זײַט באגריסט
זײַט באגריסט קלעזמרים און קלעזפרײַנד מיט דעם קורס “ײִדיש 101“.
It is important that KlezKanada convey not only how to play klezmer and Yiddish music, but that it also imbue participants with some sense of Yiddish culture. This year's experiment was to set up an afternoon-long set of three sessions, "Klezmer 101", beginning with an hour-long Yiddish language session. Those with at least some Yiddish listened to Peysakh Fishman talk in simple Yiddish about the language and about Ashkenazic culture. I have tried to capture a few fragments of the talk.
[While Peysakh was giving his talk, Kolya Borodulin was handing out several introductions to Yiddish letters out in front of the dining hall. One handout was especially memorable, "a bisl yiddish for klezmorim"]
| Shvell | Threshhold |
"If you don't understand everything, stop me immediately and I will explain." Peysakh lines his article out, at first slowly in Yiddish, then English, back and forth to clarify and to convey ideas.
| Pamelekh | slowly |
Tzu redden. Wen a civilizatzia of ein fus is sehr shver—Ashkenaz civilization is more than 1000 years old.
| Idishe geshichte | Jewish history |
Tzu voynen in a golus—to live in diaspora—is sehr shver—is very bad.
First he talks about Aramaic, the Jewish language of the Talmud.
| Bregn | borders | Ki | cattle |
The ghettos (judengas) forced Jews to live together. We don't have a land. What holds us together? The Torah.
Bushe—embarrassment—shande, a kharpe—not to know Torah.
Yeshivas in Germany competed, were equivalent to those that had been in Babylonia.
Great Rabbis included Gershom, who forbade polygamy, and Rashi. And the best yeshivas were from Poland to Frankreich, the Rhine Valley.
| Shteyger vun lebn | lifestyle (style of living) |
A tzimes makhn vun meren (fruit? Is a pun on "mehr"—more)
Challah, Borsht
Talks about pulling German and Slavic words into Yiddish. Then talks about new languages being pulled into Yiddish today, and Yiddish into English.
| Molerei | painting |
The Yiddish table is our new altar, replacing that of the destroyed temple. Each holiday we eat special foods to give us the sense of the holiday. The tish, the table is for the kinder.
Someone comes up to say that she can even type Yiddish (with latin letters) in e-mail, and there are small classes all over.
Peysakh says that Yiddish isn't dead, but there isn't Yiddish art and film and a market—a place where people conduct commerce in Yiddish.
Var vos nicht—why not?
To live a full Yiddish life, you need to speak and eat and live in Yiddish, not just speak it here and there.