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November 21, 2003
Jewish survival linked to Yiddish
Lost Worlds Recalled focuses on the American immigrant experience
with translation, theatre and music.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Mistranslation or untranslatability has been a major factor in
the survival of the Jewish people. Having a "hidden language"
not understood by the dominant group has allowed Jews, at various
points in history, to safely relay vital information to each other
and to identify their allies.
This revelation was one component of Lost in Translation: The Hidden
Language of Jewish Writing, a lecture by author and translator Naomi
Sheindel Seidman, associate professor of Jewish culture at the Graduate
Theological Union in Berkeley. Seidman was speaking at the Vancouver
session of Lost Worlds Recalled: Words, Rhythms and Melodies from
Yiddish Life, a workshop that also took place in Victoria last week.
She was joined by writer, translator and professor Nahma Sandrow
and educator and musician Michael Alpert.
Seidman shared a story about her father, who spoke 12 languages
or, as he described it, because of his heavy accent, "spoke
Yiddish in 12 languages." After the war, when refugees in France
were trying to reconnect with any family members who may have still
been alive, Seidman's father acted as a translator between the Yiddish-speaking
refugees and the French-speaking gendarmes. In Yiddish, he assured
the refugees that the French police were not Nazis, that they were
there to help. When a policeman asked Seidman's father what he said,
he responded that he was telling the refugees about the greatness
of France's ideals of brotherhood, liberty and equality, which brought
a tear to the gendarme's eye.
Seidman interpreted this story in various ways but, most relevant
to her topic, she asked whether this counts as a translation story,
since it wasn't necessarily a case of an inability to translate,
but a choice by her father to misinterpret what he said in order
to better capture the spirit of what he was trying to relate to
the refugees. Seidman said that the ideal in translation is to remain
faithful "to the secrets of the community," not to translate
something literally. She said that Jewish survival rests on a certain
"opacity, resistance to translation": for safely relaying
information about the dominant cultural group to each other and
to identify as a group.
The lecture continued with the example of Isaac Bashevis Singer's
short story "Gimpel the Fool" as a story that loses meaning
in translation. Gimpel marries the town whore and when, five months
after the wedding she gives birth, there are many rather feeble
explanations given to placate Gimpel (because the town is better
off with him married), including a line downplaying the role of
a biological father that's omitted in the English version: Jesus
didn't even have a father! According to Seidman, this remark imparts
the Jewish non-belief in a virgin birth, thus making Gimpel, in
the Yiddish version, as simple as a Christian, and not the stereotypical
eastern European Jew, as is gleaned from the English version. But
the reference in Yiddish is not all derogatory, said Seidman, as
Gimpel – who represents the New Testament's Joseph – is
the hero of the story: he loves his wife no matter who is the father
of her child.
While there are losses in translation, Seidman said that North American
culture has been enriched by Yiddish culture, even in translation.
As well, she said, while Jews may no longer have a secret language,
they can now talk, for example, about Christianity as a sister religion
with respect and without denigration. She concluded that while there
is loss, new ways of looking at the world have been gained.
Sandrow, who teaches at City University of New York, picked up on
some of the same themes as Seidman. Speaking on the topic Yiddish
Theatre in the New World, Sandrow highlighted the theatre's role
as an "institution that would gather them [Jewish immigrants
in America] to their roots."
According to Sandrow, Yiddish theatre was a North American phenomenon,
one that started in 1882, albeit with a flop. A staging of the operetta
The Witch ended in disaster, said Sandrow, when the prima donna
was too "ill" to perform – that is, until she was
offered more money. Unfortunately, by the time she got to the theatre,
the audience had left and those who remained were throwing chairs,
joked Sandrow.
Despite this inauspicious beginning, within two months, another
production followed, then a few production companies formed and,
within a decade, there were 14 Yiddish theatres in the New York
City area alone, plus more than a dozen theatres in other parts
of North America, including Toronto and Montreal.
Sandrow proposed several reasons for this "explosion."
First, it was legal to speak and perform in Yiddish in North America,
while it was often illegal in the places from which the immigrants
came. Second, people in North America could more easily afford to
go to the theatre - even if it meant going without a meal to do
so. Third, the theatre and the actors "filled people's needs."
The new immigrants had hard lives, explained Sandrow, and the theatre
offered them an escape, a good story, glamorous actors (who were
idolized), Jewish aristocrat characters and songs to which the audience
could relate, about leaving people or traditions behind in the Old
Country. As well, plays set in eastern Europe helped relieve immigrants'
homesickness, and the mere act of going to the theatre united them
with friends and fellow Yiddish speakers for an evening.
Alpert also touched upon the idea of Yiddish culture, specifically
klezmer music, as a unifying force. He has been involved in klezmer
music for more than 25 years, performing with Brave Old World, Khevrisa,
Kapelye and others. His lecture at the Lost Worlds workshops was
Funny, You Don't Look Klezmer: A Jewish Musician's Guide to the
Autobahn. Despite the interesting title, the talk was a meandering,
unfocused look at the klezmer revival, a renewed interest in eastern
European Jewish music that began in the mid-1970s, according to
Alpert.
Using slides and music clips, Alpert gave an overview of the history
of Jewish music in the United States, from Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt
(great-grandfather of Schara Tzedeck's Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt)
to Mickey Katz to Brave Old World. He described the klezmer revival
as a "roots phenomenon," something that appealed to his
generation because it was an alternative to Jewish mainstream culture;
as life became more suburban, klezmer seemed more culturally substantive.
He said klezmer music and the embracing of it worldwide represents
an "in-group affirmation," i.e. Jews bonding with other
Jews, and a bridge for non-Jews or non-religious Jews to access
the Jewish world. Alpert finished his lecture with a beautiful song,
"Berlin 1990," that he wrote and which can be found on
the Brave Old World CD Beyond the Pale.
The Vancouver Lost Worlds conference took place at the Jewish Community
Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC) in the Wosk Auditorium. The meeting
was periodically interrupted by the sounds of drilling, sawing and
hammering coming from the JCC kitchen, which is adjacent to the
gym and currently under renovation. The 70-odd attendees, the speakers
and the conference organizers took the situation in stride, as did
emcee Prof. Richard Menkis of the University of British Columbia
department of classical, new eastern and religious studies, and
the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir, who entertained the crowd with
four Yiddish songs.
Seidman, Sandrow and Alpert also participated in the Victoria Lost
Worlds workshop, which took place Nov. 9 at the University of Victoria.
They were joined there by Prof. Sarah Abrevaya Stein who spoke on
Illustrating Modern Yiddish Culture: A Chicago Yiddish Press of
the 1920s. Stein is an assistant professor in the department of
history and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies
at the University of Washington in Seattle. Master of ceremonies
in Victoria was Michael Levy, president of the Victoria Jewish Community
Centre.
Sponsors for the two workshops were the JCC of Victoria; the division
of continuing studies, the faculty of humanities, the department
of theatre and the department of women's studies at UVic; the Vancouver
JCC; and the Waldman Holocaust Education Committee, the faculty
of arts and the department of continuing studies at UBC.
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