Not everybody speaks Yiddish fluently at the Milwaukee Yiddish Club – or, more accurately, the Yiddish Vinkl (Circle) that meets at Congregation Shalom some nine times a year.
So on July 28, the featured speaker, Yiddish expert and multi-lingual raconteur Rabbi Barry Schechter — who is also spiritual leader of Congregation Kol Emeth in Skokie, Ill. — had to go back and forth from Yiddish to English to make sure that everybody got the points of his stories and jokes.
But the some 100 mostly elderly participants in this 10-year-old club didn’t seem to mind, even when they disagreed about how to pronounce certain words.
Rather, many of the 130-some members come because “they like the sound of [Yiddish],” said club co-chair Alvin “Dink” Holzman. So, club leaders and members are prepared to be flexible.
For example, sometimes the club will explore sample problems from the “Bintel Brief,” the famous advice column that ran in the Jewish Daily Forward during the heyday of the immigration era, when that newspaper published solely in Yiddish.
Members can offer their own advice in either “100 percent Yiddish” or “50-50” Yiddish and English, and if even that is too much, “just the English,” said Holzman.
Still, it appears to be the chance to reconnect with the language of their childhoods that brings many of the members to the club and its events.
“I was brought up with Yiddish,” said Ruth Silberman, 85, and a member from the club’s beginning. “I love it.” So the club helps “bring me back to when I was growing up here in Milwaukee.”
Max Fishman, 94, who has been a member for the past two years, also said that for him, the club “is bringing back all the memories of conversations in my family. I grew up speaking, writing, reading Yiddish.”
Bud Siegel, 84, remembered that when he was growing up in Milwaukee, he went to a school at which Hebrew and Yiddish were taught. He comes to the club because “I wanted to be in an atmosphere where Yiddish is spoken.”
People interviewed also mentioned that they like the socializing, the many and varied programs — including Yiddish movies, Jewish music, speakers like Schechter — and, of course, the food served at each event. Said Lucille Atlas, 83, “What more could we want?”
Yiddish, of course, is the marvelous and flavorsome language of the Jews of Eastern Europe. Born of medieval German, it spread east into Poland, Rumania, the Baltic countries, Russia and elsewhere; and picked up words and developed dialects in all those places.
During the great wave of Eastern European Jewish emigration at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, Jews carried the language to all parts of the world — not just the United States, but Latin America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Before World War II, more Jews claimed Yiddish as their native language than any other.
The language declined for a variety of reasons. The Nazis murdered most of the native speakers and destroyed their culture. Children and grandchildren of the Yiddish-speaking immigrants adopted the languages of their new countries and found little need for Yiddish.
The Zionist movement regarded Yiddish as a language of persecution and exile, as well as a language unknown to Jewish communities in the Arab world and elsewhere. Therefore, Israel revived Hebrew, the language of ancient Jewish independence known to all Jewish communities.
Today, there is both academic interest in Yiddish, with many colleges and universities offering classes; and an international network of Yiddish clubs like Milwaukee’s.
In fact, Milwaukee is the home of Paul Melrood, the president for the past five years of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs. At the July 28 event, he said that about 100 such clubs exist all over the world, some in places one would not expect to find them, like Madrid, Spain, or Tokyo, Japan.
Moreover, all these clubs “have their own personalities,” Melrood said. Some do a lot of formal Yiddish study, some a little, some none. “It depends on their leadership,” he said.
Clearly, the Milwaukee club’s personality tends toward the light-hearted. “We wanted it to be a social club,” said co-chair Frieda Levine. “There’s no teaching here.”
Moreover, when the club explores Yiddish culture, it prefers the lighter sides. For example, when it shows classic Yiddish-language movies (with English subtitles), it screens comedies like “Yidl Mitn Fidl” instead of heavy dramas like “The Dybbyk.” Said Holzman: “We want a happy afternoon.”
While Congregation Shalom sponsors and provides meeting space and support services for the club, the Yiddish Vinkl is not limited to synagogue members, but is open to the whole community.
Membership dues are $10 per year. For more information call Holzman, 414-352-3884; or the synagogue.
Formerly op-ed editor, Leon Cohen has written for The Chronicle for more than 25 years.
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