Yiddish
What is Yiddish?
Yiddish is the language of East European Jewry. It is over 1,000 years old. The oldest Yiddish document uncovered is a bill of lading dated about 1200 CE. This suggests that the spoken language is a century or two older. The great Jewish scholar Rashi, who lived from 1040 to 1105 CE, and whose native tongue was Old French, referred to Yiddish as “leshoneynu”: a Hebrew word meaning “our language”. Currently it finds a resurgence in places as distant as America and Australia. Thousands are studying it in classes around the world and on Duolingo.
While Yiddish is not my native language, my immigrant grandparents convinced my American parents to send me to afternoon Yiddish school, in lieu of Hebrew school. I started at nine years old, fell in love with the language and culture, and twelve years later earned a Bachelor of Jewish Literature degree. The love affair is stronger than ever.
The structure of Yiddish
Yiddish is written in the Hebrew alphabet. But the letter designations are not the same as in Hebrew. To put it simply, Hebrew “has no vowels”; that is, vowel sounds are either written as diacritical marks above, below,or next to letters, or not written at all, for readers who can deduce the vowel sounds from clues in the consonants. Yiddish on the other hand, like all Indo-European languages, has letters ascribed to vowels just as to consonants. The four letters aleph א, vov ו, yud י, ayin ע, and their combinations provide the vowel sounds: aleph- ah or uh; vov- oo; yud- ee; ayin- eh; vov yud- oy; two yuds- ey (like hey) or ay (like bayou). It’s slightly more complicated, but this will do for the moment.
A word about transliteration.You can find it at https://www.yiddishwit.com/YIVO%20transliteration%20chart.pdf. Without going into details about the rules, here are some examples: “bukh”: “book”, “kishke”: “stuffed derma”. “kh” is pronounced as in “Bach”. The final sound “eh” as in English is not written “eh”, but just “e”. But here’s a counterexample: the Shabbes bread should be written “khale”. But that’s taken as pretentious, given its ubiquitous spelling, “challah”. So that’s how we “faynshmeckers” (“fancy sniffers”; somewhat less pejoratively, “cognocenti”) leave it. Ditto “bagel” (technically “beygl”). Can we do the same about the holiday “khanike”? We might be able to default to the English spelling, but what is that, “Chanukah, or Hanukkah”? So I like to stick with “khanike”. Note, by the way, that Yiddish, like Hebrew, has no capital letters.
Yiddish is phonetic–more or less. There is a so-called Standard Yiddish, in which every written vowel is correlated with a single sound. But nobody speaks it except those of us who went to Yiddish school! This standard dialect was created by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research https://www.yivo.org/, one of whose purposes was to make the language phonetic. To do this, they took the phonetic vowels from each of the dialects; thus, Standard Yiddish is an amalgam of them, getting rid of the ones that didn’t fit. Here is an example. In Standard Yiddish and most of the dialects, “Where do you live?” is “Vu voynt ir?”. So far, so good. But in Litvish Yiddish, spoken in and around Lithuania, they don’t distinguish between the sounds “oy” and “ey”: “Moyshe” becomes “Meyshe”, and so forth. So “voynt” becomes “veynt”. For the Litvaks, “Vu voynt ir?” becomes, “Vu veynt ir?”. But that presents a problem: “veynt” also means “cry”. Uh oh: “Where do you cry?” might be heard by the Angel of Death (if you believe in such things), who would say, “You’re crying? I’ll give you something to cry about.” So the Litvaks trick the A of D by saying, “Vu freyt ir zikh?”, “Where are you rejoicing?”
Not to be unfair to the Litvaks, here’s an example from Polish Yiddish. They don’t distinguish between “oo” and “ee”. Thus, the person who leads the bride into the synagogue is pronounced in Standard Yiddish, “oonterfeerer”. The Polish dialect says “interfeerer””, a whole different role.
The linguistic history of Yiddish
Yiddish is about 50% cognate with modern German (although its origins are with much older forms). For comparison, Spanish and Portuguese are closer to each other, and Norwegian was virtually indistinguishable from Danish well into the 20th century. I mention this to banish the calumny that Yiddish is a “jargon”, a “dialect of (modern) German” or a “bastardized” form of it. Some modern German words are the same as in Yiddish. Thus, “weekly” in Yiddish is “vokhntlekh”; compare German “wöchentlich”. But Yiddish also has “vokhedik”, which means “during the week” or “profane”, distinguishing it from “shabbesdik”: “holy”. Both Yiddish and German have a word for “ask”; respectively Yiddish “fregn”, German “fragen”. But Yiddish also has “opfregn”: to refute, not always nicely.
About 20% of East European Yiddish is rooted in an archaic Slavic language, which entered the Yiddish when many Jews came to Poland in the 13th and 14th centuries, due to lifted legal/religious restrictions. It gives us many of the “homey” words, like “tate” (dad), “mame” (mom). Compare the more formal Germanic-root words “foter” (father), “muter” (mother). Sometimes German root words are combined with Slavic endings; some nice–“zuninke”: “dear little son”, “gotenyu”: “dearest God”; some not so nice– “yungatsh”: “brat”, and–wait for it–“shnayderuk”: a tailor who can’t sew.
10 to 15% of Yiddish is “mediated” Hebrew and Aramaic:, that is, older forms of those languages, distinct from the modern Israeli version. The same word can mean different things, and with different pronunciations. For example, “efsher” means “maybe” in mediated Hebrew; “efshar” means “possible” in modern Hebrew. The emphases are on different syllables: EFsher, efSHAR. For some words, the plurals are different. Sabbath in Hebrew is “shaBAT”, female plural “shabaTOT”; in Yiddish, “SHAbbes”, masculine plural “shaBEYSim” (Hebrew plural!). “MAyseh” means “story” in mediated Hebrew; “ma’aSEH” means “deed” in modern Hebrew.
Some words mix the Germanic with the mediated Hebrew. Doctor: singular DOkter (Germanic), plural (Hebrew) dokTOYrim. Sometimes, two very different words, both Hebrew, mean the same thing. Holiday in modern Hebrew is “khag”. In the mediated Hebrew of Yiddish it’s “yontef”, a shortening of “yom tov”: “good day” (technically “day good”). There is also underworld slang. “khad gadyo”, the Aramaic song sung near the end of the Passover, literally “one goat”, in underworld slang means “jail”.
The remainder of Yiddish comprises holdovers from languages acquired by Jews as they migrated from land to land. “Shul”: “school” stems from the Greek “skole”, meaning “free time” (hardly a description of Yiddish schools). “Apikoyres”: “heretic” derives from the Greek “Epicurean”. “Tsholnt”, the stew usually prepared on Friday without need for reheating - cooking on the Sabbath is prohbited by Orthodoxy-has its origin in the Old French “chalant”: “heating”. (My wife Ann, a scholar of Old French, discovered this.) Some common Yiddish names have archaic roots, some still extant in modern languages. The male name”Bunem” comes from “Bon homme”. Shprintse” (one of Tevye’s daughters not in Fiddler on the Roof) is from “Esperanza”, and the word for genteel resurfaces as “Yente”!
For a comparison, English, like Yiddish, traces its roots to several languages, mostly Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. The former, spoken by the earlier inhabitants, gives us the homey words like “house (no pun intended); the latter, spoken by the Norman conquerors of 1066, tends to give us the fancier words, like “residence”.
One more thing: the mediated Hebrew and Aramaic words are left with their traditional spelling, which is not phonetic in Yiddish–unless you’re a Soviet Communist. Intent on removing any remnant of religion, they chose to “phoneticize” the Hebrew/Aramiaic words.
What about English words that have come into Yiddish? Some are acceptable, some are just parodic–and charmingly so. Of the first, we have “yoonyen”: labor union, coined by Jewish immigrants to America in the last part of the 19th and the early part of the 20th centuries. They are a bit different from their analogues in Europe in structure. “Shmeer”: the cream cheese that you put on a bagel, or the verb “bribe”. These are the same in Yiddish, simply adopted in English. “Maven”: expert. “Shmooze”: Yes when it means a chat (and pronounced “SHMUes); no when it means to talk with someone in order to impress or manipulate them. Now some Yinglish: words Jews invented when they came to America. Not accepted into standard Yiddish, but expressive nonetheless. Someone who makes a decent living: “alrightnik”. The neighbor in the adjacent apartment: nextdoorike”. Sometimes English words with two meanings can be confusing:
–An elderly Jewish man is run over. He’s lying in the street when the paramedics arrive. As they load him carefully onto the stretcher, one asks, “Are you comfortable?” He replies, “Thank God, I make a living.”
–An elderly Jewish lady is run over. A lawyer rushes to her side, hands her his card, and says, “Call me. I can get you damages.” The lady replies, “Damages I already have. What I need is repairs!”
Yiddish literature
Yiddish literature was and is the instrument of secular Jewish culture.
Written literature dates back to the 14th century. Tkhines, a prayer collection dating to the 16th century, and Tsena Urena, a Yiddish translation of the Torah and accompanying Haftores, dating to the 17th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haftara, were designated for “women and feeble-minded men”. But they gave entree to women, who were proscribed from reaing the Hebrew Torah. Examples of early tales included some with Biblical themes, such as “Mayse Yoysef” (The Story of Joseph). Others are taken from chivalric tales (with sex and violence removed); one such is the story of the English knight Bemish of Hampton. the Yiddish author, Eliohu Bokher, had only the Italian translation, where “Bemish” became “Bovo”. The stories are called “Bovo Mayses”. That’s what came down to us as “Bobe Mayses”: “grandmother’s tales”, usually called “old wives’ tales”.
17th Century Yiddish literature was notable for Glikl of Hamlin, a Western European Jewish woman who raised 13 children, managed a success business concern begun by her late husband, and wrote her memoirs. They gave a picture of 17th and early 18th century western Jews, as well as a trove of vocabulary and morphology for modern linguistic scholars. What her writings also did was to open the door of secular Yddish literature to women, who have been prominent ever since.
The 18th and early 19th centuries brought us the precursors of Harlequin-type romances and potboilers. The most famous of the authors were Isaac Mayer Dik and Shloyme Ettinger. The former wrote novels in both Hebrew and Yiddish; a notable one was “Notte the Ganef” (Notte the Thief). The latter is most famous for “Serkele”, a five-hanky drama that could give “Wuthering Heights” a run for its money.
In the late 19th Century, Yiddish literature really came into its own, with the Big Three, codifiers of literary Yiddish: Mendele Moykher Sforim, called “The grandfather of Yiddish literature”, I. L. Peretz, called “The father of Yiddish literature”, and Sholem Aleikhem, called, well, “Sholem Aleikhem” Of the three, only I. L. Peretz is called by his last name. Mendele is called Mendele. Moykher Sforim, his nom de plume, means “bookseller.” And Sholem Aleikhem is always called Sholem Aleikhem, which means “hello”, literally “peace be upon you”–obviousy also a nom de plume. “Mr. Aleikhem”? Never. Each of the three wrote numerous great works. (I’ll use transliteration, not in the Yiddish script in which it was written, unless I can find links to it.)
Mendele’s greatest, and certainly most translated and published work, was “Mesoyes Benyomin Hashlishi”: “The Travels of Benjamin the Third”. So who were First and Second? Benjamin I was Benjamin of Tudela, a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the twelfth century (long before Marco Polo. _https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_of_Tudela. Benjamin II was a Rumanian Jewish traveler,whose real name was Joseph Israel. He adopted the name of Benjamin of Tudela, and toward the end of 1844 set out to search for the Ten Lost Tribes. “Mesoyes Benyomin Hashlishi” is the Don Quixote plot reconfigured as a biting satite on Jewish life in Eastern Europe. Binyomin has a squire named Senderl think Sancho). They travel to what Binyomin thinks are great foreign places. In fact they just go in circles for a long time, ending up in their own shetl (small towns in Eastern Europe, populated mostly by Jews). https://encyclopedia.yivo.org/article/27#).
Peretz was a Warsaw Jewish communal leader, whose themes had mostly to do with a changing world, Jewish and otherwise. He was a master of the short story. Thre is no way to select his greatest work, there are so many. See https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/i-l-peretz/ for a brief summary. “Bontshe Shvayg”: “Bontshe the Silent”, described in the link, is perhaps the most widely known of his stories because of its satiric depiction of the miserable condition of Polish Jews, to the point where they can’t even imagine there could be a better life. Peretz himself could imagine it. He was part of the nascent Jewish socialist movement. Here is my translation of his poem “Meyn Nisht di Velt iz a Kretchme”: “Don’t Think the World is a Tavern”.
Meyn nisht , di velt is a kretshme–bashafn
makhn a veg mit foystn un negl
tsum shenkpas, un fresn on zoyfn, ven andere
kukn fun vaytn mit glezerne oygn
farkhalesht, un shlingen dem shpayekhts un tsyen
tsuzamen dem mogn, vos varft zikh in krempn!-
O, meyn nisht, di velt is a kretshme-
Meyn nisht, di velt is a berze–bashafn,
Der sharker zol handlen mit mide un shvakhe,
Zol koyfn bay oreme meydlekh di bushe,
Bay froyen di milkh fun di brustn, bay mener
Dem markh fun di beyner, bay kinder dem shmeykhl,
Dem zeltenem gast oyfn vaksenem ponim–
O, meyn nisht, di velt is a berze
Meyn nisht, di velt is a hefker–bashafn
Far velf un far fuksn, far royb un far shvindl;
Der himl– a forhang, az got zol nisht zeyen:
Der nepl–men zol oyf di hent dir nisht kukn;
Der vint–tsu farshtikn di vilde geshrayen;
Di erd iz tsu zupn dos blut fun karbones–
O, meyn nisht, di velt is a hefker!
–
-Don’t think the world is a tavern–created
For fighting your way, with fists and with nails
To the bar, where you gorge and you guzzle, while others
Look on, glassy-eyed from a distance
Swooning from hunger and swallowing spit
Drawing their swollen cramped bellies in tighter
Oh, don’t think the world is a tavern.
-Don’t think the world is a market–created
So the strong can prey on the tired and weak
And purchase from destitute maidens their shame,
From women, the milk of their breasts, and from men,
The marrow of their bones, from children, their smiles
That infrequent guest on the innocent face
Oh, don’t think the world is a market.
-Don’t think the world is a wasteland–created
For wolves and for foxes, for spoils and for booty
The heavens–a curtain, so God shall not see!
The mist, so that no one might look at your hands;
The wind–just to muffle the sound of wild crying
The earth is to soak up the blood of the victims.
Oh, don’t think the world is a wasteland
In addition to his novels, Sholem Aleikhem wrote short stories. Like Mendele and Peretz, he naturally wrote about the situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe. He created memorable characters like Menakhem Mendl, the archetypical luftmensh–“air person”–, someone with his head in the clouds; the guy always trying schemes to get rich and always failing. “Motl Peysi dem Khazns” was a pseudo-diary of a young boy, Motl,taking place partly in Eastern Europe, then in immigrant New York. Sholem Alekhem himself immigrated to America. He died in New York in 1916; 150,000 people accompanied the coffin from his home in the Bronx to his resting place in Harlem.
But let’s get to what you’re waiting for: the novel “Tevye der Milkhiker”: “Tevye the Dairyman”, known to millions in its English-language Broadway version, “Fiddler on the Roof”, a testament to the universality of literature. “Fiddler” dates from 1964. A Yiddish version, first performed in 2018 at the National Yiddish Theater Folkbiene in New York, continues on today to rave reviews, not the least because it is in its natural language. The English subtitles are a delicious irony.
There are, however, important differences between Sholem Aleikhem’s “Tevye” and “Fiddler”, the difference of the lived experience of East European Jews and “Fiddler”’s nostalgic re-creation. In the 1939 Yiddish film “Tevye”, true to the spirit of the book, there is no abashed Russian chief constable telling Tevye that the Jews must leave. On the contrary, the film shows a group of illiterate peasants gloating as Tevye packs. He turns to them and says, “Hot moyre: ikh shrayb.” “Fear me: I can write.”
The third daughter, Khave, doesn’t just marry the Christian Fyedka, she converts; her husband Fyedka is revealed to be a ne’er do well drunk; none of this “God bless you” which “Fiddler”’s Tevye wishes them as he is driven out of the country. There are also two more daughters; one, Shprintse (see above “Esperanza”) commits suicide. Sholem Aleikhem does not shrink from tragedy.
Before we move on, I must address a notion, not uncommon among Yiddish speakers, that the use of Hebrew/Aramaic is a sign of higher literary quality. Thus, the Big Three and other greats presumably used more than ordinary people. This was put to rest by Ph.D. Mechanical Engineer David Chassin (my stepson the doctor) and me. We did a careful count of several great works –one of which was “Tevye”– as well as typical spoken language, and showed that just the opposite was true. Not only does the use of Hebrew/Aramaic not correlate with accepted greatness, but ordinary Yiddish spoken by “the masses” contained more Hebrew/Aramaic than the literary works we considered.
The late 19th and 20th centuries saw an outpouring of poetry, with America as one center. Most, if not all, of the poets were immigrants. Another center was, unsurprisingly, Eastern Europe. A third center was specifically the Soviet Union, where the Yiddish poets met with an unpleasant fate.
The first group of American immigrant poets, the so-called “sweatshop poets” devoted much of their output to social justice. They knew the problems first-hand: they were workers. One of them was Morris Rosenfeld. Here is his song “Mayn Ruhe Platz”, “My Resting Place”. https://yiddishsongs.org/mayn-rue-plats/ provides the original Yiddish, a transliteration, a translation, and the song itself in Yiddish with some newly created English interspersed.
The next group called itself “Di Yunge”, “The Young Ones”, devoted to modernism See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism for a definition. Here’s the first sentence: “Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, performing arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience.”
One of the stars was Moyshe Leyb Halpern. Here is a sample of his poetry in English translation. https://www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feature/moyshe-leyb-halpern-four-poems/ .
Another was Zishe Landoy. Here is my translation of one of his poems, transliteration of the original included.
–Tsvey heyse glezer tey hob ikh mir oysgetrunken
A dray-fir tsvibak opgegesn
Dernokh bin ikh a lange tsayt baym tish gezesn
Geroykhert un gekukt mir of a nogl in the vant.
Tsvey lider iberzetst fun daytsh
A mider oyf der sofe mir avekgeleygt
Arum dem kop di hent farleyget
Un dray mol tsu dem balkn oysgesphign.
Mir iz gevorn shver
Farvos der zumer iz fargangen
Ikh volt dokh itst shpatsirn mir in park gegangen
Tsi gor in shtub gekhapt mir flign.
Un nokhamol tsum balkn hob ikh dray mol oysgesphign,
Un ale dray mol nit getrofn.
Dernokh bin ikh mir ayngeshlofn.
–
–Drank some hot tea, two glasses full
Then ate some zwieback, three or four
I sat a long time at the table after that
Looked at a nail stuck in the wall, and smoked.
Translated from the German several songs
Then tired, on the sofa lay
Put both my hands behind my head
And spit three times up to the ceiling
It weighed upon me heavily
How soon the summer went away.
I would have liked to wander through the park today
Or even catching flies would be okay.
And once again spat three more times up to the ceiling
And missed all three
And went to sleep.
-Subjective experience ideed.
The third movement called itself “Inzikhistn”:”Introspectivists”. (Although how much more introspective then Zishe Landoy could they be?) Among their stars were Yankev Glatshteyn, Celia Dropkin, Aron Glants-Leyeles, and N. B. Minkov. Quoting Professor Itzik Gottesman (https://www.laits.utexas.edu/gottesman/inzik.html), “They typically wrote in free verse and reversed the trend of the Yunge for symbolism and lyrical, mood poetry. They reflected the growing urban life and the jazz age. (Full disclosure: I’ve know Itsik since he was a kid; proud to still be connected with him.)
Speaking of Celia Dropkin mentioned above, in the 20th Century, women writers really came into their own, both in America and Europe, including the Soviet Union, and later in Israel. Here, from the Yiddish Book Center is an extremely abridged list: poetry by Kadya Molodovsky, Malka Heifetz Tussman, Rokhl Korn, Celia Dropkin, Anna Margolin, Malka Lee, and Rukhl Fishman; novels by Esther Singer Kreitman and Chava Rosenfarb; short stories by Rokhl Brokhes, Fradl Shtok, and Blume Lempel. For a lot more about them, see https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/discover/yiddish-literature/celebrating-yiddish-women-writers.
A not-so-side note: note the middle name of Esther Singer Kreitman. She was the sister of Isaac Bashevis Singer and his brother Israel Joshua Singer. She has finally been recognized on her own, and about time–or long past it.
Molodovsky is arguably the most famous of the group; she is the subject of excellent work by Anita Norich:
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/discover/yiddish-literature/celebrating-yiddish-women-writers, including a translation of one of her novels:
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/the-shmooze/227-anita-norichs-newly-translated-jewish-refugee-new-york .
(Another full disclosure: I have known Anita for many years, and proud of it.) Here is a poem by Molodovsky, translated by Adar Rossman and me:
-Es veln di froyen fun unzer mishpokhe
Bay nakht in kholoymes mir kumen un zogn:
Mir hobn in tsniyes di loytere blut iber doyres getrogn
Tsu dir es gebrakht vi a vayn a gehitn
In koshere kelers fun undzere hertser.
Un eyne vet zogn:
Ikh bin an agune geblibn, ven s’zaynen di bakn–tsvey roytlekhe epl–
Oyf boym nokh geshtanen,
Un kh’hob mayne tseyner di vayse tsekritst in di aynzame nekht fun dervartung.
Un ikh vel di bobes antkegn geyn zogn:
Ayere ziftsn hobn vi fokhike baytshn geotemt
Un hobn may lebn mayn yungn getribn fun shtub tsum aroysgang,
Fun ayere koshere betn antloyfn.
Nor ir geyt mir nokh, vu di gas iz nokh tunkl,
Vu s’falt nor a shotn.
Un ayere shtile farshtikte geveynen yogn nokh mir zikh vi harbstike vintn,
Un ayere reyd zaynen zeydene fedim of mayn moyekh farbundn.
Un mayn lebn an oysgeflikt blat fun a seyfer
Un di shure di ershte farrisn.
-Sometimes in the night the women of our family will come to me and say:
“We have modestly borne our pure blood over generations
And brought it to you like a vintage wine
From the kosher wine cellars of our hearts.”
And one of them will say:
“I was left a deserted wife
When my cheeks, two rosy apples,
Were still on the tree.
And I ground my white teeth
In the lonely nights of waiting.”
And I shall confront my grandmothers, saying:
“Your sighs, breathed like whips,
Have driven my young life from your house
From your pure beds have I fled.
But still you pursue me
Where streets lie in darkness
Where shadows appear
And your silent stifled cries
Prey upon me like chill harvest winds
And your words are like silken cords
Binding my brain.
My life is a page torn from a holy book
And the first line ripped apart.
We could go on with describing the works of Yiddish writers, but that would fill many pages. Go instead to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Yiddish-language_writers.
Let us mention a few. Isaac Bashevis Singer, the most famous in English translation, is highly regarded by non-Yiddish speakers, not so much by Yiddish speakers. Two who I think deserved the Nobel Prize were Chaim Grade, a prose writer, who lived much of his life in the Bronx; and Avrum Sutskever, a poet originally from Vilna (Vilnius), where he was a partisan fighter later in Israel where he spent the rest of his life. But they were not as often translated as Singer.
Peretz Markish was, in my opinion, the greatest of the Soviet Yiddish poets. He met his end along with other leading Yiddish writers on August 12, 1952 at the hands of Stalin’s henchmen.
Yiddish expressions and English equivalents
Various Yiddish expressions have English equivalents. They demonstrate the difference between Jewish and non-Jewish cultures.
Di tsveyte teg yontef. The second days of the holiday. (In early times, it took a day for Jews in the Diaspora to get the information about the exact start of the holiday, so they needed an extra day.) English equivalent: Another county heard from.
Zay nisht mekadesh di levone eyder zi shteyt. Don’t say the prayer over the moon before it is up. English equivalent: Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,
Zay mekadesh di levoneh ven zi shteyt. Say the prayer over the moon when it is up. English equivalent: Strike while the iron is hot.
Firn shtroy keyn Mitsrayim. Bringing straw to Egypt. Ths refers to the period when Jews were slaves in Egypt, making bricks out of straw. No dearth of straw there. English equivalent: Carrying coals to Newcastle.
Es nisht dem lukshn farn fish. Don’t eat the noodles before the fish. In Jewish meals, the fish was the appetizer, noodle pudding was part of the main course. English equivalent: Don’t put the cart before the horse.
Shmaltsgrub. Pit of chicken fat. English equivalent: Pot of gold.
And my favorite: Oyb men est khazer, zol es rinen iber di bord un peyes. If you’re eating pork, let it run down your beard and earlocks. English equivalent: In for a penny, in for a pound.
Yiddish is alive and well and living all over the place
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research https://yivo.org/Classes
CHICAGO YIVO https://www.chicagoyivo.org/yiddish-classes
WORKERS’ CIRCLE https://www.circle.org/yiddish-registration-classe
MEDEM INSTITUTE, Paris http://www.yiddishweb.com/english/; https://immersion.yiddish.paris/
DUOLINGO https://www.duolingo.com/course/yi/en/Learn-Yiddish
KLEZMER GROUPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Klezmer_bands
UNIVERSITIES
Harvard https://cjs.fas.harvard.edu/academics/languages/yiddish/
Yale https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/yale-to-offer-beginner-yiddish-courses-to-fulfill-language-requirements
Cornell https://alumni.cornell.edu/cornellians/yiddish-class/
Rutgers https://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/yiddish-courses
Johns Hopkins https://krieger.jhu.edu/modern-languages-literatures/hebrew-and-yiddish/
Indiana https://germanic.indiana.edu/about/core-faculty/kerler-dov-ber.html
Michigan https://lsa.umich.edu/german/undergraduate-students/yiddish-studies.html
Ottawa https://catalogue.uottawa.ca/en/courses/ydd/
Tel Aviv https://international.tau.ac.il/Yiddish_Summer_Program
Berlin http://www.yiddishberlin.com/
Hebrew University of Jerusalem https://cris.huji.ac.il/en/organisations/yiddish-studies
Monash U., Melbourne https://www.monash.edu/arts/acjc/yiddish-melbourne
Lund U., Sweden https://portal.research.lu.se/portal/en/persons/jan-schwarz(f1b65060-5164-4867-bd63-252c2d44a2f3).html
University of Texas-Austin https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/languages/yiddish.html
Berkeley https://guide.berkeley.edu/courses/yiddish/
UCLA https://elts.ucla.edu/undergraduate/languages/yiddish/
Toronto https://german.utoronto.ca/yiddish-studies/
McGill https://www.mcgill.ca/jewishstudies/
York https://researchguides.library.yorku.ca/jewishstudies/yiddish
Toronto https://german.utoronto.ca/yiddish-studies/
British Columbia https://cenes.ubc.ca/undergraduate/modern-european-studies/yiddish-language-program/
PRIMARY SCHOOL Sholem Aleikhem College primary school, Melbourne https://www.sholem.vic.edu.au/about-us
FORVERTS https://forward.com/yiddish/
YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yEe6jZkwR0; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR-nmbZE6X8; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0HxB5ITd-o; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2QlWFSakaM&t=274s
FOLKSBIENE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKBwauqPGzU
YUGNTRUF https://yugntruf.org/about-us/?lang=en
YIDDISH BOOK CENTER
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/educational-programs
YIDDISH LEAGUE http://www.leagueforyiddish.org/afnshvel388390.html; http://docs.leagueforyiddish.org/Afn_Shvel_388-390_Burko.pdf