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Outside of Israel and Russia, we have our own realities, and Yiddish is "The Language That Won't Go Away." I often talk about this longing for Yiddis… - Irena Klepfisz
" "Outside of Israel and Russia, we have our own realities, and Yiddish is "The Language That Won't Go Away." I often talk about this longing for Yiddish despite Israel, despite all the Holocaust memorials, despite all the Jewish activities that are part of American Jewish life. There's a lot of feeling about Yiddish both among an older generation and a younger generation that never even got to hear it. As I myself get older, I encounter young students whose parents don't remember Yiddish or never knew it, but perhaps whose grandparents spoke Yiddish. Yiddish for most is increasingly a vague memory. And yet this younger generation has this yearning. It's an interesting phenomenon. What is it that's missing in Jewish American life that makes Jews think that Yiddish could fill a void? Clearly, something is missing. We don't know whether for them Yiddish is the answer or not; something is happening among that generation. What I would like people to think about is why at a time when there's a frenzy about the Holocaust, about memorialization, about interviewing survivors, and so on, there is a rich revival of klezmer music. Is it a desire to focus on the joy that was there before the war?
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About Irena Klepfisz
Irena Klepfisz (born April 17, 1941) is a Jewish lesbian feminist author, poet, academic and activist living in the US.
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Additional quotes by Irena Klepfisz
The Jewish artist in me feels displaced. I want to have time to write, to create literature which expands our notion of our Jewishness, which might in turn give us rest and inspire us to keep on with our peace work. But I don't make time for it. I remain focused on Israel and the Occupied Territories, where the situation is worsening.
The survival of Yiddish and its culture does not rest on our ability to find the right term for "corn flakes" or "jet lag"; but rather on our ability to find a proper place for yidishe kultur in our lives, a place among other commitments; on our ability to infuse it with our contemporary values and politics learned outside of its boundaries. For example, feminism: women were co-creators and conveyors of Yiddish culture. This fact should be reflected in cultural history, as in contemporary Yiddish institutions and events. Contemporary Jewish feminists have much to contribute and their perspectives should be sought out. The Jews who would say "we don't need them" should think again about history, about the size of the Jewish community. I believe we need each other.
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I did teach, and I may start again next semester, for ten years at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. And I always sort of considered that part of -- I don't know where the desire came to do that. It's something that I really love doing, and it -- you know, it made me see and opened up a whole part of sort of American justice system and society. But I felt it was very much in keeping sort of with my Bundist connection, even though it had nothing to do with Yiddish or Jews necessarily, or anything else. But it did have a lot to do with fairness and justice.
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