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Nov. 1, 2013
Music and language survive
Ester Yakhnin, age 86, is a Yiddishist and choir leader in Israel.
OLGA LIVSHIN
Yiddish is a language as resilient as the people who counted it as their lingua franca – Eastern European Jews. Although not supported by any officialdom in any country, the Yiddish language survived and flourished for generations. By the beginning of the 20th century, it had become a symbol, the most colorful and expressive part of the Jewish life in Europe, its vernacular. Most Yiddish writers wrote using Hebrew letters, but some, especially in Soviet Russia, never learned Hebrew, so they used a phonetic notation in Cyrillic. That’s how Ester Yakhnin first read Yiddish poetry – spelled out in Russian letters.
Eighty-six-year-old Yakhnin is a tireless enthusiast of Yiddish. She now lives in Israel but she came to visit her son in Vancouver this summer and agreed to speak to the Independent about her commitment to the Yiddish language. She doesn’t speak English, so the interview was conducted in Russian and translated.
Yakhnin started out in – and remained associated with – the theatre community in her native Belarus. “I was never an actress,” she said. “Before I retired, I worked in management and sales for one of the leading Belarusian theatres in Minsk.”
After retirement, unable to give up her beloved performing arts, she became an emcee of the Republican Choir of War Veterans in Minsk. “I was a war veteran, too. I worked at an armament factory during the Second World War. I was 14 when the war started in Russia.”
Comprised of seniors, the choir was considered an amateur troupe, but they performed in many cities across Belarus and the Soviet Union, on radio and the republican television. “I was with the choir for 15 years,” she recalled. “I led every concert, introduced the songs and the singers, recited poetry in Russian and Belarusian, directed the shows.”
At that time, Yiddish was still a distant memory for her, the tongue her mother spoke before her untimely death, when Yakhnin was still a child. When Perestroika came, Jewish life in the Soviet Union and in Belarus was rekindled, and so was the Yiddish language.
Yakhnin was already known throughout the republic as a fine elocutionist, reciting poetry in live concerts, on radio and on TV. “Our best Jewish poets in Belarus started asking me to include their poems in Yiddish in my performances,” she recalled. “Of course, they wrote it phonetically, in Cyrillic. I didn’t know all the words but I read those poems. They made me proud.”
She relearned the tongue of her childhood without any classes, by reading poetry. When, in 1994, a world conference on Yiddish culture opened in Kishinev, Moldavia, still a part of the Soviet Union at the time, Yakhnin was one of the few delegates from Belarus.
“People wanted to revive Yiddish,” she explained. “They said I should give a speech. I was terrified. I never talked in Yiddish before, but I gathered myself and I talked. And the words came. I talked for seven minutes. People cried.”
In 1997, she emigrated to Israel, following her only son. “I came there on June 29,” she said. “Right away, I started looking for an organization for war veterans – immigrants from the Soviet Union. I couldn’t just be idle and do nothing. I like to keep busy. I found them and, by a strange coincidence, their community centre had a choir, too. When they learned what I did in Minsk, they begged me to lead their concerts. I led my first concert in Israel on July 13, two weeks after I came to Israel.”
A couple of years later, she organized her own vocal ensemble, Menorah. The group has been together for 12 years. It includes 11 members, all seniors, who perform all over Israel.
“We have 14 different thematic programs, custom made,” Yakhnin explained. “We sing in Hebrew, Russian, Belarusian, Yiddish, Italian, Ukrainian and English. We rehearse twice a week. We offer special concerts for Israeli, Russian and Jewish holidays, retro and Yiddish, whatever people ask. I write and direct all the programs, host the concerts and read poetry. And, of course, we have to find sponsors. We need costumes and a bus to travel. Often, our concerts are free, and we make the costumes ourselves, but I found a way to pay our pianist, at least a little. I’m so busy all the time, sometimes till two at night. I don’t have a second free.”
Despite her busy schedule, soon after she arrived in Israel, she also became a member, and later a president, of the Petah Tikva Yiddish club. By now, her expertise in the language is well known all over the country.
“People phone me all the time to ask for translations of some controversial words,” she said. “Interest in Yiddish is reawakening in Israel. There is a popular Yiddish theatre there but, too often, Yiddish is associated with religious families. I’m not religious, and those of my generation interested in Yiddish are all going, one by one. My Yiddish club is no more.”
To alleviate the sadness, Yakhnin recently became one of the founders of a “warm house.” Jewish seniors, former immigrants from the Soviet Union, gather at their club weekly for a few hours of friendship and culture. “Most of us are not religious,” she said. “We meet on Fridays, during the day, light candles, sing songs in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew. And we chat – in Russian and Yiddish. Our leader, Gita Shevchenko, often gives short lectures about Jewish history, traditions and myths. I recite Yiddish poetry and talk about the talented Yiddish poets and their life stories. We started in the beginning of this year with a dozen people, and now the number is double.”
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
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