Yiddish is alive deep in the heart of Texas
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2015
- Yiddish 101 is an introduction to an ancient language that's attracting new interest at the University of Texas. Richard Schlesinger has a report on the Austin classroom where conversations sound like they could be taking place at a Hasidic Jewish bakery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Every time I hear Yiddish spoken, it takes me back to my childhood in Brooklyn where it was spoken in my home.
I am of Irish ancestry and grew up in a Jewish neighborhood and learned a little Yiddish. I would go to the Deli and listen and learn also. Too bad I didn't learn as much Irish Gaelic-feh!
Never too late to learn your peoples language. The easiest way to fight colonialism.
😂😂😂 (Feh!)! My mother (Jewish Brooklynite) would sometimes say that.
When a language dies, so does its history and culture. It is heartwarming and wonderful to know that Yiddish is still alive and well, and thriving in some places around the world.
The Hasidic communities in NYC (mostly Brooklyn), which mostly started after WW2 are booming in growth - they have around 4 - 5 kids on average and a majority of them speak Yiddish in the house and at school ... the Crown Heights community is the most "assimilated" to modern society and probably has the most number of foreign nationals and immigrants as well ("many" from Israel and France), therefore Yiddish is probably only spoken in 20 - 30% of households over English or Hebrew.
However, the Williamsburg and Borough Park communities are much larger communities and probably 80 - 90% speak fluent Yiddish at home.
So, Yiddish isn't endangered, but it has been initially growing from very small numbers in the USA from not so long ago. Unfortunately, most of the Jews that perished under the Nazis spoke Yiddish - so that more than decimated the number of Yiddish speakers...
If you were a German who spoke no English, the two best places you would be able communicate in a random encounter in the USA would probably be Brooklyn's Yiddish speakers or western Pennsylvania's Amish Deutsche - these two communities speak a Germanic language and aren't shrinking in size, and the language is part of their cultural identity as well...
Ibn Yahud it's the yiddishisten secular Jews who tried to hold on to the Language that died out to assimilation.
Kinda how the yiddish people said Latin was a “dead” language?
I'm Chinese but I've got jewish ancestry on my mother's side. already attended biblical hebrew studies when I was younger, and now I'm picking up Yiddish. Ikh red itzt a bisl yidish
it's calling to your soul :)
Yiddish is a language spoken by Ashkenazi Jews, there are many other Jewish languages
@@yakigesher-zion7289 Indeed, Jews always spoke more than one language pretty much all throughout history...because every Jewish community has Hebrew and Aramaic with them, whatever land they came to live, they would end making a "creole" between the native language and these influences. Basically, any region where Jews lived longer than 500 years, a Jewish dialect of the language would have developed
Efsher bizt ir shoin a yid. Oib deine mame hut geven a yid - biztu oichet a yid.
@@ibnyahud ladino being the most famous. Do you know, is Amharic specific to Ethiopian Jews or is that spoken in Ethiopia generally?
I learned Yiddish from my grandparents (they always spoke it), and, being a musician, I must have had the "ear" for it. I am pretty fluent in it (and I have a pretty authentic accent). My Undergraduate Major was Spanish and French, and I learned those also, but the Yiddish never left me. And obviously, I can get through quite a bit of German, which has much in common with Yiddish. My point is this: If you become immersed in ANY language, you will eventually learn it. Ironically, English is actually considered one of the most difficult languages of all.
We need this for Ladino...
What's Ladino?
A Jewish language very, very similar to Spanish.
you do. It's a beautiful language our sephardi brothers need this
I’m askenaz but I love listening to Ladino.
@@guillermosanchez8843 Yiddish=Ashkenazi,....Ladino=Sephardi
I am a Cuban Jew (here in Miami we are better known as Jewbans ). My generation who left Cuba in the early 60's mostly all spoke Yiddish but again, we are slowly going away. I do believe there is in Charlotte, North Carolina a Jewish Group who also are trying to keep the language alive
Lots of Sefaradi Jewbans (of Syrian- and Turkish-Jewish background) who moved to Miami as well; no? What did they know from Yiddish? (To phrase the question in "Yinglish".)
My great aunt was born in Poland but moved to Guatemala, where there is a small but pretty wealthy Jewish community. After her husband died she moved to the Miami area to be closer to family. She spoke no English. However, she lived in Miami and was fluent in Yiddish and Spanish. Let’s just say that for Miami that was an extremely useful combination.
@@guywhousesapseudonymonyout4272 There had been a thriving community of East European, Yiddish-speaking Jews in Havana before Castro.
I am so impressed with the Asian girl! That takes some "groissen" matzo balls to attempt a Yiddish class.
Yes but she needs to work on sounding more whiny and nasally to get the accent right. "Imagine that you complain about everything constantly and internalize that into your accent"
😂😂😂!
Yiddish is not just a loshn... It is a culture and a people.
Totally agree.
Yasher-koyekh, liber Itzik. As someone who has taught Yiddish at The New School for a few years (quite unexpectedly, following my career in musicology), I can now directly relate to the joy of seeing people immersing into Yiddish language and culture, oftentimes from scratch, regardless of their roots.
I hope you've forgiven me, and that you are well.
This is such a great video! I'm pursuing a bachelor's degree in History but my long term goal is to study Yiddish. I feel a little weird wanting to study Yiddish because I'm Hispanic and my family thinks its silly to study a language that I don't have any connection to.
One of the outstanding Yiddishists in the world is Shane Baker, a WASP from Missouri. He has an incredible gift for the language and earns a good deal of his living in it.
If you're drawn to it, go for it.
There's a difference between appreciating the Judaism behind Yiddish and just appreciating the Jewish culture behind Yiddish.
Your appreciation of Yiddish will be quite different if you only fall into the latter.
1:34 "It would fascinating to try and take a Germanic language" -- said in PERFECT English
I came here for this XD.
G-d bless you people with such a noble mission to save and preserve Yiddish culture.
Growing up in North Manchester England we all learned yiddish from our jewish friends and neighbours. That was 75 years ago. Sadly no more , But ! When I go to Germany they think I am Kolsh ! (That is a dialect from the Belgian border).
Back in the eighties I started a Yiddish rap group called Next Year In Brooklyn. It was me (K-vetch), Meshuga Moish', and The Big Spiel, spitting it in Yiddish at every rap battle that didn't laugh us off the stage. We cut a record for the radio and for about three weeks we were at Number 15 with "drey far di prayz fun tsvey" ("Three for the Price of Two"). We got teased, for sure, and people would yank our tzitziyot, but we craved the stage and were ready to battle for it. Now, not that many people understood Yiddish at first, but our tunes intrigued the audience so very much that they started learning a little Yiddish here and there and eventually would start greeting us with "Brukhim-haboim!" ("Welcome!") when we walked on stage. It all ended suddenly when we were put up against Fat Joe in the final battle of the semi-finals, and my mother walked on stage, trying to give us all take-homes of her noodle kugel, just as we were about to begin. We were disqualified, and that was crushing for us, but it was also the very moment when Fat Joe realized that he absolutely LOVED noodle kugel. He's been eating it every Shabbos since.
This sounds like one of joe bidens stories like when he fought corn pop with a rusty switchblade, or when he worked as a truck driver, or the most unrealistic story when he claimed to graduate in the top of his class.
@@raymondkidwell7135 Did you REALLY think this story had ANY truth to it whatsoever? Dude...
@@adamchurvis1 There was a yiddish metal band with a rammstein type of sound that wasn't bad. Though it wasn't great either since people can just listen to German metal which is next level good. I think the band was from Israel. Yiddish/German sounds great in metal. But if you ever listen to rap in German its like the most horrible sound in the world. I'm grateful I have never heard a Yiddish rap band.
@@adamchurvis1 ruclips.net/video/3OYsVAk1wsg/видео.html
@@raymondkidwell7135 Then whatever you do, do NOT search for "Matisyahu" and then read his Wikipedia page, search for HIS collaborators, and then listen to all their rap music. Yiddish Rap Overload. My wife bought me a Matisyahu tape about twenty-five years ago or so, back when he was still in Chassidic garb.
Great video. My dad spoke some Yiddish phrases when I was growing up. He was a Jew from the South Bronx. My Mom was not Jewish and we were not brought up Jewish but I got a decent understanding of quite a few Yiddish words. When I was little I used to think he was just making up words.
I remember when my maternal grandmother died, my father, of blessed memory, gave a lovely eulogy extolling the beauties of Yiddish and hoping that it survives.
Disgusting
You can continue speaking yidish. Here in the tris state area it's alive .
@@actualideas8078 You are ignorant and sad.
As a German speaking person it is funny how much I understand in Jiddish!
Please stop trying to translate the Yud as a J. It's not a J.
There is NO "J" in the Yiddish language. As it is not in the alphabet.
@@michaelserebreny454 but in german its Jiddish and german jews use the j
Sebastian Stolz and in Chinese the word for French literally means "the cheese people," but that's not how the French will refer to themselves.
@@michaelserebreny454 ja well thats something else thats offensive but a j is not offensive.At least if u are not compleatly broke in your head
Jews rock
Houston has a fairly large Jewish population, with many Orthodox Jews moving here from New York, where the rent and taxes are skyrocketing.
awh i am so glad to see this.
I remember as a little boy, my Nana sticking her head out her kitchen window and saying "feh" Ronala... don't put that bug in your mouth!
Well, did you?
Yiddish is my first language and seeing this Yiddish library makes me smile. Where is it located?
That'd Great little news clip. With people like my Mother Holocaust Survivers are padding away from old age the language Is ad well. I speak it with my cousin
So we keep it alive in our special time to remember my Mother
In Israel, it was not only encouraged to speak Hebrew - it was prohibited in the theatre!! People got fines!!
Yiddish will survive and thrive in the coming centuries because of those who speak it and use it as their personal language and that of their community.
These people are the religious Jews, Hasidim and non-Hasidim.
And they are most certainly not interested in "saving" Yiddish.
We need this for Ladino...
Might I recommend a revival in the religious culture of the Turkish/Greek/Balkan Sephardi Judaism? Centered around synagogues of that ethnicity? In such synagogues---esnogas---you can create Ladino speaking groups and bring even converts into this culture.
The book project is so important to preserving the literature and history. As for the language continuing as a "live" one, the hasidim are taking care very well of that, even without any intention of doing so. It's just what they speak.
To anyone interested, I highly recommend listening to "In ale gasn" on youtube.
Or read the doctrine of fascism.
There is Western Yiddish too.... חלושס Chalosches...sugar coated twizlers would be an example of that...decandently sweet...OSU Jewish Studies is working to preserve our Yiddish too...Thanks to Dr. Sonia Golance. Bless her. From my German Jewish family. Thanks to my meterologist back home who I saw at my Shul when I was 6 star struck with his Friday Night Live group and inspired Klezmer.!
Yiddish has a poetic beauty and an innate humor that I do not find in listening to Hebrew.
Hebrew didn’t evolve, it was recreated as a vernacular from an ancient language. Yiddish evolved.
It’s a fun language
@@koshersalaami Bingo. Exactly right.
But just think -- in a thousand years (the approximate age of Yiddish) Hebrew may have just as much humor as Yiddish does! I can hardly wait!
@@lekmirn.hintern8132 in Isreal Hebrew will remain humorless.
It’s actually disgusting. You know that a “shlepper” is a human trafficker right?
Living in Texas, this makes my heart very happy… Yiddish was the language of European Jewish intelligentsia and culture for centuries that gave the world many great writers, musicians and playwrights and its rich legacy deserves to be preserved, especially since many of the remaining native European speakers outside of Orthodox enclaves are rapidly disappearing.
4:54-4:58
5:05-5:09
What films were those?
It's amazing to remember that there still are people alive, who were adults back in an era when Yiddish was a major language. The oldest man alive was born in 1909, so he was an adult back in a time when Yiddish was spoken all over Eastern and Central Europe, and few people knew who Adolf Hitler was.
I am from Vienna, Austria.
So, of course, my mother-tongue is German, which has common roots with Yiddish.
Hence, learning Yiddish was a rather easy task for me (apart from the alef-beys, which I taught myself).
In Vienna, esp. in the 2nd viennese district (where also a school for learning Yiddish and Ivrit= Modern Hebrew is located), there is still a living yiddish community, even though - given by the saddening situation ( a lot of antisemitic influence by immigrants with muslimic background) life for Jews gets increasingly dangerous, also here.
I attended a course in Yiddish here for 2 semesters, and then also a course in Iwrit for 1 semester. Unfortunately I had to stop it then, caused by several facts, but I have vowed to start again as soon as possible.
Yiddish sounds sometimes like a kind old Viennese dialect. And I really love it.
1:03 Thanks for highlighting her face couldn't have guessed right if I had to
But will the Yiddish theatres on 2nd ave reopen?
Maybe now that COVID is done?
There IS still one Yiddish troupe in NYC, so maybe
@@farapipsqueek636 There are actually several. Presumably you are not aware of New Yiddish Rep or of the productions by the Congress For Jewish Culture. (Take a look at their superb online production of THE DYBBUK -- you can get the subtitles by hitting the 'CC' button:
ruclips.net/video/sop8T-OxN2M/видео.html).
You were evidently thinking of the National Yiddish Theatre/Folksbiene, which has by far the highest budgets and by far the lowest standards in their Yiddish. The students in the online class here, though they're still learning, know Yiddish much better than the performers from the National Yiddish Theatre. I know of native Yiddish speakers who went to see their Yiddish FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and had to depend on the supertitle translations, because they couldn't understand a word that was spoken onstage! It was like that FRIENDS episode where Joey is learning French -- their Yiddish was that terrible.
The klezmatics rocking out to adoring fans in... China ! Love it -
I got Jewish ancestry on both sides of my family. If I am correct. My mom was 100 percent. But her and her parents were raised Christian. As for my dad, was 25 percent. Same thing. In fact, my dad's family didn't get a Bible until they moved to America here. That was my dad's dad and his parents, along with my grandpa's six brother.s
Not sure of the spelling, but I guess Win Chau Nguyen is a Win Nguyen. And she is already fluent in a Germanic language. I can tell.
My grandparents taugh me Yiddish.
Yiddish is far more Jewish than modern day Hebrew.
Yiddish is only about 1000 years old, so I don't think it's ancient. But it is nice to see an interest in learning it as it is still in use among the hasidics. I would also advice looking into learning Hebrew, which is the ancient language of the Jewish people, which should be easier if you know Yiddish since Yiddish is a mix of Hebrew/German.
I'm surprised it's so old. That makes it an ancient language. I would love to learn it. With a little mazel, some knockus, there will be an annex class I can afford
I mean, yes, I suppose King Lear is in part about ingratitude but I'm not sure I would say that was its main theme.
💖💜💛💚💙
Is it wired that i'm a german and without knowing they are jewish but everytime a girl makes my chest warm if i look at her afterwards i find out they are jewish and it just happens with them😊
Mmm. Check your DNA....
אמחי' צו הערן א ביסעלע מאמע לשון...
There's a German sounds in it.
Watched😎😎🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
The language doesn't really need to be saved. The Hassidim all speak Yiddish at home and their numbers have been growing by leaps and bounds. That said it's good to see less religious people also taking an interest
A friend from my Yiddish Club sent me this. I'd seen it before and posted a comment 5 months ago. But I must post another. The darling Vietnamese young lady mispronounces the past participle of the verb "to be" at about 1:17. She is reading, " The letter was from his..." which is "der bri:v iz geVEN fun zayn..." but she says GEven (accent on the wrong sylLABle). zayt gezunt (be well), y'all.
You lose your history you lose your language you lose who you are so that is great that it's been spoken and used
Wonderful to save a language that almost disappeared like the shtetls.
You don't use "shande" like that
I referred to your correct comment in a comment I just posted. zay gezunt.
Yes,you do
My great grandparents didn't pass on yiddish out of fear of being attacked and to assimilate
My mother was born in Brooklyn but her parents were from Ukraine. Her first language was Yiddish, and she’d speak it sometimes in my presence. I understood her. I’ve forgotten it. As a kid, I was ashamed of being Jewish (now I’m an atheist but strongly Jewish-identified). I wish I spoke Yiddish.
Look at blackboard around 0:50. Lesson 17 of Weinreich's College Yiddish? I appreciate R. Schlesinger's attempt. Too bad he didn't get Prof. Gottesman or some other good Yiddishist to check his Yiddish. (1)The words for grandmother and grandfather do not end in long E vowel; that is baby talk influenced by English diminutives like puppy, kitty, Susie, Bobby. Correct final vowel is a short E (as in bed, even a bit shorter). (2)As Shmosel posted, "shande" is wrong (R.S. meant the sense of "What a shame" as in "too bad, a pity" "regrettable," which is "a shod" -- "a shand" is a shame in the sense of "disrepute, disgraceful") (3) As Daoud Hamadani posted, Yiddish descends from Middle High German, which is the same "grandparent" language from which modern German descends. Schlesinger made it sound like Yiddish is an offshoot of modern German. Of course Yiddish also has lots of Hebrew (and Aramaic), a good bit of Slavic, even Latin and Greek-rooted words, and many words from French and English.
zayt gezunt (be well, y'all).
My mother’s first language, in Brooklyn, was Yiddish, and as a kid I could understand her Yiddish. Unfortunately, my knowledge of it is long gone. I wish it weren’t. However, I’m no fan of the “shmaltsy” Klezmer music in this film.
Sounds like a Dutch speaker speaking German
The year old? Thanks for teaching us? Um.....sorrry? Maybe I’m fine? I don’t had to learn? What is going on???????
Seven minutes, but I don't hear so much Yiddish.
זאָל זייַנ מיט מאַזל
❤️💙🩷🥰👍
Idish dus the mama Lushan!!
It is deeply misleading. Yiddish is not alive there as I doubt there are any communities in which children are brought up as first language Yiddish speakers (I’m not talking about the chassidisch community here, but secure speakers of Yiddish).
Szulem Josef
יא אדער נישט
make up your mind?
I have a big class of Yiddish students in Houston that I have been teaching for years...
Ih rad idish I’m from Ukraina and right now I’m living in USA
A bei gazet..............................
U did some research but you didn't do the right one. What's going on with you do u know there's a million Yiddish speaking jews in ny alone there is not only Williamsburg baby you are living in 1940s its 2021 there's borough park Lakewood nj kiryat monsey flatbush marine park I can go on and on than there are communitys all over the us now in Israel there are also almost a million Yiddish speakers don't worry so much they don't need your help
Most of the students need to learn how to speak english clearly before tackling yiddish
Ah, if only he would teach Hebrew.הלוואי והוא ילמד עברית
you not ride
+MrGillicuddy I understand your view, and I fully respect your feelings. As both a Jew and an Israeli, however, I believe that the return of Hebrew to the people of Israel is really the ultimate triumph. Thank you for your comment.
Roman You're a loser, which is the basis for your anti-Semitism. Get a job. Get an education. Get a life and you won't have time to fill your head with so much hatred.
LMAO, Avi!
+Avi L אבל למה? למה לא לדבר גם עברית וגם יידיש? התרבות האשכנזית הייתה מאוד עשירה. אתה רוצה רק לשכוח את כל ההיסטוריה? זה מה שאני לא מבינה עם הציונות. לדעתי לא צריכים למחוק את ההיסטוריה והתרבות המזרח אירופיית כדי להיות ישראלי
stretch for the vocabulary lol
oy vey
Yiddish is mostly spoken among Orthodox Jews - - otherwise we learn HEBREW. Those who are learning Yiddish will not be able to speak with many Jews unless they are Ashkenazi in their 80's or Chabad and other Orthodox. Learn Hebrew if you would like to engage in conversation - mostly with Israeli's but also any AWAKE Jews who care about and have an interest in their heritage (yes - that would exclude most J-Street leaning America Jews). In any case it's nice to know that Yiddish is being maintained - - it will at least give insight to East European Jewish culture. Not all Jews are descendants of Eastern Europe by the way! And not all Jews share "Yiddishkeit" - and Klezmer is particular also to Eastern Europe, Be sure to teach the right history! Thanks.
By "orthodox" you mean, presumably, khasidic. As you suggest, 'learn it right' -- I don't have actual numbers nationally or worldwide, but in New York, for example, there are at least as many (Modern) Orthodox people as there are khasidim. (Unfortunately the Modern Orthodox rarely know Yiddish, which is their loss.)
Re Hebrew: But it's so BORING!!! Yiddish, on the other hand, is fun -- rich and expressive and full of humor, and loaded with wisdom and insights into human nature. It's produced a world-class literature, too.
And there are a LOT more young secular Yiddishists than you'd think, who have conclaves, clubs, gatherings of all kinds, cultural events... Plenty of the young Yiddishists are not even Jewish, never mind not khasidic.
'Learn it right'!
Oy, vey!
"but look at some of the other students" *cuts to nonwhite students* ~ yeah this is awful
You might as well learn German then.
+Cesar PerezThere is a difference between Yiddish and German. While there is crossover it is similar to the differences between Spanish and Portugese. Gornisht vil helfen!
+Cesar Perez - German is just a language like any other language, but Yiddish is something more, something three dimensional, but one would have to raden a bisel Yiddish to understand that.
Dirk I don't know why this comment made me laugh but it did lol
If you live in Texas you need to learn Spanish.
MJ Sanchez I’m almost fluent in Spanish and I want Yiddish to be my third language.
Warum?
Omdat
Gawd! Go to isreal and stay there
Who hurt you?
Yiddish is certainly not alive in Texas; it hasn't even been born there yet. If the great Yiddish linguist Chaim Gininger and the talented Yiddish teacher and essayist Sh. D. Zinger heard the way these students mispronounce Yiddish words, they'd be dismayed and disgusted. These young people can't say one word correctly and their foreign accent is very discouraging, to say the least.
Why didn't their teacher train them properly in Yiddish phonology? Why didn't he prepare them for this Internet interview, so that they wouldn't make fools of themselves and discredit the Yiddish language? If he's teaching them that phony and ridiculous 'standard Yiddish', the result cannot be good and it won't be good.
Dear teacher --- Don't shortchange and handicap your students by giving them a fictitious version of Yiddish; give them some authentic Yiddish as it was spoken by millions of Jews in Eastern Europe. Our great Yiddish writers and, of course, the Yiddish-speaking victims of Germany's insane war of extermination against European Jewry did not speak 'standard Yiddish' (also known as KLAL-Yiddish). Preserve the real Yiddish heritage (take an example from the Khasidim) instead of modifying the language in an artificial way. How can you allow your students to make a mess of Yiddish pronunciation? VI ZOGT MEN IN IDESH --- DI EYER VELN NIT ZAIN KLIGER FUN DI HINER. [This comment has been written by a professional Yiddish linguist for whom Yiddish is a mother tongue. He has taught authentic Yiddish to thousands of students on the college level.]
René Dupont Why are you so negative in all your comments? I’ve also seen you in this other video of an interview with Daniel Kahn criticizing his yiddish. If one wants to learn klal yidish he may do so as he pleases, it’s none of your business. If you don’t like that teacher, don’t attend his classes and that’s about it. If you were really worried about the yiddish language you’d be praising each and every effort to keep it alive.
troll, troll, troll, troll, troll.
I have a big class of Yiddish students in Houston that I have been teaching for years...
Itzik Gottesman is a native speaker of Yiddish. Think about that.
@ So true, that comment came from a place of ignorance and a lack of understanding.
Learn Hebrew not Yiddish.
...if you want to be boring and rude.
On the other hand, if you want to be funny and smart...
Yiddish sounds German but gross
Huh?
Yiddish has a poetic beauty and an innate humor that I do not find in listening to Hebrew.