COMMUNITY FOCUS
December 2023
Federation Star
21
“Ich red Engelesh!” Zoog mir in Yiddish By Sol Awend, GenShoah SWFL
M
y mom and dad And when I really found out were liberated from what, not who, it was, my Dachau. They met, whole world turned cold and fell in love and got married. chocolate chip. Had me and, two years later, Then again, thinking you my father died from canknow the language and knowcer. My mom and I came to ing it are two different conAmerica and settled in St. cepts. To me, the American Louis, Missouri where she adventure continued when I met and married another surwent to school. There was one Sol Awend vivor. A year later, my brother problem. They didn’t speak was born. Yiddish and I didn’t understand English. Logistics… I’ll wait a minute until it Neither did my parents. sinks in… It was time for lunch one Sunday afterAs a 4-year-old kid, growing up in noon, and I came home and sat down America was an adventure, the sights at the table, famished. “Ma! Voos iz doo and sounds of all the moving parts were t’zeh essen?!” I asked. Without skipping so exciting. Cars, buses, fire trucks and a beat, she answers with a straight face, airplanes groaning, screaming and hissing. “Nah, doo ost deh ah sendevahbeech!” I Everywhere you went there were signs; still see her smiling proudly. She was billboards with smiling fellows lighting speaking Engelesh! cigarettes for smiling women smoking. But then again, it wasn’t all fun and Ads for Coca-Cola were everywhere. And games either. As he tells it, my dad had at night, they all lit up! to take the bus for his job. He got on One name really stuck out from all the the bus and the driver asked him which rest. I thought he had to be the richest stop he wanted. My dad stood there, person in America, because wherever paralyzed, suffering from the ailment I you looked, there he was. His name? encountered. The driver spoke no Yiddish “Ice Crème,” pronounced “Issa Crema.” and my dad understood no English.
I will never forget what happened some five years later in Memphis, Tennessee. Our family was visiting friends. One afternoon, the ladies went shopping; the guys were going somewhere else. It involved a bus ride and when it arrived, we got on. It was an episode of Rosa Parks in reverse. The Black passengers were sitting towards the back of the bus, while everyone else was up front. Except for one person: My dad. He walks to the back of the bus and sits down amongst the different colored riders. There was a commotion and when he was urged to move he said, “No!” In broken English he declared, “Vy I hev to mov? His hartz iz not like mine? Vee are deh same!” Everyone was stunned. He sat there, smiling and looking at his seat mates, who also broke out in geh laac’hteh. Even though they couldn’t really understand each other, everyone knew what would be talked about at the dinner table that night. Perhaps one reason Yiddish has lasted for so long is its adaptability. Remember when cellphones came out? The Internet was blossoming? Terms sprouted up
to identify them. An email became a blitzpost, and your cellphone became deh sellkeh. And my mom, having a name for everything, helped move the conversation along. It seems we had somvehs to go and were hustling out the door. Cheerfully, my mom yells out, “Fah guess nisht Deh Kaakeh mykeh!” I was so caught off guard that I had tears running down my leg from laughing so hard. And there stood my mom, smiling. “Ich red Engelesh,” she commented. I’m sure we could all compare stories and the laughter would be so healing and beneficial. Here then, are the explanations of the words and statements from the stories above. 1. “Ma! Voos iz doo t’zeh essen?!” (Ma! What is there to eat?!) 2. “Nah, doo ost deh ah sendevahbeech!” (Here’s a sandwich!) 3. “Geh laac’hteh.” (Laughter) 4. “Ich red Engelesh!” (I’m speaking English!) 5. “Fah guess nisht Deh Kaakeh mykeh!” (Don’t forget the whatchamacallit!)
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