‘People of the Book’ – Blog by Debbie Havusha
‘People of the Book’
Several weeks ago I attended a Book Club lead by Dan Cohen, a man passionate about books and poetry and also about his Algerian Jewish roots. Dan started this Book Club almost four years ago. It takes place at Vancouver’s Sephardic synagogue, Beit Hamidrash, the only Sephardic synagogue west of Toronto!
I was invited to this group for the first time where the book ‘Yiddish: A Nation of Words’ by Miriam Weinstein was discussed. During this evening, 9 people congregated around the table and this time Shana led us in discussion exploring fascinating facts. The linguistic formula of Yiddish is= 10th century German + Hebrew+ Aramaic+ the local dialect. A language with Germanic, Hebraic roots gave life to those that spoke it, and in return, Yiddish lived inside the hearts of the ordinary person doing ordinary acts. Isaac Bashevis Singer stated in his 1978 Nobel Prize acceptance speech that: “The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the People of the Book in the truest sense of the word.”
“We learn from Yiddish that there is no perfection in this world; that it is possible to live a full life in the margins. Yiddish teaches us how to make something from nothing; how to richly define and inhabit our own life. Weinstein further writes that Yiddish, the language coined as ‘mame loshn’ literally means ‘let’s speak’. However what it really means is- let’s be honest with each other and tell it like it really is! Yiddish is a distinct fusion language 1,000 years old spoken in Western Europe. In 1939, 8 million Jews spoke Yiddish.
Only 2 million Jews survived the atrocities of Holocaust, yet the legacy of its’ Yiddish speakers has had a profound impact on the English language. ‘Yiddish: A Nation of Words’ informs us that in the current edition of Oxford English Dictionary there are 144 words of Yiddish origin. Words like: shlep, nosh, chutzpah, shtick, to kibbitz, etc. Did you know that schmoozing, a relaxed intimate sort of chatting, comes from the Yiddish word ‘shmues’ which means conversation?
What was extraordinary to witness at this Book Club ‘shmues’, was the collective Jewish pride of people coming from both Ashkenazic and Sephardic backgrounds relaxing in a Sephardic synagogue conversing about a book about the Yiddish World. All were discussing the language of Yiddish and its’ historical evolution, unfortunate revolutions, and ultimate decline, as Hebrew became the official language spoken proclaiming Israel’s statehood in 1948. Thanks to the tireless strategic efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Hebrew became the official language to be spoken in Israel, downplaying and downgrading Yiddish. Ben Yehuda proclaimed the absolute and definitive use of Hebrew to be spoken with Sephardic pronunciations.
There is no doubt that Jewish people residing in Israel or in the Diaspora have adopted customs from where they inhabited. This richness of our accumulated heritages does spilleth over. Whether we have roots from from Algeria or from the former Soviet Union, we are united from our common Jewish ancestry, our ancient Hebrew language and with joyful Sabbath songs.
