Letters

Editor-> Dear Jim, I am delighted with your response to my editor's comments as well as your observations on Yiddish and Yiddishkeit in general. It is good to have you as a member of our Megillah family. As Levy's Rye Bread used to say in their ads, "You Don't Have to be Jewish to Love the Megillah."

Jim Stoll		December 2, 2003
	Yiddishkeit
Michael, I read your editorial about Yiddishkeit. I found it informative and in a way, heart-warming. Although I am a Virginian, my New York roots run deep. Given Mount Vernon's proximity to the Bronx, I guess we are really talking about NYC roots. I had no idea that Montréal and Toronto were major Jewish population centers. Some time, I would be interested to learn how and why that happened. It was also interesting to learn how the Yiddishkeit culture of New York City has never taken root in the Canadian culture. My father worked as a customer's broker on Wall Street. He was not a major player and was a working-class stiff despite the high-sounding work title. He also worked a second part-time job as a board supervisor for Holmes Electric, a major burglar alarm company. Dad was the source of most of my Yiddish vocabulary although it was also common in the streets. Your comment about Yiddish terms being almost universally understood in NYC is a colorful comment on the Jewish influence in NYC. No one ever told me what "schlep" or "meshuginah" or "schlemiel" or many other words meant. These words and others were just absorbed into the vernacular in context, just as no one had to tell us what dog, cat or mouse meant. This brings me to the subject of humor (or as you Canadians might say, humour) is concerned. My wife and I laughed until we were almost crying while I clicked through several jokes on the web site. I believe humor is a major part of a nation's cultural psyche. For example, the Chinese are not very big on humor, or at least they weren't in 83-85 when I lived in Beijing. I guess it was not very communist and too proletariat. The French (and the Germans in their own way) have a highly developed sense of humor but it always seems to be at the expense of others; unlike the Irish who like to laugh at themselves. I think this is what I find so likeable in Jewish humor; they seem to enjoy poking fun at themselves, not at others. Of course, knowing a little bit of Yiddish vocabulary helps because many words (in any language) do not directly translate into another. The meaning is lost because of the fine diff! erences in the meaning of the word in the original language. I have been told that one has truly mastered a language when one can tell jokes and get angry in that language. I once gave a short presentation at the conclusion of an intensive French language improvement course in Belgium. Most of the students in the school were Europeans trying to improve their French for business reasons. I decided to be light-hearted, rather than pay a serious tribute to the school and my sojourn there. The meaning behind the text of the presentation would be lost unless one had attended the school because it focused on idiosyncratic policies and practices of the school and some of its instructors. It was a risk, because I did not know how the instructors (all Belgians) would take it. They roared, and it turns out that no other student had the moxie to take the school on in that manner. I was the last speaker of the evening (all the students who were departing had to comment on the value of the school to them) and was approached by a German student whom I had thought to be quite dour. Te! ars were still running down his face. He complimented me on my timing, but what impressed him most was "and in a foreign language, no less". The knowledge of a little Yiddish helps one to better appreciate Jewish jokes. Many of them simply are not the same if told completely in English. Best wishes, Jim Stoll
Editor-> Dear Jim, I am delighted with your response to my editor's comments as well as your observations on Yiddish and Yiddishkeit in general. It is good to have you as a member of our Megillah family. As Levy's Rye Bread used to say in their ads, "You Don't Have to be Jewish to Love the Megillah."
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