell your wife's little jewlery and buy a (fourth-and-trail), pack it with books and go out into the world. Whether you earn money or not, it's all the same, the point is to travel around, (you must not envy what you get from conspicuousness), hear a lot of nice things along the way. (Blame the way that you are located) lay out like a king on the wagon to look around at each little shred of G-d's stunning beautiful work and his creations, in hills and valleys, in fields and forests. This horse will carry you slwoly, slowly, and you will look and look. This way - on the way, and coming to towns and cities, will you see many different kinds of Jews, beautiful despairs, fine skil;ls, strange mean things, all kinds of souls, twisted backs, haughty noses, long hands, shrew fingers, different faces of old and new varieties. You will get them to tell stories, to sing and to talk.
Now do you understand me better, Jews?
At present, for a considerable time I've traveled in the world, and my evil impulse continues to grumble within me - so it goes - it grumbles - go print the stories that you have heard Jews tell for the whole time you (have wandered between them)!
Go! - I thought to myself - alright, let it be so.
It seems that everything says that I should do it. Incidentally, I am more like a person. Maybe I have forgotten something. I will, remembering it, say it, though I'm not promising anything, in one of my books that are being published. And furthermore, if someone really wants to know something that I haven't said, may he take the trouble to write me and he will soon get an answer from me.
My address is: Mendlo Yudelvitzcho the book seller. And the following: Garodi, Tvietschizsi. The title Gosponido Verrio you don't need to write. No matter - who neds to know.
In my class on Mendele, we are reading a selection in which Mendele Mocher Seforim (Mendele the Bookseller) introduces himself to the reading public. I couldn't find an English translation, and left with th option of reading the selection in Hebrew or Yiddish, I chose Yiddish. What follows is my rough translation, which I am posting because I am inordinately proud of it. The parts in parentheses were bits that I'm not sure I understood:
"What's your name?" This is the first wuestion that a Jew asks another complete stranger, as soon as he meets him and greets him with a handshake. (No one goes out at a bisy time entirely with his thoughts directed upwards, as they must call out in this manner), "What are you, sir, in order that you want to know what m name is? We want to become connected via marragie? I am called what people call me, and leave me alone!" No, of course not, the question "What's your name" is a completely naturl thing, it's found in nature, exactly like pulling on someone's new kaftan with a question, "What's the price? How much does 28 inches cost?" or like asking for a cigarette a the time when someone opens up their tobacco pouch, or like sticking your finger in someone's tobacco pouch and taking a pinch of snuff, like dipping your feet into someone's bath, immersing your grimy kerchief in it and rubbing it on your body, (like looking around for something in the prayerbook and revising it in a respectfut way, and turning the page when someone had not properly spoken the words of the prayer), like interrupting a conversation between two people to stick your ear in to overhear their conversation, or like asking if the cracks in someone's light skin are concerning, outlining some advice for him, although no one had ever thought of this with any urgency, and they could go on not knowing, and also he could not know, very well. The same and similar more of these things are, for us Jews, all common. Such is the order of the world from eternal times and to say otherwise would seem completely, really, clearly crazy, something strange and absurd, entirely unnatural...and not just in this world, but here in our world an angel first asked "What's your name, sir", the angel, who had wresteled with Jacobm wasn't different from the order of the world, and he soon really, as it goes, gave a question, what was his name. So is an angel, even today is a simple even a sinning man, of flesh and blood. I know very well, as in my first departure into Jewish literature, as they call it, with my stories, what the first question will be, "What's your name, uncle?"
Mendele is my name! This, gentlemen, is the name they gave me from my old grandfather from my mother's side Reb Mendele from Moscow, may his memory be for a blessing. Moscover was the name of his side because people said that he once was really in Moscow to sell there Russian wares and (safely found luck/happiness) and before he had looked around he moved out from there. A pity as I've never been there - silliness! But in Moscow, by the Russians, he was, and so he was called. Thus he procured in that shred a name of honor. Everyone thought him to be a gentleman, worldly man, who has been all over the world, and without ever a care, (a very honerable man) they used to ask his advice...But that's beside the point.
(Therefore we are done with that now) After this first question Jews continue to pose all kinds of other questions, like a father-in-law: where is this Jew from? Is he married? Does he have kids? What is he selling Where is he heading? So on and so forth, all kinds of questions, which are asked like this by every Jew of the Jewish people, so if you are going to meet with people, you should heretofore know, that I am, Thank G-d, a person, a worn down one, no (bank squeezer) and what one must even so answer, just like saying "A Gut Yor" after someone's "Gut Shabbes" or "Gut yuntif" I will not pick a quarrel with the world and I will answer these same questions quickly and succinctly, if I still may.
I am only a (?) from Tvuetsitz, a small town, a little city, Keyn ain hore, in the province of Teterivk, filled with goodness and religiosity, like Glupsk's father-in-law, with it's wisdom, Kabtzansk with its wealth, and Tuneiodevke with its factories - beautiful places - with such merits, Thank G-d, which impacted and continue to impact the Jewish condition in our corner here in the Diasopora...but that's beside the point.
In my passport my birth year is written clearly but thruth be told, I, like many a Jew, don't know my age and can't determine it. My parents, peace be with them, differed greatly in their reckoning of my age. According to both of them, I was born to the first light during the great fire of the store, which isn't remembered today. So according to my father's calculations this was during the great chill that came to our corner, exactly in the time when his parents, may their memory be for a blessing, passed away. And my mother used to say that it was really two years after the first turmoil (refers to the time when Jewish children were being taken away to the Russian army) which Jewish children don't remember anymore. An omen even, the red cow clung to us, and that Hanukah she produced for cheese-filled dumplings fpor half the town, for which one licked one's fingers, and the taste stays with a few of the old Jews to this day. One must have time and be quite skillful to prime themselves for such kidns of calculations of Jews from Tunieodevke, wise men...But tht is beside the point.
What's written in my passport is thus: average size, hair- brown and gray, eyes - brown, the nose, the mouth - middling, the beard - gray, the face - clean, (primitive??) personage, particularities - none. This means that I am entirely ordinary, nothing special, a man like many and most people, no beast, G-d forbid. You may ask, if there is a question uneventful as a passport which without these factoids would also be the same information, that a person is a person! Then where do animals get their passports? The justification is, though, that asking questions has no rationale. You know, the whole reason is just this, here are my factoids and you still don't know what kind of face I have...and really though, let's not fool ourselves, that when I come around you will still know, a father-in-law, that my forehead is high with a lot of wrinkles, that my nostirls are very big, and a bit unusual, that my face at first sight looks a bit sinister, that I look, I think, a bit nearsighted because of my small eyes, and as I tighten my lips, it seems there hovers on them a small, mild, sharp, pointy-lipped smile, sillyness, my goodness! My wife even for our wedding was not interested in such little details. She was attracted to me like a blind etrog, not looking at my face and - so-so! They told her: Mazel Tov, bride, you have a groom. And enough. What concern is it then that he has such a nose, such a face? What's the big deal and why does it matter? Pity, I know better now, my friends, that I am married and from my children I have nothing to boast. So you understand that I have, no evil eye, many children. What else does a Jew have?...I'm just like the rest.
I sell my wares, as you can tell, I sell books. I've had, in my life, all kinds of jobs. It (throws me, like a father-in-law is, for Jews, on all sides, to the end I make a living with my hands, in the whole earth allof these Jews!) And I was drawn to the books, and from that do I continue to make my living today.
You know, from my face you could think that books ar a really wild occupation. I will become rich! And from that basis will Jews - who yearn foolishlky for a job to support themselves and do one thing or another - scramble to the books like a swarm of locusts. Believe me Jewish children, that I am a Jew, a (? and to boot?) these are what I sell: chumashim, siddurim, machzorim, apologees, lamentations, supplications, bentschers, and the like, are as necessary, as they say, as water on buckwheat groats. And I must bring with me talit - ktanim from Herset, Talitot from Dobnav, tzitzit, leather phylactory straps, shofars, mezuzahs, wolf teeth, seashells, childish shoes, yarmulkes, and sometiems brass and copperware. How such brass and copperware goes with books I have no idea. But that is still our custom, just like Jewish writers must somettimes also be matchmakers, a Polish beadle in a small synagogue must have a small tavern there, a (community-man?) must sometimes during the celebration of fine skilled people cook fish an serve it, like a rabbi in a small town must be drawn to make a living as a midwife. An afer all thse things it's hard for me, I have no money to call my own. A miracle, to trade in books like mine when you need not rend a stockroom with the (?) Enough, moreover, whithout such a road I wouldn't have such a horse to ride on. My horse is old and weary, limps a little when he plants his feet, unassumingly, he is tolerable. One doesn't need to race arolund when carrying potash. So one carries all this stuff on his way, covered, as it were a booth, and one carries oneself healthily. (A bell rings excessively, one gets away with a squeak from the talkers??? Standing at inns in a separate number travel together with pomp and one doesn't need anything else, turn quickly into the shady horse.) These always stay in the synagogue. The unhitched horse stands, eats (shitskse) bu it didn't have any more, from (?) spread between the high, erect shafts of the cart. (You may ask what young boys sneak and quietly tear him from the strings?) That is also no accident, that it seems entirely without a tail, (with the fashion) you may ask what, an unfortulate animal? By all means! My shlimazel of a horse stands completely still and calm, it doesn't begin to bother him. He would sometiems therefore drop his lower lip, drooling, and furthermore he laughs with his teeth, completely like by comparison a person. He did this once, he had nothing to eat, he stood comtemplatively with perked ears, lookign around the booth at the boos, I could have sworn that he understood very well with his horsey brain and reacted with might and main, something just like a secular scholar, really...but that's bside the poing.
Never mind, the horse is supplied with the school yeard, and alone one finds a place in the study house. By day, in front of the community, one sprawls all of the books on a long dirty table which is by the entrance next to the oven and at night one lays on a bench there like a faher in a wine-house, and one sleps on that which the rest of the world stands. And this very whole piece of the world, poor and poor, gives this for fre and with great honor.
(If so, but yes like this, but sleeping wandering around and ? therefore is the question), why did I decide to go into book selling? And what do I think, no evil eye, is this kidn of work? It is hard to answer that question, it still isn't clear to me...
Friends, I confess! I have a kind of (exquisite weakness from a small distance), Heaven preserve us, which in their language they call: love for nature, this means for everything which grows, which sprouts, which lives, which is found in the world. (It makes me tremble, if only this were to become true.) Oce something crawled into my head, a pretty face, an image, a shape - a blade of grass, a tree, a ?, a bird. How come, how come, men will say, how is a Jew with a beard not ashamed of this, a Jew ?, a married one, a father of children, why does he need to talk of the way of nature...think, contemplate prayer things, and even aside from them, how is one not ashamed purely and simply as a Jew to be up to stupidity, nature, watching ? things? I know this very, very well, that this isn't fitting for a Jew, but what will I do, as this si for me, and not you, an inborn weakness, an evil impulse, which draws me forth like a magnet. And what then? I should do something in spite of this with an employer, something serious, important, as with Jewishness, a father - in- law, and with a way to support myself. (In there with the holy moon I put myself up whereas in properly speaking shaking beween the world/community - I stretch toward the beautiful starry sky wiuth my thoughts to the melancholy moon, charming, I think, G-d knows what, some light troubles, beautiful, burning, thoughtful eyes, a sigh, a poetic, two-embroidered, gentle tree. And ask me, I don't have the slightest idea - what my mouth mumbles about htis. Someone says to me "Sholom Aleychem" and I say to him "Lecha dodi likrat kalah" this is equal with the etrog, with the lulav, with the willow twig (for Hashanah Rabbah) and forget the mitzvahs, the oneness of G-d, which indoors,) the holy one belssed be G-d with the Shkhine at his side, gives us pleasure from beauty, freshness, with the smells an enjoyment. The point of going to Tashlich, a serious Jewish thing, releasing us from our sins, is for me a beautiful walk, as I say. I look with my eyes at the river, the green muck which shivers on one side far away. And it seems to me a wind murmers on the water, proudly swimming as though an animal, it blows in a corner, it whispers among high-growing berries, it rinses itself, it plays in a willow tree, beding with the twigs in the water. Pure is the sky, the wind is fresh, a divine silence in the valley, hills, and fields, around and around. It shivers a little in the soul, it loings, desires, oh Master of the Universe, (alone not to know what)... I go for walks in my life. In fields, in forests, (I am still not this, which in a town, I am free.) I shed years, what care have I for wife, children, Judaism, worries. I derive pride from the overflowing creation, I give myself over to my senses, as anyone who drinks in G-d's beautiful world!...
This evil impuls,m Heven prserve us, Jewish children, grumbled inside of me, Mendl! Your trade of books is fitting for you. Make a pledge, sell your wife's little jewlery and buy a (fourth-and-trail), pack it with books and go out into the world. Whether you earn money or not, it's all the same, the point is to travel around, (you must not envy what you get from conspicuousness), hear a lot of nice things along the way. (Blame the way that you are located) lay out like a king on the wagon to look around at each little shred of G-d's stunning beautiful work and his creations, in hills and valleys, in fields and forests. This horse will carry you slwoly, slowly, and you will look and look. This way - on the way, and coming to towns and cities, will you see many different kinds of Jews, beautiful despairs, fine skil;ls, strange mean things, all kinds of souls, twisted backs, haughty noses, long hands, shrew fingers, different faces of old and new varieties. You will get them to tell stories, to sing and to talk.
Now do you understand me better, Jews?
At present, for a considerable time I've traveled in the world, and my evil impulse continues to grumble within me - so it goes - it grumbles - go print the stories that you have heard Jews tell for the whole time you (have wandered between them)!
Go! - I thought to myself - alright, let it be so.
It seems that everything says that I should do it. Incidentally, I am more like a person. Maybe I have forgotten something. I will, remembering it, say it, though I'm not promising anything, in one of my books that are being published. And furthermore, if someone really wants to know something that I haven't said, may he take the trouble to write me and he will soon get an answer from me.
My address is: Mendlo Yudelvitzcho the book seller. And the following: Garodi, Tvietschizsi. The title Gosponido Verrio you don't need to write. No matter - who neds to know.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
For Your Reading Pleasure
A poem we read in Yiddish class - the translation is mine, so bear with me...
By the White Tables, by Mani Leib
By the white tables I sat for a long while,
And looked into eyes, and talked, talked,
And in those eyes I forgot myself,
Until the old waiter said into my ear,
With a good smile and with a soft voice,
Apologetically told me: It's late...
OK, bye!... Tomorrow I will return.
Streets. Night. A fog blew, blew.
Streets. And from out of the fog emerged
Eyes. Those eyes, light and teary,
And like moving, shining stars,
They accompanied me, insignificant me, homeward.
Manny Leib, born Manny Leib Branhinsky in 1883 in Nizhn, a small town not far from Kiev, arrived in America at the age of 22. He worked in shoe factories in New York, where he eventually contracted tuberculosis from their poor working conditions. Leib began his poetry career by translating Ukranian and Russian poetry into Yiddish for the Yiddish daily newspaper, the Forverts. He wrote poetry for adults and also for children, and is known for having brought a formal complexity to Yiddish poetry, consisting of tight rhymes and soft, polished sounds. He was a leader and founding member of the American Yiddish poetry group Di Yunge (the Young Ones). (The information above I mostly found at the NYBC website).
By the way, thanks for the teddy bears and well wishes. I am on the mend.
By the White Tables, by Mani Leib
By the white tables I sat for a long while,
And looked into eyes, and talked, talked,
And in those eyes I forgot myself,
Until the old waiter said into my ear,
With a good smile and with a soft voice,
Apologetically told me: It's late...
OK, bye!... Tomorrow I will return.
Streets. Night. A fog blew, blew.
Streets. And from out of the fog emerged
Eyes. Those eyes, light and teary,
And like moving, shining stars,
They accompanied me, insignificant me, homeward.
Manny Leib, born Manny Leib Branhinsky in 1883 in Nizhn, a small town not far from Kiev, arrived in America at the age of 22. He worked in shoe factories in New York, where he eventually contracted tuberculosis from their poor working conditions. Leib began his poetry career by translating Ukranian and Russian poetry into Yiddish for the Yiddish daily newspaper, the Forverts. He wrote poetry for adults and also for children, and is known for having brought a formal complexity to Yiddish poetry, consisting of tight rhymes and soft, polished sounds. He was a leader and founding member of the American Yiddish poetry group Di Yunge (the Young Ones). (The information above I mostly found at the NYBC website).
By the way, thanks for the teddy bears and well wishes. I am on the mend.
Friday, August 22, 2008
my first visit to Yung Yiddish
Yesterday's was an afternoon of language learning. I came home, and decided I'd had enough of Hebrew and I was going to work a little bit on Yiddish. I'd printed out a story in Yiddish that had been published in Pakn Treger (the National Yiddish Book Center's magazine) a few months ago - the stories are published in the magazine with the Yiddish on one page and the translation on the opposing page. I printed out both, but have decided to write my own translation and not to look at the published one, and to compare notes when I'm finished. It is a long story and at the rate I'm going it will take me something like two weeks if I do a little every day. We'll see how it goes.
When I got sick of doing Yiddish, I switched to Hebrew. I decided to write the essay that's due Sunday, so I could free up my time over the weekend to work on my homework for literature class, which includes writing a short childhood memoir (Yes!!!) and a literary critique (Double Yes!!). In the meantime, I wrote my essay on - and I did not choose the topic myself - Is it possible/acceptable to create art about the Holocaust? I answered the question by telling a few anecdotes about art that I felt either successfully or unsuccessfully honored the Holocaust. I then went on to discuss the ideas of Theodore Adorno, who famously declared that to write a poem after the Holocaust is simply barbaric. He later went on to revisit this quotation and to note that in our era of incomprehensible suffering, art is necessary. I discussed how I agree with Adorno's sense of the tension between wanting to honor the unspeakable by not trying to describe it - in describing it perhaps you lessen or soften it, and in creating something beautiful or aesthetically pleasing in some way, you make suffering more palatable - and wanting to remember and acknowledge the unspeakable by speaking (and creating) of it. This was not an easy essay to write in Hebrew, and I hope that what I wrote in Hebrew at least makes grammatical sense, if nothing else.
At 7:00 I left the apartment to go to Yung Yiddish, the organization with whom I've been in contact with for quite a while in anticipation of interning/volunteering while I am in Jerusalem. I had told the director of Yung Yiddish that I would meet him there at 8:00, a half hour before this evening's program, to introduce myself. I got on the bus and asked the driver to make sure I was on the right bus. I told him I'd never been to Rehov Yerimiyhu before and asked if he could let me know when we were there. After a while I pulled out my map and checked some street signs. I noticed that we were on Yerimiyhu, only in an area where it has a different name. "Great!" I thought, "we must be almost there!" It was 7:50. The bus driver didn't say anything to me, and after a while I noticed that we were on bigger roads with bigger stores and things were getting farther apart. More and more the signs said things like "To Tel Aviv" rather than "To City Center." I was getting a bit nervous, but was willing to trust the bus driver a bit longer. We were off my map, but I thought maybe we were going only a little out of the way and then would be going back toward Yerimiyhu. It was 8:00 and I didn't bring the Yung Yiddish phone number with me. We drove into a suburb. We were going pretty slow because it seemed there were bus stops every few seconds. I said to the bus driver, "Excuse me, but I don;t know where we are. I wanted to go to Yerimiyhu and you told me..." He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I forgot," He said, "And I have to keep going this way." "What should I do?" I asked him. He said, "Stay here and return with me." When we had reached the end of the route and he was turning around, he stopped the bus and had me point to where I wanted to go on a map. He told me we would be there soon. We picked up lots of people along the way and made a lot of stops, but when we got to Yerimiyhu he didn't forget this time. So, I got off the bus at Yerimiyhu. It was 9:00. That is not a type-o. So, I get off the bus and realize that I am alone in the dark in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. I am wearing a longsleeved shirt and a skirt that just barely covers my knees. Not very modest for this area, but not disrespectfully immodest either, I think.
Nevertheless, I definately felt uncomfortable and a bit worried, particularly as I didn't know where I was going. The bus dropped me off at number 14 or so and Yung Yiddish is 52. I walked for a while and then asked a nice-looking older woman for directions. She said I was only at 38 and should just keep going straight. Eventually, I came to a small building with a sign out in front that read "Yung Yiddish"
Yung Yiddish is housed in the basement of a small building. The walls were lined with old friendly-looking Yiddish books crowded into bookshelves that encroached into the performance space. In one nook there was technical/sound equipment hidden by curtains and sheets that made it look like a colorful circus tent. Staff kept poppin their heads in and out of the tent to speak to the performer and ask if the music was loud enough. There were rows of seats on two sides - maybe enough to seat fifty. Most of the seats were filled and some people were standing in the back, near the door. I found myself a seat near the back. The room was unbearably hot - no fans or air conditioners. The audience was composed of a mish mosh of characters - an elderly woman sat next to me and it seemed that she only speaks Yiddish. At first she ignored me but after a while of my singing along to some of the music, she started to smile at me, and then she said to me in Yiddish, "You are so young to know Yiddish!" There were a few ultra-orthodox men, a fifty-something couple with the woman wearing pants and a t-shirt, a secular family with Yiddish speaking kids, there was a man with a T-shirt that said "Toronto" on it, a gap-toothed man who sang and danced vivaciously, and many others - I would venture to say that few of the people at Yung Yiddish seemed like people I would have been likely to encounter anywhere else. The performer, Tommy Schwartz, has this incredible deep, warm, voice, and speaks slowly with an enchanting lilt when he tells stories. He sang popular Yiddish cabaret songs like "Di Grine Kuzine," "By Mir Bistu Sheyn," "Vus Dergeisti Mir Di Lorn" and "Der Rebbe Elimelich," and in between them interspersed anecdotes and jokes in Yiddish. Occasionally he would translate what he was saying to English (Though I was proud and surprised to realize that not only did I understand most of the Yiddish, but I also already knew most of the songs) - I'm not sure if he knows Hebrew, and I think from what I understood of his speaking, he is from Hungary. After his many fabulous songs, Mendy, the director of Yung Yiddish, stood up to sing. He sang a piece I was not familiar with - it was very theatrical and evocative, and eerily heartbreaking. Mendy has a sweet tenor voice and the performance was done with genuine feeling, as though he were a well trained stage actor, which for all I know may be the case. He was followed by another woman who sang Edith Piaf's "Le Vie en Rose" translated into Yiddish - it was exquisite. The whole evening was fun, people sang along, commented to each other, mostly in Yiddish but some in Hebrew, about the performances, and at the back a woman translated the Yiddish into Hebrew for some people who didn't know the Yiddish. It was rare that there was silence in the room during a performance- people were drinking, greeting friends, etc. After a little singing and a few speeches, wine and vodka was passed around so we could make a toast to Tommy, in whose honor all of this was happening. The toast was followed by more songs for the audience to sing to. At one point I had a chance to introduce myself to Mendy when he went outside for some fresh, cool air. He was very excited to meet me and told me to stay until the end so he could have a chance to talk to me. I was a bit worried about catching the bus but stayed anyway. At the end of the concert someone asked me in Yiddish, and then when it took me a minute to understand what he was saying asked again in Hebrew, where I had learned the songs from - did I learn Yiddish from my parents? I told him that I studied some Yiddish in university. He asked if I speak it, and I said, "yes, but not well" - he asked if I speak Hebrew and I said, "I also speak Hebrew, but not well." He said, "Great, then we will speak a cocktail of languages" and we proceeded to have a conversation that was a mishmosh of Hebrew and Yiddish, which was absolutely perfect. Yiddish was his first language, he learned it from his parents. It seems that most of the people at YY learned Yiddish from their parents, whether in Orthodox homes or because their parents were immigrants to Israel whose native language was Yiddish. He lives in Tel Aviv but is very fond of YY (whose headquarters are in Tel Aviv) and comes when he can to the Jerusalem programs. It seemed that a lot of the people at YY knew each other and were regular attendees. It's a strange, quirkly, little community that I am excited to be a part of. As everyone was starting to leave, Tommy Schwartz approached me and asked me in Yiddish, "where are you from pretty young woman?" I responded "I'm from the US" and he responded, "Well, we can't all be perfect." Then he pinched my cheek, and left. Mendy sat down to speak to me for a bit - first we had to decide what language to speak in. We settled on English. He told me that he is very excited that I am interested in helping out, and that I can basically do whatever I want or think is needed. The headquarters are in Tel Aviv, but if for instance I wanted to work at YY twice a week in the afternoons, he would start advertising that the Jerusalem YY library would be open those hours, and that there would also be someone there to answer the phone. He said the books are in some semblace of order but could use a better system of organization, so that might be a good place to start. He also said that the biggest problem YY faces is with regard to funding. He's having problems holding on to the Tel Aviv location, and in general is concerned about fundraising. I told him I don't have much experience with that, and he asked me if I am a good writer. I said that in English, yes, I like to write. He was very excited about this. He suggested that I could write articles about Yung Yiddish events and that once a month I could produce an English language newsletter about YY that he could send to current or potential supporters. I told him that this is something that I could definately do. We parted, both expressing our excitement to be working with one another. He will be in New York for a few weeks, and then there's the holdiays and all that, so we're not sure when I would start, but at least we've met and that will get the ball rolling a bit.
I am really excited to be getting involved in this unique organization, and it is fun that Mendy is so excited for me to help out and so willing to have me do basically whatever I want if I think it will help. I think this will be a great learning opportunity for me - a chance to speak Yiddish, to experience Yiddish culture through music, lectures, and books, and a way to become a part of something in Jerusalem that involves no Americans and no people my age - a chance to get a little bit outside the 'bubble' and outside my comfort zone, and to explore. I'm sure that you will be hearing much more about YY on this blog in the future.
When I got sick of doing Yiddish, I switched to Hebrew. I decided to write the essay that's due Sunday, so I could free up my time over the weekend to work on my homework for literature class, which includes writing a short childhood memoir (Yes!!!) and a literary critique (Double Yes!!). In the meantime, I wrote my essay on - and I did not choose the topic myself - Is it possible/acceptable to create art about the Holocaust? I answered the question by telling a few anecdotes about art that I felt either successfully or unsuccessfully honored the Holocaust. I then went on to discuss the ideas of Theodore Adorno, who famously declared that to write a poem after the Holocaust is simply barbaric. He later went on to revisit this quotation and to note that in our era of incomprehensible suffering, art is necessary. I discussed how I agree with Adorno's sense of the tension between wanting to honor the unspeakable by not trying to describe it - in describing it perhaps you lessen or soften it, and in creating something beautiful or aesthetically pleasing in some way, you make suffering more palatable - and wanting to remember and acknowledge the unspeakable by speaking (and creating) of it. This was not an easy essay to write in Hebrew, and I hope that what I wrote in Hebrew at least makes grammatical sense, if nothing else.
At 7:00 I left the apartment to go to Yung Yiddish, the organization with whom I've been in contact with for quite a while in anticipation of interning/volunteering while I am in Jerusalem. I had told the director of Yung Yiddish that I would meet him there at 8:00, a half hour before this evening's program, to introduce myself. I got on the bus and asked the driver to make sure I was on the right bus. I told him I'd never been to Rehov Yerimiyhu before and asked if he could let me know when we were there. After a while I pulled out my map and checked some street signs. I noticed that we were on Yerimiyhu, only in an area where it has a different name. "Great!" I thought, "we must be almost there!" It was 7:50. The bus driver didn't say anything to me, and after a while I noticed that we were on bigger roads with bigger stores and things were getting farther apart. More and more the signs said things like "To Tel Aviv" rather than "To City Center." I was getting a bit nervous, but was willing to trust the bus driver a bit longer. We were off my map, but I thought maybe we were going only a little out of the way and then would be going back toward Yerimiyhu. It was 8:00 and I didn't bring the Yung Yiddish phone number with me. We drove into a suburb. We were going pretty slow because it seemed there were bus stops every few seconds. I said to the bus driver, "Excuse me, but I don;t know where we are. I wanted to go to Yerimiyhu and you told me..." He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I forgot," He said, "And I have to keep going this way." "What should I do?" I asked him. He said, "Stay here and return with me." When we had reached the end of the route and he was turning around, he stopped the bus and had me point to where I wanted to go on a map. He told me we would be there soon. We picked up lots of people along the way and made a lot of stops, but when we got to Yerimiyhu he didn't forget this time. So, I got off the bus at Yerimiyhu. It was 9:00. That is not a type-o. So, I get off the bus and realize that I am alone in the dark in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. I am wearing a longsleeved shirt and a skirt that just barely covers my knees. Not very modest for this area, but not disrespectfully immodest either, I think.
Nevertheless, I definately felt uncomfortable and a bit worried, particularly as I didn't know where I was going. The bus dropped me off at number 14 or so and Yung Yiddish is 52. I walked for a while and then asked a nice-looking older woman for directions. She said I was only at 38 and should just keep going straight. Eventually, I came to a small building with a sign out in front that read "Yung Yiddish"
Yung Yiddish is housed in the basement of a small building. The walls were lined with old friendly-looking Yiddish books crowded into bookshelves that encroached into the performance space. In one nook there was technical/sound equipment hidden by curtains and sheets that made it look like a colorful circus tent. Staff kept poppin their heads in and out of the tent to speak to the performer and ask if the music was loud enough. There were rows of seats on two sides - maybe enough to seat fifty. Most of the seats were filled and some people were standing in the back, near the door. I found myself a seat near the back. The room was unbearably hot - no fans or air conditioners. The audience was composed of a mish mosh of characters - an elderly woman sat next to me and it seemed that she only speaks Yiddish. At first she ignored me but after a while of my singing along to some of the music, she started to smile at me, and then she said to me in Yiddish, "You are so young to know Yiddish!" There were a few ultra-orthodox men, a fifty-something couple with the woman wearing pants and a t-shirt, a secular family with Yiddish speaking kids, there was a man with a T-shirt that said "Toronto" on it, a gap-toothed man who sang and danced vivaciously, and many others - I would venture to say that few of the people at Yung Yiddish seemed like people I would have been likely to encounter anywhere else. The performer, Tommy Schwartz, has this incredible deep, warm, voice, and speaks slowly with an enchanting lilt when he tells stories. He sang popular Yiddish cabaret songs like "Di Grine Kuzine," "By Mir Bistu Sheyn," "Vus Dergeisti Mir Di Lorn" and "Der Rebbe Elimelich," and in between them interspersed anecdotes and jokes in Yiddish. Occasionally he would translate what he was saying to English (Though I was proud and surprised to realize that not only did I understand most of the Yiddish, but I also already knew most of the songs) - I'm not sure if he knows Hebrew, and I think from what I understood of his speaking, he is from Hungary. After his many fabulous songs, Mendy, the director of Yung Yiddish, stood up to sing. He sang a piece I was not familiar with - it was very theatrical and evocative, and eerily heartbreaking. Mendy has a sweet tenor voice and the performance was done with genuine feeling, as though he were a well trained stage actor, which for all I know may be the case. He was followed by another woman who sang Edith Piaf's "Le Vie en Rose" translated into Yiddish - it was exquisite. The whole evening was fun, people sang along, commented to each other, mostly in Yiddish but some in Hebrew, about the performances, and at the back a woman translated the Yiddish into Hebrew for some people who didn't know the Yiddish. It was rare that there was silence in the room during a performance- people were drinking, greeting friends, etc. After a little singing and a few speeches, wine and vodka was passed around so we could make a toast to Tommy, in whose honor all of this was happening. The toast was followed by more songs for the audience to sing to. At one point I had a chance to introduce myself to Mendy when he went outside for some fresh, cool air. He was very excited to meet me and told me to stay until the end so he could have a chance to talk to me. I was a bit worried about catching the bus but stayed anyway. At the end of the concert someone asked me in Yiddish, and then when it took me a minute to understand what he was saying asked again in Hebrew, where I had learned the songs from - did I learn Yiddish from my parents? I told him that I studied some Yiddish in university. He asked if I speak it, and I said, "yes, but not well" - he asked if I speak Hebrew and I said, "I also speak Hebrew, but not well." He said, "Great, then we will speak a cocktail of languages" and we proceeded to have a conversation that was a mishmosh of Hebrew and Yiddish, which was absolutely perfect. Yiddish was his first language, he learned it from his parents. It seems that most of the people at YY learned Yiddish from their parents, whether in Orthodox homes or because their parents were immigrants to Israel whose native language was Yiddish. He lives in Tel Aviv but is very fond of YY (whose headquarters are in Tel Aviv) and comes when he can to the Jerusalem programs. It seemed that a lot of the people at YY knew each other and were regular attendees. It's a strange, quirkly, little community that I am excited to be a part of. As everyone was starting to leave, Tommy Schwartz approached me and asked me in Yiddish, "where are you from pretty young woman?" I responded "I'm from the US" and he responded, "Well, we can't all be perfect." Then he pinched my cheek, and left. Mendy sat down to speak to me for a bit - first we had to decide what language to speak in. We settled on English. He told me that he is very excited that I am interested in helping out, and that I can basically do whatever I want or think is needed. The headquarters are in Tel Aviv, but if for instance I wanted to work at YY twice a week in the afternoons, he would start advertising that the Jerusalem YY library would be open those hours, and that there would also be someone there to answer the phone. He said the books are in some semblace of order but could use a better system of organization, so that might be a good place to start. He also said that the biggest problem YY faces is with regard to funding. He's having problems holding on to the Tel Aviv location, and in general is concerned about fundraising. I told him I don't have much experience with that, and he asked me if I am a good writer. I said that in English, yes, I like to write. He was very excited about this. He suggested that I could write articles about Yung Yiddish events and that once a month I could produce an English language newsletter about YY that he could send to current or potential supporters. I told him that this is something that I could definately do. We parted, both expressing our excitement to be working with one another. He will be in New York for a few weeks, and then there's the holdiays and all that, so we're not sure when I would start, but at least we've met and that will get the ball rolling a bit.
I am really excited to be getting involved in this unique organization, and it is fun that Mendy is so excited for me to help out and so willing to have me do basically whatever I want if I think it will help. I think this will be a great learning opportunity for me - a chance to speak Yiddish, to experience Yiddish culture through music, lectures, and books, and a way to become a part of something in Jerusalem that involves no Americans and no people my age - a chance to get a little bit outside the 'bubble' and outside my comfort zone, and to explore. I'm sure that you will be hearing much more about YY on this blog in the future.
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