Re: Jump in, the Yiddish is fine

[Sylvia Schildt <creativa...>]

I heartily second Yale Strom on the need to learn at least some Yiddish. The
language is the culture, and more so with Yiddish.

Historically, Yiddish, which has been been given a bad rap as the language
of ghetto and diaspora, the tongue of women and the unlettereed masses, has
managed to survive all attempts to quash it, devalue it, make it irrelevant,
and continues to survive.

Loshn koydesh (Hebrew/Aramaic) is one of the pillars of Jewish learning and
identity. Its role as  spoken language is much shorter - only a few hundred
years in ancient history, and more recently in a miraculously recreated
modern version in the State of Israel. One cannot approach Jewish religious
tradition without it, nor access the vitality of modern Israeli life.

Yiddish on the other hand has been on the scene for a thousand years,
inextricably bound  to daily Jewish life - every level of consciousness,
every kind of experience. It is the language of the heart of Ashkenazi Jewry
not only in Eastern and Western Europe, but to the immigrant experience in
the Americas, South Africa, wherever Ashkenazi Jews have migrated.

Its rich nuances of meaning can only be approached through and from within
the language and not through translations, or singing by rote. It's a lot
more than comic sounds, a few curses, oy veys and ot azoy shtick, although,
frankly, many have tried to pass this off as Yiddish.

Yiddish is richly idiomatic and particularly adept at describing all shades
of the human condition as well as the Jewish soul and identity. Yiddish
connects you most meaningfully to your roots. Yiddish can unite an audience
from all over the world and put them in the palm of your hand.

Now to a few practical points - supposing you want to learn Yiddish. It's
not that hard. If you speak English or any other Germanic based language you
are already well on your way - it's a lot easier than going from say Russian
to Hebrew.

If you know some Hebrew, you are dealing with the same alphabet, with a few
variations of use.

Classes can be had at many universities, JCC's. temples, even online. There
are excellent textbooks (I recommend Sheva Zucker's "Yiddish: An
Introduction to the Language, Literature and Culture" as a starting point -
it also has accompanying study tapes)

As learning Yiddish adds authenticity to your performance, you will find
yourself embraced by your audience as never before. And you will become a
positive force in the continuation of the Jewish experience in all its
complexity and color.

Mit vareme yidishe grusn,



Sylvia Schildt






on 5/12/03 8:47 PM, Seth Rogovoy at seth(dot)rogovoy (at) verizon(dot)net wrote:

[Yale Strom asked me to post the following response to Matt's initial
posting, which Yale felt did not accurately represent his thoughts -- Seth
Rogovoy]

Matt,

You missed the point.

What I said was simply that if this revival, this bale-kulturnik scene is to
grow the musicians no matter how far they take the music still have to be
grounded in some semblance of the knowledge of the culture in which the
music grew out of. And even better than just knowing some history of the
Jews in Eastern Europe when should learn a little of the language they
spoke. Yes this means learning a little Yiddish, this will help the musician
get inside the head, of these quite engimatic characters. No one doesn't
have to be fluent but one who says why do I have to learn the vernacular
they spoke misses the whole point of what carrying on a tradition and
departing from it, is all about.

I still stand by my last chapter in my book. And yes it will ruffle some
feathers of those trying to play the music, take it in to new worlds....but
hey  really learning another person's folk music, or your own takes a little
work...it is not just learning the riffs, the improvs. and the black notes
on the page.

As I say in my book: (The Book of Klezmer) p. 264. Playing Brandwein or
Tarras note for note with all the proper klzmer dreydlekh is enough to
maintain the music on a cursory level, and that fine for many musicians.
But, as John Zorn said to me, "The music is much more that a flat two and a
sharp four." If you can "talk the talk" (Yiddish) you really can't "walk the
walk." The musician will bring a greater profundity to klezmer if he or she
understands some portions of the history, folkore and language.

The earliest descendants of today's klezmorim were the medeival Ashkenazic
minstrels who played and sang in Yiddish. Thus for the bal-kulturnik scene
to continue to develop and flourish, whether it be neotraditionalist or
avant-gardists, the Yiddish component will need to be explored, examined and
exploited. Old and new Yiddish songs will help us better understand the
past, present and future world of the klezmer.

zay gezint, Yale