Old McYankel Had a Farm

Everything I love…smart Vox Tablet podcast, a little something Jewish and a little something food!

Read about a place where you can pay someone else so that you can do hard labor and speak Yiddish.  No, seriously.

A number of years ago I got on a kick that I wanted to learn Yiddish. Unfortunately I am terrible at languages. This lack of talent, combined with a mediocre (i.e. bad) teacher, and I didn’t learn much. For a brief period I knew how to read it and I finally had a deep understanding for the reason Jews speak in the opposite pattern of waspy folks.  Subject first, information second. I did learn a few words, but I probably learned the most useful words from The Joys of Yiddish. In modern America and Jewish society, one only needs to know about 50 terms and phrases to be considered moderately fluent. Actually speaking in sentences? That’s what my grandparents did when they didn’t want us to understand what they were saying.

These days I can’t imagine why I thought it would be so useful to learn to speak Yiddish – over Modern Hebrew. Apparently there are others currently with enough reason to plonk down a couple grand for the experience. No, seriously.

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