Here in Milwaukee, we are fortunate to have many vibrant Jewish activities and organizations in which to participate. Among those is the Shalom Yiddish Club, of which I am privileged to be a member.
Over 100-participants strong, with a median age of approximately 74 (I am far below that age-range, however, just to be clear…), the monthly meetings are comprised of programs having some connection to Yiddish and Jewish culture.
Despite the occasional heated discussion over a pronunciation or an interpretation — the ongoing dialect battle between the “Litvaks” and the “Galitzianers” is a sight to behold — the obvious love of the mama-loshen (mother-tongue, colloquial for the Yiddish language) unites all present.
This inevitably renders me teary-eyed at multiple points during each session. Yiddish is as beautiful and bittersweet as a klezmer melody.
But what is also striking about these dear seniors is how much we owe to them. They literally (and figuratively) built our local Jewish community over the decades — almost every shul, Jewish school, the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in each of its iterations, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, and its attendant agencies.
They raised the funds, worked with the contractors, erected, maintained and expanded all, to then handed them over to the next generation.
At each vinkl (club meeting), they come together to share their memories and experiences through yiddishkeit. As I look around the room, and hear their stories, I feel a sense of a lingering link from the Old World passing to the New, as romanticized as that may sound.
But in today’s society so enamored of excessive material goods — computers in every room, multiple flat screens, endless gadgets of all kinds — attending vinkl reminds me of what these amazing altes (elderly) have given us; the basic infrastructures of our Jewish community, and of how grateful I am to them.
Besides, where else can you have such shtik naches (a little joy) from expressions such as, “Fun dein moil en Got’s oiren arein!” (“From your mouth to G-d’s ear!”) and debate the subtle differences between the meanings of schlemiel (a maladroit person) and schlimazl (a person who has constant bad luck).
A gantseh dank to them, and may we all farshtaist (understand) and appreciate what they have contributed.
Nancy Weiss-McQuide is a Milwaukee-area actor, dancer, choreographer, mime, juggler, writer, theater and dance teacher, Israel advocate, volunteer at several Milwaukee Jewish organizations, and a devotee of Yiddish.
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