How in the world did I — a third generation American barely-observant Reform Jew — ever wind up teaching a Yiddish class?
Yiddish was the first language of my European-born grandparents, and my parents as well Although my parents rarely spoke it once their own parents were gone, they certainly understood it.
And when I heard the words “nisht far di kinder,” I snapped to attention to see how much I could understand!
Except for that, I had no further interest until 1995 when my father died. I had been living and working in Washington, D.C. at the time, but when it was clear that he hadn’t much longer I came back to Chicago to help him and my mother.
At the end of his life, Dad was speaking Yiddish frequently to elderly relatives and old friends who visited, and even to his doctor.
And I, in turn, became curious about the hold this language had on all these people whom I had never heard speak anything but perfect, unaccented English.
After my father passed, I was leafing through a travel magazine and noticed a small ad with the words:
"Study Yiddish in London"
Like Alice in Wonderland with the “Drink Me” bottle, I could not resist. I signed up for a three week program sponsored by something called the London Yiddish Institute to be held on the campus of London University.
There we were housed in a college dormitory to spend six hours a day and a few hours in the evening in intensive classes and Yiddish-related cultural activities including singing, dancing and films.
When I told friends I was planning this trip, many thought I had lost my mind. You’ll hate it! They warned.
But I thought - so what - if I don’t like the classes I’ll ditch them and just enjoy some time in London, a city I’ve always loved.
But I didn’t hate the classes. I loved them! Our teachers were fabulous and in three intensive weeks I had a language framework I could build on.
I also attended Yidish Vokh in upstate New York where Yiddish was 24 and 7 with intensive classes and activities to gain and advance Yiddish skills. One of our teachers there was none other than Sheva Zucker! I felt so privileged to take her classes on teaching Yiddish using her book!
While I had practically no Hebrew, I had college Russian and German, so that helped. I really enjoyed these Yiddish programs and the idea of teaching a Yiddish class intrigued me.
I should add that while living in D.C. I had been taking night courses in Linguistics at American University which opened its evening classes to “at large” students in the surrounding community, Over a few years, taking one night class at a time after work, I earned a master’s degree in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).
Also in D.C. I had been teaching English privately to staffers at nearby Embassies and Consulates from all over the world who wanted to improve their English while in the U.S.
So I had at least a bit of training and experience in language teaching.
But when it was clear that my Dad was quite ill and my mother was in poor condition, I returned to Chicago. By now I was in my 60’s and thinking about my own retirement, and this seemed to be the time.
Once in my home town Chicago I checked into my family’s old shul in Hyde Park - KAM-Isaiah Israel. It was nice to be back there.
But the Yiddish was still buzzing around in my brain and after making a few inquiries I wound up studying with Khane-Faygl Turtletaub, z”l, and reading some great authors to whom she introduced me.
After a while I knew I wanted to do more, and so I went to see the manager of KAM-II whom I knew quite well, and asked if I could start a Yiddish class.
She was very kind when she told me that she didn’t think there would be much interest in this, but added that she would put a notice in the temple bulletin and give me a small classroom and we’d see if anyone was interested. She added that I shouldn’t be disappointed if nobody came!
When I got to the classroom early on the first evening, to my total astonishment there were already about a dozen people there and they just kept coming. Soon all the chairs were full and people were standing crowded around the edges of the classroom!
Luckily the night manager was there and moved us all into the biggest room, the library, where about a dozen people could sit around a large table and then he brought in a big rack of folding chairs for the others!
I felt totally overwhelmed! I had no idea how I would manage such a large group when I wanted to give everyone plenty of personal attention and “talk time” to practice their new skills!
But nothing to do but plow ahead!
I introduced myself and went around the room to let everyone introduce themselves. Then I told them a bit about what we would be doing and showed them the text we would use (Sheva Zucker’s of course!)
I also told them a bit about my own background, and that I would do my best to balance the four basic language functions: reading, writing, speaking and listening.
I explained that I was a learner myself and not a native speaker and would have to bring in others so that they could hear more authentic pronunciation, but that I hoped by the end of the year everyone would be able to speak and understand short simple sentences and would be able to read a simple text and know how to use a dictionary to look up new words.
Since I really enjoyed songs (and had written my TESOL master’s dissertation on the role of songs in language learning) I said I’d be including a song in each class as well.
The following week only about a dozen people showed up Most of the others called or stopped by to tell me that they thought that this would be a class where we’d tell Jewish jokes with Yiddish punch lines and the like, and they didn’t expect that we’d actually be studying vocabulary and grammar.
I answered that I totally understood, but that since I was doing this as a volunteer this is what I chose to do, and that we’d have some movies too, to which they were always welcome.
So we were off and running!
The class was a perfect size - about a dozen people — enough to give everyone talk time but without too much pressure on any one person.
A few had grown up in Yiddish speaking homes (with all sorts of dialects) but did not know how to read Yiddish.
And as it was a Reform temple there was not much familiarity with the Hebrew alef beys either. So we’d really be starting from scratch.
But there were a few lucky breaks!
One was a woman in her late ’90’s who had grown up in western Canada in a Yiddish speaking home. Yiddish was her first language, and she knew the language well. But more than that, her profession during her working years was as a high school Latin teacher, so she was well acquainted with case and verb structure and the like.
She certainly did not need this class, but she came just because she was so excited that it was there! I quickly realized what a treasure I had and asked her to sit right next to me, and indeed, she was my right hand — someone I could turn to when I got stuck, and she would quietly correct me when necessary!
If there was a strange word or a sentence or a grammatical feature I didn’t understand she was right there for me — “see Joan — this is a verb that takes an indirect object and so that’s why the ending of this noun is in the dative case!” That kind of thing! Or perhaps I was thrown by an archaic spelling and she knew that right away and again, was there to help!
I thanked her after every class and her response was that I had given her the greatest gift of feeling useful again! Her daughter would bring her to class and I had the great privilege of driving her home!
This class went on for several years! We had completed Sheva Zucker’s Book One and now we were reading real books - mostly short stories by well-known Yiddish authors and poets.
I was thinking of moving on to Sheva Zucker’s Book Two but we never got to that.
But that we could download e-books from the Yiddish Book Center was wonderful. I would give them the URL and they could print out the pages we were reading or read them on their iphones or tablets.
And I kept on studying with my own teacher, Khane-Faygl Turtletaub to keep on top of everything!
Also from time to time I would rent films from the National Yiddish Film Center and we’d have movie nights to which the whole congregation was invited, complete with the popcorn the Temple provided!
These films - -either old silent films or “talkies” with Yiddish and English subtitles, were very popular. I’d give a brief introduction with information I found online and in the book Bridge of Light and we followed the film with a lively discussion that often got into the Yiddish and Jewish role in the filmmaking history.
Then my back broke.
The End.
October 31, 2021
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