It's more fun in Yiddish!
This book teaches you to read Yiddish as it goes along. Starting off with only the occasional word, it gradually introduces phrases, grammatical constructions, and whole sentences, until the very last chapter is 100% Yiddish. We've posted 23 exerpts from the book, including MP3 VOICE CLIPS so you can hear what the Yiddish sounds like!
In the first few chapters, isolated Yiddish words are introduced, with explanations where the meaning cannot be easily seen from context. In the first chapter, for example, Zolf explains how the Jews had come to lose possession over the agricultural lands they had once owned: (Click on the story-teller icon for the voice clip!)
Words that are introduced for the first time are translated in parentheses, unless their meaning can be easily guessed by the reader...for example, in this passage, the reader is supposed to figure out that a khasseneh is a wedding. When a word or phrase appears in quotations or italics, it sometimes means that the reader is not expected to guess the exact meaning, but merely to get the general drift. In this example, the reader should understand that a khasseneh with all the "sheva brokhos" is, in some sense, a "proper wedding"; and his understanding of the passage as a whole does not depend on any specific knowledge of the "seven blessings" involved in a traditional Jewish wedding.
Dialogue is especially colorful when given in its original Yiddish. In chapter four, Zolf’s mother has inherited her parents house. Unfortunately, she is not permitted to move there with her family, because Jews had recently been expelled from the larger towns. Her husband, Zolf’s father, suggests that she sell the house "tzu a Goy" and be done with it....
In this passage, the reader is to understand that her father’s former home had been a frequent meeting-place for religious Jews; that "der Yoyzel" is a not-too-complimentary reference to the icons hanging on the walls of the typical Gentile home; and that Zolf’s mother adamantly refuses "to let the mezzuzahs be torn from (her father’s) doorposts", that is, to let her home be occupied by Christians.
Young Zolf’s education was always a bone of contention between his mother and father. Although the elder Zolf conducted a class, or "kheder" in his living room, his son Falk was considered to young to study together with his regular students. So he tried to cram what learning he could into his off-hours and spare time. From Chapter Eight:
Here we get some idea how much Hebrew was invovled in the study of Talmud. Remember that young Zolf was only ten years old in this incident, yet he is already expected to learn abstruse legal concepts and principles! Note also the use of parallel grammatical constructions to hint at the meaning Yiddish phrases, as exemplified by the passage: "...which was (the camp of Israel)......vus iz geve'en (the camp of the Phillistines)...".
The reader who is sensitive to such techniques will find the Yiddish much easier to decipher.For more examples of how Yiddish helps bring the story to life, click on the links below. They are listed in the order in which they appear in the book, so the later excerpts have more and more Yiddish content:
Getting ready for the tax-collector
A creepy rich man who lived in our town
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