Okay, Yiddish!
My first language is Yiddish.
I still speak Yiddish to my mom, my dad, and my sister--
No, not my sister, my brother.
Um...
I was born in Williamsburg.
Not the Williamsburg that everyone knows now.
The first, the original.
Um...
I learned English when I went to school.
School.
And, uh...
To me, Yiddish is a language that--
Yes, a lot of Jewish children don't speak the language anymore.
The really religious, the Satmar, the Bobow, the Hasidic children speak it.
But even in my family,
the younger children don't speak it anymore,
Only my older brother, and I speak Yiddish.
The other sister and brother don't speak Yiddish.
My father speaks Yiddish.
Only-- Mostly Yiddish.
And my mother speaks seven languages.
But when she speaks to me,
or to my grandmother,
or to her brother,
she speaks Yiddish.
Um...
What else can I tell you about Yiddish?
Um...
Hm...
When I go shopping in Williamsburg,
the people in the stores
ask me how I can speak such Yiddish.
Where do I come from?
Such a juicy (rich) Satmar Yiddish.
And I tell them that I was born here.
And then they always ask me,
"What is your father's name?"
And when I tell them my father's name,
they think for a little
and, normally, a few minutes later,
they say "Yes, yes! I know your father!"
And they can tell me
how old my father is,
they went to Yeshiva with him,
or they were at a wedding with him last week.
Or...
It's a small world when one strolls Williamsburg,
where everyone speaks such a Satmar Yiddish.
Everyone knows each other.
There is no such thing that if you speak with someone
for five to ten minutes and you don't know the same person
or that you're not family with them
Typically, I'm family with everyone that I see in Williamsburg
First, second, third cousins. Something like that.
Um...
I can tell you three stories about such a--
such a...
Uh, how is it said in Yiddish?
I already forgot the word.
What happened: I went to shop and it was in MealMart
I know what Mealmart is.
And...
The person asked me--
I was with a girlfriend of mine--
And he thought "Oh, you're a bird (gay)?"
is what he thought.
So he asked me, "You like girls?"
So I said, "I like all people."
and he told me, "Oh, I never understood this."
But he was very good to me; he wasn't--
He asked me, "What's your name?
You speak such Yiddish, where are you from?"
I told him that I'm from here.
So he said, "What is your name?"
I told him.
"And, what is your father's name?"
I told him.
So he thought and calculated in his head.
I said, "What are you calculating?"
He says, "I was in camp with your father 45 years ago."
I told him "Yeah?" And he's like, "Yes, yes!"
And he was right because he told me things about my father
which were actually true.
I told him, "Have you seen him since then?"
He said, "Yes, weddings, celebrations..."
This is the first story.
Another second story, the same thing.
The man asked me where I'm from.
I said, "Williamsburg."
"Your father's name?" I told him.
He said "Oh yeah, you lived here, on this street thirty years ago!"
I said, "Yeah! Right!" Right.
And the third story is that I was in a store
and there was a Hasidic boy (age 13-20)
that waited behind me and...
he looked at me.
I looked at him and he said,
"You know who I am?"
I said, "No, I don't." He said, "You know me!"
I said, "No, I don't know you." He said, "We're cousins."
I said, "Oh yeah?" He's like, "Oh yeah." And explained how.
I said, "Okay." But I didn't recognize him.
But he recognized me.
I don't know how, but he knew who I was.
Oh, who I am!
And also one more...
I was in the Lower East Side.
I don't know how it's said in Yiddish.
And there's a bakery called Moishe's Bakery, Second Avenue.
I don't know which street.
I go in there, and...
the... man...
He, also in Yiddish, "Oh, how do you speak Yiddish?"
I told him.
He said "What is your name?"
I told him.
And he said...
"You know who I am?"
I said, "No, I don't know who you are."
"You know, we're family."
I said, "Yes?" He said, "Yeah."
He said "Yes, your..."
He told me, "Your father's brother's father-in-law.
I'm your father's brother's father-in-law."
So I said, "Oh, very good."
(He) sold me the Challah for the holiday.
I went there to buy Challah.
And he said, "Are you the daughter or the son?"
I told him, "Both, it depends."
Um...
He said, "Can I take a photo of you?"
I told him, "No."
He said, "One minute, I want to call my wife! I want you to talk to my wife!"
And he took his phone and called his wife
And he put me on the phone with his wife.
So she should hear my Yiddish,
but she can't see me.
I don't know how it was something for him.
But...
So now when I go there, and he's there
and you know, he asks me, he calls, oh.
He took my number,
and he calls me,
here and there he calls me.
Before holidays, something, and he says,
"I think about you."
Something...
Y'know...
How does he say it... Um...
He speaks of...
"You know, you're a Jewish soul."
And...
"When you need something you can call me."
Thanks. I don't need anything.
And that's my last story about Jews that speak Yiddish to me.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community