Two cheder students were discussing how hard and tiring their studies had become, and impulsively one blurted: “Let’s run away!” “Run away? … Our fat… - Leo Rosten

Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bears the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.

Lendler has come down through the decades to enjoy a place of its own in the distinctive argot of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. When you rented rooms from a lendler, you became his tenor. Singing had nothing to do with it.

Medieval rabbis dubbed Germany Ashkenaz, after a passage in Jeremiah (51:27), and decided that after the Flood, one of Noah’s great-grandsons, named Ashkenaz, had settled in Germany. I have no idea what inspired the rabbis.