Re: Yiddish on List

[Leonard Koenick <lkoenick...>]

Date:          Mon, 2 Mar 1998 15:16:15 -0500
Reply-to:      jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
From:          ganeydn (at) crocker(dot)com (Joe Kurland)
To:            "World music from a Jewish slant." <jewish-music (at) 
shamash(dot)org>
Subject:       Re: Yiddish on List
X-To:          <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>

Ari, if this is too far off of music, feel free to reject it.

>>>>>> "Jennifer" >
>    Jennifer> A question came to mind as I was reading the discussion of
>    Jennifer> Yiddish on the List: Did anyone experience Yiddish as a secret
>    Jennifer> language used by adults when they did not want children to
>    Jennifer> understand what was being said?  How did you feel about it?

Since my mother could not speak or understand Yiddish -- she was born and 
raised in South 
Dakota !! -- my father spoke Yiddish with his brothers, sisters and any others 
who could 
understand it.  I don't ever remember him using Yiddish to keep anything from 
me other than 
when he was mad and cursing.  And that was probably more because he just felt 
more comfortable 
automaticaly shifting to Yiddish at those times.  But what came through most 
clearly, even 
then, was his intense love of the language.  We were very fortunate, I know, 
that conveying 
fear of the past or even hiding it from us was not a part of him.

About 20 years ago, after much discussion with the Intourist offices both here 
and in theUSSR, 
he was allowed to and did travel to the small Shtetl, Schotsk, where he was 
born and from 
which he left in 1920.  He found one old woman who remembered playing with the 
family as a 
child.  The towns people took him to the hill where the Germans had murdered 
all of the Jews 
so he could say Kaddish.  He also went to the local Jewish cemetary which was 
well maintained 
and took many photographs of the tombstones and other scenes.  On his return he 
showed them 
to the landslicht sociieties where people could remember their relatives.

If anyone's relatives were from Schotsk, let me know and I can get copies made 
of any slides.

Leonard Koenick
Leonard