#hebrew and a little bit of ladino!

[scrumpster]

Jewish Resources (Assorted)

Since my last post seemed to be helpful to a lot of people, I thought I’d make another to share some additional resources. This list includes a bunch of stuff, meant for Jewish people in general. I would definitely encourage you to explore them! There’s a lot of useful stuff here. Goyim are welcome to reblog, just please be respectful if you’re adding tags or comments. Jewish Multiracial Network, an organization for multiracial Jewish families and Jews of Color Sefaria, a free virtual library of Jewish texts Sephardic Studies Digital Library Museum “The SSDC includes key books, archival documents, and audio recordings that illuminate the history, culture, literature, politics, customs, music, and cuisine of Sephardic Jews all expressed in their own language, Ladino.” (from their website) The SMQN, an organization for LGBTQ+ Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews Keshet, a group for LGBTQ+ Jews JQY, a group for LGBTQ+ Jews with a focus on those in Orthodox communities  Queer Jews of Color Resource List (note: this list is way more than just resources, there’s a LOT there) JQ International: “JQ celebrates the lives of LGBTQ+ Jews and their allies by transforming Jewish communities and ensuring inclusion through community building, educational programs, and support and wellness services, promoting the healthy integration of LGBTQ+ and Jewish identities.” (from their website) Jews of Color Initiative, an organization dedicated to teaching about intersectionality in the Jewish community, focuses on research, philanthropy, field building, and community education Nonbinary Hebrew Project: It’s hard to describe, but they’re working to find/create/add suffixes that represent nonbinary genders in Hebrew. If you speak Hebrew/another gendered language, you might know what I mean about gendered suffixes. Jewish Mysticism Reading List  (These are related to our closed practices, goyim should NOT be practicing these things) Ritualwell (you can find prayers and blessings related to specific things here, I personally like that they have blessings related to gender identity)  Guimel, an LGBTQ+ support group for the Jewish Community in Mexico. The site is in Spanish. I’m not a native speaker, but I was still able to read a little bit of it.  SVARA: “SVARA’s mission is to empower queer and trans people to expand Torah and tradition through the spiritual practice of Talmud study.” (From their website) TransTorah is definitely an older website, but there are still some miscellaneous pdfs and resources up on the “Resources” page. Jewish Disabilities Advocates: “The JFS Jewish Disabilities Advocates program was created to raise awareness and further inclusion of people with disabilities within Jewish organizations and the larger Jewish community.” (from their website) Jewish Food Society (recipes, have not spent a lot of time browsing here but maybe I should in the future) Jewish Blind & Disabled, an organization that operates mainly in providing accessible housing and living. Jewish Braille Institute International: “The JBI Library provides individuals who are blind, visually impaired, physically handicapped or reading disabled with books, magazines and special publications of Jewish and general interest in Audio, Large Print and Braille formats.” (from their website) Their services are free!)

#jumblr #jewish resources #jewish #lgbtq resources #disability resources #jews of color resources #jewish bipoc resources #judaism #jewblr #jewish community #sephardic #mizrahim #nonbinary jews #jews of color #lgbtq jews #trans jews #disabled jews #multiracial jews #sephardi jewish #sephardi #mizrahi jewish #mizrahim jewish #mizrahi

[waitingonavision]

Moisés “Mo” Bondia! Official OC Info Post

Age: 55 (his age during the film)

Gender: AMAB/male (cis); he/him pronouns

Height: 5’6” (170 cm)

Physical description: Has glasses with oval frames, medium brown skin tone, and dark curly hair (3A?) with a puff on the front right side and grey streaks on the both sides; bearded. Wide-set eyes, broad nose; he’s lightly freckled on his cheeks and has dimples.

Dresses no differently than the townspeople but does wear a Sephardic style kippah (aka a yarmulke; photo is for reference) on his head. He’s on the chubby side, with round cheeks and a little double chin.

His clothing palette consists of goldish-browns and blues.

More art and info under the cut!

I’m still trying to tweak his clothing style...

Personality: Mostly soft-spoken but has a bit of a mischievous/joking streak; very dorky sense of humor. Patient for the most part; has a calm, deliberate way of speaking. On the guarded side–vigilant around new people, though he tries to be as open and friendly as possible. Has a poor sense of direction.

Enjoys wine (the doofy jokes really come out when drunk) and singing (but is bad at it). He is a big Jewish nerd™. His family escaped with their chumash (the Torah/Five Books of Moses), a prayer book or two, and a few other things.

His name, Bondia, means “good day” (from the Hebrew surname, Yom Tov). It’s shaped his outlook on life, despite, or because of, the trauma of his childhood–he was five when he and his parents fled the bandits (at the beginning of Encanto).

Background [cw for parental death and depression]: Moisés and his parents, Ester (mother) and Jonás (father), have been in the Encanto since its creation. His parents both passed away by the time he’s in his mid-late 20s. Because he’s really the only Jew in the Encanto, he feels like the odd one out (in that sense, he has a kinship with Bruno and, to an extent, Mirabel). The townspeople get along with him, despite his differences.

Ester’s and Jonás’ deaths occurred one after the other and hit Mo very hard, and he went through a period of depression and, just, not taking care of himself very well. He wasn’t always chubby (fairly average build in his teens and early twenties), and actually lost an unhealthy amount of weight after his parents’ deaths but eventually recovered–he’s able to sympathize with Bruno in this way. He is body confident and prefers himself chubby.

Relationship with the Madrigals and others: After the Madrigals discover Judaica among their heirlooms/possessions, Mo falls into the role of a rabbi and helps the family explore their Jewish ancestry and reclaim that part of their identity. He worries about his motivation (e.g., having more Jews around will make him less lonely, is that why he’s doing what he’s doing?) and wonders if the Madrigals, especially Bruno, are actually interested (he is/they are).

Bruno becomes Mo’s study partner. Mo helps Bruno through the conversion process, doing his best to offer support when Bruno struggles with guilt over leaving Catholicism. They are not romantically involved, though I’ve toyed with the idea of a queerplatonic relationship. (Mo is likely panromantic and maybe ace.)

He and the Padre have an odd friendship. They spar over theology and general religion a lot, getting into intense debates, yet they can be seen chatting companionably at the bar(?)/other places.

Other info: Works as the Encanto’s calligrapher. He knows Spanish and Hebrew, and maybe some Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). There are a lot of challenges to being Jewish in the Encanto, but he and eventually the Madrigals make it work.

He likes flowers and sketching landscapes.

Pokémon AU info: He has a bunch of Litwick that hang out around him (8, + 1 shiny) and provide light on Shabbat. Also trains a Bramblin that eventually evolves into a Brambleghast, a Golurk, and a Smeargle. He picks up a stray Mareep.

The Litwick are a reference to a menorah. Bramblin reminds me of the burning bush, so I gave it to Mo. Golurk seems to be based on the Golem of Prague from Jewish legend. Smeargle reflects his work as a calligrapher. And Mareep because Moses is a shepherd in the Torah.

Appearances:

my fic, “A Time for Building”

this art post/compilation of Encanto OCs by @cheetee​

other random bits of info via asks

#encanto #encanto oc #moisés bondia #jewish madrigals #my writing #my art #stuff i've posted #mobo bobo #(his other nickname ig) #i *will* learn how to color someday lol

[saharathorn]

Also, I just wanted to wish you a peaceful Shabbat. As a gesture of goodwill.

I also have a question.

Just curious.

How good are you with foreign languages?

I’ve always been shit at them.

I’m an Irishman and I can’t even speak Irish. My dad speaks a little and my grandpa speaks it but I can’t.

I learnt Spanish in school but it never stuck (our teacher could only be described as an insane genius).

I have recently made plans to learn Armenian and Syriac (the language of the Assyrian people (yes they’re still around)), however.

So there’s that.

I’ve seen too many people assessing the value of a language on the basis of perceived demand or economic merit and that mentality sickens me.

“BuT noBODY speaKs iT¡”

If that works out I’ve got plans to learn a few others. Specifically Navajo, Chuvash, Georgian, Basque and Adyghe.

My father’s side of the family is Norwegian-American and Norwegian is my native language even though I wasn’t born in Norway.

I’m from the UK so I speak English obviously, but my Maternal Grandmother’s family speaks Scottish Gaelic so I do know a bit. (Isle of Lewis, baby!).

My maternal grandfather was North African Sephardic Jewish and spoke Arabic and Ladino, a Jewish Romance language that evolved from Spanish, like Yiddish.

I know a decent deal of Arabic and I’ve also been learning Ladino to reconnect w my heritage, tho I would also like to learn more Yiddish at some point.

I also know some modern Hebrew bc a lot of my family on my mom’s side lives in Israel.

Some other languages I’ve been meddling with are Dutch, French, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese.

[yamikai]

I'M SO SORRY I KEEP SENDING SO MANY ASKS.. i'm too embarrassed to initiate any conversation in dms and i don't know if you'd be comfortable with that but i'm also so worried your other followers just want me to shut up already, yehehe. but!! even if it's only a bit, it's still very impressive that ye can speak those languages!! japanese is indeed very hard.. but i think if yer willing, you should go for it and try to dedicate to it! maybe it'd also be a good way to distract yerself, eh? but!! yes, i have tried to learn MANY languages the past few years: cantonese, yiddish, japanese, french, ladino, italian, german, spanish, vietnamese, esperanto, hebrew... yeah. a lot!! ehehe!

you don’t have to be scared, dm me if you want, i don’t bite! if not that’s fine too. tumblr doesn’t notify me when i get asks so i’m a little slow but other than that it’s really not a big deal. do what makes you comfortable. ^^

that’s a lot of languages- i think it’s frustrating but fun to learn, and a handy skill to have. but BOY do they take a lot of time. i am thoroughly impressed, haha.

#mail #fav anon

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: 8 Things I Loved About the Elena of Avalor Hanukkah Episode

Disney Channel animated series Elena of Avalor is already groundbreaking storytelling. Since 2016, viewers have journeyed alongside Elena, a Latina princess of a magical kingdom inspired by Latin and Hispanic cultures and folklore.

This holiday season, Elena’s story ventured down another road rarely taken by Disney or any other major media company, by introducing a Jewish princess.

In the episode “Festival of Lights,” the royal family of Galonia shipwrecks in Avalor just before Hanukkah. As they are now unable to get home in time for the holiday, Elena and her family offer to help Princess Rebecca celebrate Hanukkah in their castle instead.

Here are eight things I loved about “Festival of Lights” – one for each night of Hanukkah!

[Elena, left, and Rebecca, right. Image is a screencap from the episode found on disney.fandom.com.]

1. IT’S NOT A CHRISTMAS EPISODE!!!

At a young age, I noticed that Jewish characters on TV only seemed to appear during Christmas. The show would have a Christmas episode, and one character who had never before mentioned their culture would suddenly show up in a sweater with a menorah on it. Hanukkah, and Judaism as a whole, tends to play second fiddle to Christian norms.

In this show, however, Christmas is never once mentioned! It’s a Hanukkah episode through and through. This greatly surprised me, and it was a big relief.

2. The Jewish vocab!

This episode is sprinkled with Hebrew and Yiddish terms, to the amusing confusion of the local goyim. It’s frankly awesome to hear words like bubbe, mitzvah, and nosh used in a Disney cartoon. Also, the candleholder the Jews use is referred to as a Hanukkiah, instead of a menorah – a rare distinction.

I have to pause for a moment here to point out the places this episode falls short in its representation. For one thing, Judaism itself is never mentioned in the episode, instead providing the name of a made-up kingdom and the occasional “our people.” Also, pre-release media stated that Rebecca is from a “Latino Jewish kingdom.” This indicates that she would be Sephardic, not Ashkenazi, which makes the Yiddish terms out of place. Ladino would be a more appropriate language, making the grandmother not “Bubbe,” but instead “Nonna” or “Avuela.” Check out this article about this and other missed opportunities in the representation of Latino Jews.

3. It’s the first night!

On TV, it always seems to be the eighth night of Hanukkah – the very end of the holiday. The Hanukkiah is typically depicted with nine candles lit, and there’s usually no mention of how a new candle is added each night. And since Hanukkah only appears in Christmas episodes, the effect created is that the eighth night of Hanukkah is the only important one and that it always falls on Christmas – incorrect!

In “Festival of Lights,” it’s explicitly the first night of Hanukkah. While a musical-imagination sequence shows Hanukkiahs with all nine candles placed in them, when it comes time to light the candles in the actual Hanukkiah, only two are lit: the shamash at the center, and the one on the farthest right. It’s a little detail, but it meant a lot to me.

4. The Jews run the show!

Elena’s name may be in the title, but it couldn’t be clearer that this episode is about Rebecca – she has the emotional journey of the episode.

What’s more, as they rush to make a perfect Hanukkah party, Elena and her family are constantly taking cues and asking for input from Rebecca, her brother Ari, and their Bubbe. The Jewish family is not othered, but rather treated as people who can and should be respected and learned from.

This could have easily turned into an “Elena saves Hanukkah” story, but it didn’t. Elena is a supporting character in this episode. The Jews here may need a little help, but they certainly don’t need to be saved!

5. Rebecca!

Our Jewish princess is a delightful combination of perfectionist-anxiety (with her very relatable desire to turn this unforeseen misadventure into the perfect Hanukkah celebration) and flat-out-badassery (she chops down the ship’s mast to save her family during the wreck – wow!). I really hope we get more stories about her.

6. Bubbe!

I was a little nervous going into this episode that the “Jewish grandmother” character would devolve into unfortunate stereotypes. However, Bubbe Miriam is an absolute delight, and the source of nearly all the times I laughed during the episode – not at her, but with her. The show makes a point of noting the similarities between Bubbe and Elena’s abuela while still maintaining her as her own person, who cares about tradition and her family and admirably bounces back from difficulties.

7. Showing how traditions can be shaped and shared!

In many ways, this episode is a very simple, surface-level portrayal of its topics, appropriate for a twenty-minute children’s show. The definition of mitzvah as a “good deed” put me in mind of how the concept was explained to me when I was tiny, rather than the more complex view of it I have now.

But there are ways in which this episode takes a step deeper, including its portrayal of tradition and how that tradition can be shaped and shared. Despite Rebecca’s eagerness to have this Hanukkah celebration be exactly like the ones at home, some details are out of her control. She’s in the wrong place, and with the wrong people. They don’t have all the correct ingredients for the food, and an accident breaks the family Hanukkiah.

Ultimately the not-quite-traditional Hanukkah party they end up holding is neither stated to be better nor worse than the way things usually are. Again, this isn’t a story about Elena “saving” Hanukkah, nor is it about “improving” the holiday. Instead, Bubbe describes it as “making the most of what we have.” The traditions of Hanukkah remain the core of the celebration, and it’s also clear that Bubbe, Rebecca, and Ari will carry the memories of this unusual Hanukkah celebration and the new friends they made with them into the future.

8. Differentiating between cultural norms and family tradition!

There’s a quick bit of dialogue while Rebecca is fiddling with the dinner table, making sure everything looks exactly right, right down to the placement of the cups and bowls.

Elena asks her, “Does it have to be a certain way for your holiday?”

“No,” says Rebecca, “this is just the way my family always does it.”

This exchange is another way that this episode delves deeper into its portrayal of culture than other shows generally do. The Hanukkah celebration we see here isn’t what all Jews do. It’s what Rebecca’s family does!

With this line, “Festival of Lights” marks a differentiation between broader cultural practices and specific family traditions. While this episode could have done more to portray Rebecca as a Latina Jew, it left the door open for children watching the show to realize that Judaism is not a monolith. We are diverse.

#elena of avalor #hanukkah #chanukah #festival of lights #disney #disney princesses #reviews #thursday thoughts #listicles #judaism #media representation #latinx #hanukkiah

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2siNjpiyKY

After the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, some of that community ended up in Greece.  Over time, the city of Salonika, or Thessaloniki, acquired a large Jewish population, and had one of the biggest synagogues in Europe, right up there with a place like Warsaw.

This song comes from Salonika, and it’s a lovely little snapshot of a community in transition.  The language is Ladino, the Spanish-influenced language of the Sephardic Jews (Sepharad is Spain), which has little bits of Hebrew and Turkish.  The song comes from Greece, but it looks toward the Holy Land, where the singer would love to go to escape the persecution of today.

#jewish music

[progressivejudaism]

hello! ok im about to attempt to learn hebrew semi-fluently before i go on birthright & i've read that ancient hebrew & modern hebrew are fairly different & i was wondering if you know about that? what the differences are? is ancient hebrew what's used in siddurim, or is it translated to modern hebrew for readability? i didn't go to hebrew school so all i have is a few memorized verbal prayers, otherwise i'm starting from scratch with all this haha.

Hi there!

Thank you so much for reaching out to me.  I am excited for your upcoming Taglit Birthright Israel trip!  (Click here to learn more about this free 10-day trip to Israel!)

There are many different kinds of texts written in the Hebrew aleph beit!

Beyond Yiddish, Ladino, and Aramaic, Hebrew itself is a pretty complicated language.

In the world of ancient Hebrew, there is A LOT going on.  From the different flavors of Biblical Hebrew (For instance, Genesis looks waaay different than something like the Book of Psalms or the Book of Ruth [plug for Shavuot ;) ])  Another example- have you ever noticed that the V’ahavta (Biblical) looks a little different from L’cha Dodi (Medieval-Eretz Yisrael) and from the Kaddish (written in Aramaic)?  Beyond the Tanakh, we also have various flavors of rabbinic Hebrew from the mixing of Rabbinic Hebrew with Aramaic in the Talmud, to the slight differences in texts from different regions and people throughout time and space.

Each of these forms of Hebrew look a little different from modern Hebrew (and are ‘weird’ to Modern Hebrew speakers).  There are several example as to the differences (which would take waaaaay too long to spell out in one post here), so I will go with one simple example from the Torah from Parshat Lech Lecha- Genesis 3:1.   I have never explained the differences between the two online so I will try my best!

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יי אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃” “

Translated into English that makes sense, this text says “God said to Avram: ‘Go from your native land and from your father’s land to a place which I will show you.”

But literally translated, the above text really sounds like:  “[He] said, God, to Avram, Go! Gooo! from [your] land and [your] native-place and from the house of your father to the land which I will show [you].”

In Modern Hebrew, one might translate this text as:

יי אמר לאברם: ׳לך מארץ שלך וגם מבית אביך לארץ שאני אראה לך׳

Literally translated (and in this case, it really does make sense in ‘regular’ English, this text would be:  “God said to Avram: ‘Go from your land and also from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.”

You can see- its a little bit different!

At some point in history, speaking and writing in Hebrew became lost.  Having switched over to Yiddish, Ladino, and other similar “mish-moshed” languages,  we only used prayerbook Hebrew- which is a mish-mosh of different periods, sometimes including Aramaic, itself! 

Modern Hebrew as we know it today began its contemporary formation as more than a language of texts and prayer, but as a language of every day, beginning in modernity.  When you go on Birthright, you will most likely go to Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem and probably in Tel Aviv- named after the “Father of Modern Hebrew” Eliezer Ben Yehuda.

If you are going on a Birthright trip and would like to begin learning Hebrew, I bet that you might want to begin with learning some modern Hebrew.  Although Israelis do often know some other forms of Hebrew, many often struggle with it akin to how Americans struggle with Shakespeare. 

Good luck on your Hebrew learning adventure!

For some resources to help you on your journey, you can check out this master post!

Good luck!

PJ

#ask #hebrew #ivrit #tanakh #torah

[mileheitcity-blog]

So a Reform Jew goes to Antwerp...

The air smelled faintly of exhaust and concrete as I stepped out of the station, and the sky hung low in a faded shade of brooding grey.  It reminded me a little of Seattle, but somehow far more distant, more detached, the tall trees of the Pacific Northwest only giving way here to tall grey and yellow buildings and row houses. Seattle’s always been a bit of a strange place to build a city: the footprint of the city isn’t very large, it shouldn’t be able to fit very many people, at least not in such close quarters. The giant trees that make up the expansive forests are indeed gorgeous, but create an effect that’s almost closed in, crowded out.  But today nearly the whole Puget Sound region teems with activity and life, the three million or so people who live there make sure of that.  I grabbed my bearings and took another deep breath, this time followed by a long look around.  The bustle subsided into a rolling hum, and the feelings of home had somewhat dissipated.  And yet, there was still something in the air.  I wasn’t anywhere near my home.  I was on the other side of the world, and all the Dutch signs wouldn’t let me forget it.  But somehow, as I walked down Pelikaanstraat towards absolutely nothing in particular, I knew I was walking home. 

What was a Reform Jew like me doing heading to Antwerp anyway? The Reform movement has always been somewhat of a thorn in the side of more traditional Jewish communities ever since its conception in the late 19th century.  Reform synagogues were the first to institute mixed-gender seating and to publish siddurim (prayer books) in the vernacular. At the founding of the Reform Jewish seminary, Hebrew Union College, the movement’s leader served shrimp cocktail, causing a number of other prominent scholars to get offended and walk out and start their own organization. By the middle of the 20th century, Reform Jews were using musical instruments in their services, and some congregations were even building pipe organs into the sanctuary. In 1972, the Reform seminary ordained its first woman into the clergy, Rabbi Sally Priesand, and mom was less than a decade behind.  Our world is still deeply Jewish, but deeply untraditional, and yet...

The bustle filled the air as I grabbed my bearings.  The ride to the Antwerp had been an pretty uneventful.  I slept a little later than I wanted to, but was still able to snag the last couple crepes from the hotel on my way to the train station. One transfer in Breda, and just like that I was in a new country, a place I had only heard about in whispers.  It was traditional, old school, Europe’s last shtetl. Restaurants were all Kosher, Google said.  Men and women sit in different sections at services. The shops are all closed on Saturday, but active on Sundays when the rest of the city was asleep or in church. This was a community that worked hard to maintain its traditions and it way of life, and that way of life wasn’t going anywhere. 

Both in Hebrew School and in the home, Jewish kids like me are given more than a few lessons on the survival of our people.  We’re taught our traditions and listen to the Torah once a week not for fun, but to ensure our continuation.  We teach each other to read Hebrew and to wrap tefillin because we always have, because it defines us.  We sprinkle in phrases in Ladino or Yiddish because they’re funny or descriptive, yes, but also to make sure the next generation knows it.  By choosing a new path, by ignoring some of the traditions and precepts, by not keeping kosher and shaving our beards and going out on Friday night and sitting with (gasp!) women in services, we could be ensuring the destruction of our own people, or at least the community as we know it. In a Reform synagogue, it’s different, sure, we’re taught to at least know what we’re choosing and why, but the subtext is often quite clear.  Our traditions define us, and our traditions will be what sustain us.  As the saying goes “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Jews”.  Reform Jews, like me, were considered a slap in the face to much of that tradition.  How can you read the liturgy in the vernacular? How can you allow women to sit with men, and even be on the pulpit? Why don’t you keep kosher, wear fringes and kipot, or speak in Yiddish? What do you mean you drive on Shabbat?!?!?! And HOW DARE YOU serve traef at a Jewish function? Don’t you know what the consequences are?

I turned behind me and started walking along the diamond shops.  The jewelry in the window shimmered in the artificial light, that’s what diamonds do.  But that’s not what brought me there.  I turned the corner into the Jewish district, and immediately knew what brought me here.  The gentleman behind the counter looked like he was straight out a painting that hung in my synagogue: a long salt-and-pepper beard adorned his lean and bony face, his eyes enlarged by big round bifocals.  The women behind me each had strollers in tow and rocked some pretty gnarly sheitels.  A tallis rack sat proudly next to the seating area, and a basin sink for hand washing was easily visible and available for anyone who wanted to use it.  The menu featured the seven-branch candelabra, the menorah, on the front page, but no announcement was necessary. I turned to the menu on the wall, and despite it being written in Dutch each dish was more than familiar.  I wonder if the kugel and kishka were as good as Bubbe’s.  Despite being in a foreign land, among foreign Jews, I had never felt a sense of familiarity as I did in that place.  As I told the kind gentleman what I wanted, my soul started to sing. 

Shtetls of Europe are mostly gone now. The towns that weren’t destroyed by Russian Cossacks were abandoned when the Nazis sent us to the gas chambers. After the war, the few Jewish people who remained in Europe did so far outside of the small communities they called home, choosing instead to go to the more cosmopolitan cities. Most of the survivors, though, went to America or Israel, and who could blame them.  America has no shtetls, we’re as assimilated into society as anyone.  I went to public school for godsakes, which was unheard of a century and a half ago. In Israel, we carved out our own home (with the help of the UN, at the expense of people already living there, I know, but I’ve said before I’m not having that debate on this platform), so we didn’t need to set ourselves apart, to build our own towns. No longer were we forced to live in between arbitrary lines on the map on the outskirts of the Empire.  Now, we could live anywhere we wanted to.  Any why would we go back to the shtetl? We were poor, life was rough, and living in close proximity made it easy for the Russians or the Germans to sweep through with torches and ill intent. Keeping your traditions alive can only do so much against an army intent on your destruction.

I walked over to the basin sink, filled the mug, said the prayer, and sat down. The gentleman behind the counter appeared a few minutes later with my selection, but the contents of my plate barely mattered.  The pungent note of the gefilte fish stung my nose as I reached for the horseradish.  I closed my eyes and heard a conversation in Yiddish from across the restaurant.  At that moment, I knew.  I was, indeed, home. 

Writer’s note: this post is dedicated to Hoffy’s Restaurant in Antwerp, thanks for making such an outright amazing meal. You really did make my soul sing. I could probably write another blog post or two about this district, but pairing this with the previous post seemed more appropriate. I will, without question, come back to this district someday. 

Up next: Library at the Technical University in Delft, a return to the regularly scheduled school-related posts.

[thephictionist]

#ladino #latina #latino #latinx #hebrew #jewish #foreign languages #language #dying #nbc #nbc news #lit #literature #books and libraries #espa��ol #spanish

[pargolettasworld]

You may have heard this one before; it appears in Schindler’s List, as as such a lot of people seem to think of it as a Tragic Holocaust Song.  Schindler’ List does have that effect!  “Oyfn Pripetshik” is pretty sentimental, but it’s not tragic.  It’s about a rabbi in a warm room (heated by a kind of Russian ceramic oven/heater that managed to warm an entire room while still being something you could sleep on -- I want one!) teaching the alphabet to small children in cheder, or Hebrew school. 

The kids are learning very old-fashioned Ashkenazi Hebrew here.  The repeated phrase, “kometz aleph, aw,” refers to a pronunciation that vanished almost fifty years ago when modern, Sephardic Hebrew really took over world Hebrew schools.  Aleph, is of course א, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  Aleph is a null vowel, which is to say that it doesn’t have a particular sound of its own, but it’s ready when a vowel sound needs to be written out.  It’s one of two null vowels in the Hebrew alphabet, the other being ayin, or ע. These letters function a little bit differently in Hebrew than they do in either Yiddish or Ladino, and seeing them is one of the ways that you can tell at a glance whether the document you’re looking at in Hebrew characters is more likely to be in a Semitic language like Hebrew or an Indo-European language like Yiddish or Ladino.

The “kometz” is one of the diacritical marks that goes under a letter to indicate a vowel sound.  It’s the one that looks like a little tiny T.  In old Ashkenazi Hebrew, kometz aleph was pronounced with a very strong “aw,” where pasekh aleph (a pasekh is just a little line) was a flatter “ah.”  In modern Hebrew, the kometz kind of got folded into the pasekh, and they both sound like “ah.”  So the old rabbi is teaching the kids to decode the alphabet, syllable by syllable, and he’s telling them that these are the very first steps to being able to read and study the Torah.  And he also tells them that the one who does the best at the little phonics lesson will get a prize.  Because kids are kids, after all!

#jewish music #yiddish