A Few Words About Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature and Culture

At present there is no dearth of Yiddish textbooks. When I embarked on the project of writing yet another, I had to ask myself, "Why?" and "How would my book be different from all the rest?" I thought a great deal about why people study Yiddish today, what they want to learn from this endeavor, and what I want them to learn from it. I concluded that the interests and goals of Yiddish students are, in most cases, quite different from those of people studying other languages.

The current trend in language teaching is towards "proficiency"; students should be able to gain enough proficiency to function within the "target" culture, so that they can read menus, train-schedules, want ads, and other "authentic materials." Our goals in teaching and learning Yiddish are, I believe, quite different. Most would agree that it is more important for students to have the linguistic skills to read Sholem Aleichem in the original than to be able to order a piece of herring or buy a pickle on New York's Lower East Side. My book will enable people to do both.

I have tried, using the limited vocabulary of an Elementary text, to give people a path to the rich intellectual and world of Eastern European Jewry. I know quite well that many people who study Yiddish may never actually meet a native speaker, and many will never have the opportunity to converse in the language outside the classroom, and yet, they want to be able to speak. They want to have the feeling, if only for the brief duration of the class, that they are in and a part of the world of Yiddish. Only by being able to express themselves in the language and by learning about the world in which this language was and is still spoken, can they attain this. The book, therefore, focuses on the literature and culture as well as on the spoken language.

Vol I is divided into eleven units which are constructed around conversation topics such as getting acquainted, health, family, clothing, food, work, Jewish holidays, etc. Most units are divided into two lessons. Lesson A contains a conversation on the topic and Lesson B, a literary, folkloristic, or historical selection on the same theme. Students will read selections from such authors as Kadye Molodowsky, Itzik Manger, Aaron Zeitlin, Rokhl Boymval, Reyzl Zhikhlinski, and Rebbe Nakhman of Bratslav. By Unit 7 they will be able to read an excerpt from Sholem Aleichem in the original! Each unit also includes appropriate songs, proverbs and idioms, explanations of grammar, and both oral and written exercises.

Yiddish is intended for college, high school, serious adult education students, and auto-didacts. I have tried to present a systematic study of the Yiddish language which also captures the humor and pathos of Yiddish-speaking life. The Yiddish experience is the Borsht Belt and the Holocaust and a great many things in between. Sadly, it is a world that has almost vanished geographically, but it is very much alive in the hearts and minds of those who know it and those who go in search of it. I hope I have conveyed something of the essence of that world and that experience in a way that appeals to both young and old, secular and religious, Jew and non-Jew.

Sheva Zucker, sczucker@aol.com