Ich kenn nur a bissel Yiddish

A friend and former student gave me the most wonderful gift today: a CD from the Yiddish Radio Project. It is features a remarkable array of music, dramas, talk shows, and commercials from the golden age of Yiddish radio in America (which the YRP identifies as running from the 1930s to the 1950s).

Listening to the CD, I thought wistfully about what it would have been like to live in a time and place when Yiddish was still a living language of literature, theater, scholarship, and everyday conversation. And I was reminded of a favorite essay by Michael Chabon, reviewing a remarkable “phrase book for travelers” called Say It In Yiddish, which Chabon introduces as “Probably the saddest book that I own”. I too own a copy of the book, and like Chabon, I cherish it precisely for its bittersweet quality, the suggestion of a modern country where people live and tourists visit to encounter a vibrant Yiddish culture.

In his essay, Chabon imagines such a country, located in “the former Alaska Territory”. As Chabon fans know, he would eventually give life to that counter-history in his wonderful novel, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, set in his imaginary Yiddish Alyeska. And no doubt, tourists passing through the Aleyeska International Airport, can pick up a copy of Say It In Yiddish to help them communicate during their stay.

Hanukkah, with reservations

From my Jewish-Anarcho-Syndicalist perspective, I used to celebrate Hanukkah as a commemoration of popular resistance against imperialist oppression. But in reality, the Maccabees were roughly the Taliban of their day, and not exactly people I wish to honor as part of my Jewish heritage. When it comes to Jews heroically taking up arms in collective self-defense, I much prefer the likes of Marek Edelman and his Warsaw ghetto comrades.

I also have less than zero patience for the incredibly misinformed, and not a little anti-Semitic, construction of Hanukkah as the “Jewish Christmas”. Without begrudging anyone else their preferred sectarian celebrations (I graciously accept Christmas wishes from my Christian friends, even if I reflexively cringe at the  ”Merry”), I see no reason to elevate a minor Jewish holiday into a major event merely so that my son doesn’t feel left out of the majority’s Yuletide merriment.

Still, I am awfully fond of latkes (with sour cream–one respect in which the Russian side of my ancestry wins out over the Austro-Hungarian side) and Young Alfie enjoys the candles and playing dreidle. So we’ll be lighting the Menorah this week — but without reference to Mullah Judah and his brothers.

A Zissn Danksgebn

The Fly Fishing Rabbi and The Forward offer some Jewish perspective on Thanksgiving. I was thinking about this myself, after hearing an NPR story this morning about a Greek-American family whose Thanksgiving dinner consisted mostly of traditional Greek foods. I don’t recall any distinctively Jewish foods at my family’s Thanksgiving table when I was growing up; Thanksgiving was (at least implicitly) about being good assimilated Americans, symbolized by eating good assimilated American fare.

Though I’ve come to have more mixed feelings about Thanksgiving–not least because of its association with European conquest and the ensuing genocide of native peoples (an especially touchy subject for me as a Jew who does not embrace Zionism)–I still do enjoy the holiday, though mostly for the food. I’m looking forward to the cooking and the eating and the collapsing on the sofa. And with the leftovers, I’ll make some turkey-matzo ball soup.

Ocho kandelas para mi

Zog nit keyn mol

65 years ago, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in resistance against their impending deportation to the Nazi death camps.

Warsaw Ghetto Seder

Captured Ghetto Resisters

N.B. The title of this post comes from a famous song by Yiddish poet Hirsh Glick, who was part of the Jewish underground in the Vilna ghetto. The song was inspired by the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and became an anthem for Jewish partisans. There is a nice recording here.

Havana-nagilah

The Forward reports on the resurgent Jewish community in Cuba:

Today, Cuba’s Jewish community consists of about 1,500 members, most of them in the capital, Havana, which has three synagogues and a Jewish community center. During last week’s services at Beth Shalom, in the relatively affluent neighborhood of Vedado, there was a mixed crowd: older community members with younger families; many children, and the inevitable presence of Israeli backpackers.

The service itself was conducted in Spanish, with some translation into Hebrew and English. In a country where product shortages are a constant concern, a last-minute snag almost left the congregation without honey for the traditional blessings with apples. But an hour before the holiday began, a batch of honey was found.

Shana tovah u’metukah (May it be a good and sweet year)

Additions to my “to read” list

In an example of fortuitous timing, this week’s Forward features three books about Jewish life in the South, just as I’m about to embark on my own Dixie Diaspora.

Evidentiary, my dear Watson

Another interesting book review from the Forward. I’ve been a huge Sherlock Holmes fan since childhood, though my obsession has waxed and waned over the years. It has long been my peculiar and baseless pet theory that Holmes was Jewish and changed his name from Shlomo Hellerstein. (Perhaps Michael Chabon, who has already authored a Holmes tribute novella, would be interested in this idea as the basis for a sequel?)

My Yiddeshe Mama’s demise

In You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother, Brandeis University Professor Joyce Antler traces the life and demise of this beloved and bemoaned cultural figure. The Forward has an amusing review:

Known in some circles as a figure of generosity and deep warmth, in others as the skilled practitioner of toxic enmeshment, the Jewish Mother was acknowledged, here and abroad, as the symbol of overinvolvement in children’s lives.

She was also known for her chicken soup.

The Jewish Mother is survived by her neurotic yet high-achieving, dependent though viciously ungrateful, sexually repressed yet rapacious, impossible-to-satisfy son and her primped and posed, nose-jobbed and outfitted, long-suffering-yet-somehow-exactly-like-her daughter (both well-fed); innumerable books, radio serials, television shows, movies, songs, articles, nightmares — not to mention more jokes than Egypt had locusts; the field of American stand-up comedy, born of those locusts; Guilt, her lifelong companion; the word “Feh”; thousands of appreciative psychoanalysts; and several acquaintances from her stint at The Dayenu Home for Aging Stereotypes, including Sassy, Overweight Black Mom and Finger-Snapping Gay Best Friend.