![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weekend
During dinner we realized that it made no difference to the amount of time we spent with his family whether we went up Friday night or very early Saturday morning. After evaluating the trade-offs, we decided to get up at the crack of dawn (well, before the crack of dawn) and go. So instead of missing Friday services and going to Beit HaMinyan Saturday morning, I went to my own congregation Friday night and missed Saturday morning. (This was actually a tough call; I was looking forward to visiting Beit HaMinyan. But Dani seemed reluctant to do the drive entirely after dark, and since I try to not drive at night at all aside from the easy local junk, I'm not about to argue that one. And in the end I found I had no prefence at all between the two options, so if he did then that was fine.)
The drive up was uneventful and we arrived around noon. After we had some lunch, Dani went off with his brother-in-law to run some pre-party errands while Dani's sister, two of her daughters, and her mother (the party GOH) visited and did some party prep. That family is very respectful of my Shabbat restrictions; I did the things it made sense for me to do and they were completely ok with the things I couldn't do. And I enjoy spending time with these folks; they're good people.
The party was planned as a "singing party"; his mother is part of a group of friends who get together every now and then to sing songs and socialize. People were also asked to bring "sayings [we] heard around the house" to share; the implication was that this would be a small part of the festivities, with music, socializing, and eating dinner being the large parts. However, the folks planning this didn't take into account the gab factor. :-)
His mother had sets of song sheets; we went around the circle and each person chose a song for the group to sing. The vast majority of the songs were Yiddish; I pointed out to Dani that the only songs in this collection that I knew were ones his family probably considered insipid, and he shrugged. (Earlier in the day his mother had made a comment about the collection including some songs "that no one wants to do" or that "everyone is sick of" that she hadn't gotten around to removing. She specifically named "Hinei Ma Tov", which I happen to like. Oops. There were, perhaps, half a dozen Hebrew songs versus sixty or seventy Yiddish (and a sprinkling of English), so there wasn't a lot for me to work with.)
The other thing about the song sheets is that they're just lyrics and some songs have multiple melodies, so there's the question of which one(s) they know. In some cases it was obvious which was intended by the annotations (like "2x" next to a line); in others not. I chose an ambiguous song, made an educated guess about melody, and was right -- or, at least, people knew it. Good. And during dinner several people made a point of praising my singing. (One said she was sorry I didn't sing more; I said I didn't know most of the melodies. Ok, I have a musical knack that I chose not to apply to songs in a language I don't care for, but she doesn't know that...)
After a round of songs Dani's mother said we'd go around and share our family sayings, and she wanted to hear the stories behind them. She started and she had four. Um, ok, this is going to take a while. As this started Dani's sister (who was in the kitchen getting dinner ready) poked her head in briefly and in an exchange with her mother, it became obvious that she wanted to be there for this but couldn't be. If the cue was any more obvious it would have smacked me in the head, so I got up and went into the kitchen. Alas, the sister still felt a need to be in the kitchen, but at least I tried to give her an opportunity.
We broke for dinner before they were done, which meant that when we re-assembled after dinner we picked it up again. This was supposed to be quick and then we'd get back to singing, but there were 30 people there and, all together, I think the sayings thing consumed two hours. Singing never happened. The "singing party" had twice as much "party game" as singing, but oh well -- the guest of honor seemed to be enjoying it.
The vast majority of the sayings, too, were in Yiddish. Almost never translated. Any notions I'd had that I, personally, might enjoy this part of the party were crushed at that point. This is not my language, nor am I interested in changing that. The effort I put into learning a foreign language is being channeled into Hebrew, the holy tongue and one I have some use for, thankyouverymuch.
Oh, I passed. She poked and I said "I said pass", and that was that.
It was after midnight when things started to break up, so we were up late helping to clean up. Fortunately, their dishwasher seems to have a fairly fast cycle; I think they ran two loads during the party. (Things you never know until it's too late: there is a great deal of variation in dishwasher cycle time.)
Today we had a nice lunch with the mother, sister, and her husband, and then we drove home. The border was uneventful coming home too, though slow-moving. Entering the US always requires ID from both of us; entering Canada never requires it from either, so far.
no subject
no subject
young yiddish speakers
I also know another couple who are raising their 3 kids with Yiddish as the main language of the home. They started out in (a Hasidic neighborhood in) Brooklyn and now live in (a different Hasidic neighborhood in) Monsey. Mom is actually the least Yiddish-fluent of the family 'cause she was raised in a much more secular home. When I visited a few years ago, the kids were so-so in understanding my English, although some of that may have been shyness and youngness.
no subject
Now the main speakers of Yiddish are Chasidim. I suspect there are several reasons they've kept it up: it keeps them separate from the surrounding communities, it's the language their rebbes spoke, and it's just what they do. And maybe other reasons as well, but I don't know them because I don't speak Yiddish. :-)
I think it's a shame that Yiddish has died out to the extent that it has, but in some ways it was inveitable: Zionists wanted to get away from Yiddish and reminders of Europe (plus they wanted to be open to the many Jews who didn't speak Yiddish, but rather Ladino or whatever), and in America, Jews wanted to assimilate. There might be a future for the language -- I mean, a languge which has so many words for male genetalia can't die out all at once -- but I can understand your reluctance to learn it.
I think it's too bad that they didn't attempt to translate more of the sayings into English. I mean, sure, a lot of the sayings were probably chock full o' idioms, but it wouldn't take a genius to guess that you didn't speak Yiddish. I mean, most people of our generation don't...
Yiddish