SARAH BUNIN BENOR ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and I'm here with Sarah Bunin Benor, and I'm going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. We're here at the AJS Conference in Washington, DC. Today is December 18th, 2011. Sarah, do I have your permission to record the interview?

SARAH BUNIN BENOR:Yes.

CW:Thank you. So first of all can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?

SBB:Sure. My family is Ashkenazi. We came from mostly Lithuania. And my mom's family immigrated to this country around the turn of the century, my dad's family a little later. His dad was born in Cairo, in a Litvish [Lithuanian 1:00Jewish] family there. And his mom was born in Poland and came to America at an early age and moved to Israel. And then my dad was born in Israel and came to this country when he was one. And the ancestors spoke Yiddish, but my grandparents didn't know much Yiddish, if any. And so I'm the first in four generations to speak Yiddish.

CW:And what do you know about the Yiddish-speaking generation, if anything? Are there any great family stories that have been passed down from that generation?

SBB:A lot of fun immigration stories. For example, my mother's father's father was named Sam Schultz. And he immigrated to this country around the turn of the century. And his brothers were all named Sam Schultz because their names were Shloyme and Shmuel and Zalman and something else -- Shimon, maybe. And at Ellis Island apparently they were all given the name Sam, or maybe subsequently they 2:00took on the name Sam. Luckily they didn't get along so well, so they didn't have family reunions -- "Sam!" You know. So that's one of our famous family stories. Other than that, I think we're mostly Litvaks, so, uh -- but I don't know much more detail than that.

CW:Any stories or descriptions from the Cairo Litvish family?

SBB:Well, it was an interesting community. It was a community of Lithuanian Jews who were in Cairo, and they were tailors, a lot of them. I think my family was a tailor. And my grandfather went to school in London, 'cause that was what you do. And then he moved to Israel. Actually, they had tried to immigrate from Lithuania to Israel in the mid-nineteenth century, but life was too hard there, so they went to Egypt. I mean, they tried to emigrate to Palestine. But they 3:00maintained connections with Palestine. And my grandparents were very involved in the Zionist movement and the Haganah, and we have a lot of stories about my grandparents smuggling weapons -- for example, my grandmother was pregnant with my dad in 1948, and she was involved in the Haganah and so she had weapons under her shirt, along with the fetus (laughs) and she pretended to faint when the authorities were gonna search her. And she did such a good job of acting that even her husband believed her and was really worried. And so they let her go by. Yeah, we have a lot of great stories about how they survived the war and how she was involved with the child aliyah movement in the '40s, but then they left 4:00Israel when my dad was one. So my dad is really American. Yeah.

CW:And would you say you grew up in a very Jewish home?

SBB:Yeah, I would say so. I went to a Jewish day school. We were not involved in a synagogue so much. But then I was involved in USY as a teenager, Conservative youth group. And I got interested in Jewish culture as a teenager also. I had a klezmer band at my bat mitzvah, and so I got interested in klezmer music. And I played violin -- still do. So I took some klezmer lessons. And that's how I got interested in Yiddish culture.

CW:So to go back to the home you grew up in, can you describe a little bit about your neighborhood in Maryland and what the community was like there when you 5:00were growing up?

SBB:Yeah. I grew up in a suburban community: Rockville, Maryland. And it was typical of a suburban community in that we didn't know a lot of our neighbors, and we made friends through school, through my Jewish day school and then my public high school. Most of my friends were Jewish until high school, and then I had some Jewish and non-Jewish friends of various races, and, uh -- yeah. There was a lot of Jewish life in my suburb. And we did sometimes go to a post-denominational congregation, "Kehila Chadasha," it was called. It was kind of Yiddishy in that the rabbi was involved with Carlebachian Judaism, so we had a little bit of that Yiddishy flair.

CW:Were there any Yiddish words or favorite sayings in the family that were 6:00floating around?

SBB:Yes. My mom often would say, "ongepatshket [overdone]." And there was one -- "umbashrien," that she would say when something was really precious and cute, which happened a lot in my family. If someone did something cute, she'd say, "Oh, umbashrien." And she never knew where it was from, but then I figured out it meant "umbashrayen" -- like "Don't yell," kinda like to prevent the evil eye, right? And then of course the typical Yiddishisms that American Jews use.

CW:Well, we'll come back to that later.

SBB:Okay. Sounds good.

CW:And when you talk about the time that you became interested in Jewish culture, what was interesting to you as a teenager about Jewish culture?

SBB:Hmm. I liked the sound of the music. I guess having the klezmer band at my bat mitzvah and then also being involved with this congregation that had a 7:00klezmer interest -- and David Shneyer was the rabbi, or the leader, of that congregation. And he was in a klezmer band -- the "Fabrangen Fiddlers." And Alan Oresky is the violinist who was in that group. And so he's the one who gave me lessons, and I just liked the sound of it. I thought it was cool. It sounded fun. And then there was a klezmer café at a local hotel in Bethesda or Chevy Chase. And so a few times in high school I think I went to that and then brought my violin and played -- jammed with them a little bit. And then when I was in college I went to Columbia, and so there was a lot of Yiddish there. And one of my favorite things to do was just to read the course guide and see all the courses that were offered at my college. And so one day I happened upon a course in Yiddish culture, in translation. So it was a course for English speakers, but it was in the graduate school, so there were a lot of -- I mean, it was a small class, but most of the other students were graduate students. But I learned a 8:00lot about -- and it mentioned klezmer. So I decided to take it, 'cause I -- Oh, I got to take this class, it's about klezmer. And so that's where I really got interested in Yiddish. And then the National Yiddish Book Center was advertising this summer internship, and it paid. And I needed a paying job over the summer, so that was perfect for me. And then I really got hooked when I was at the National Yiddish Book Center.

CW:Can you tell me a little more about what stands out now, years later, about that experience at the Book Center?

SBB:Oh yeah, sure. It was really fun. It was social. We lived in two different houses together with the other interns. And we would go to the Book Center and pack books, and we would have Yiddish classes, language and culture. And we learned a lot -- I remember one fun thing that we did was with a few of my 9:00fellow interns I wrote a song, called "Yiddishkayt." (sings) "Yidishkayt, yidishkayt, undz bafelt dir yidishkayt. Yidishkayt, yidishkayt, vos iz dos far undz? [Yiddishkayt, Yiddishkayt, we like Yiddishkayt. Yiddishkayt, Yiddishkayt, what does it mean to us?]" And then we would list the things that Yiddish was for us. (sings) "Sholem Aleichem," (sings wordlessly), I forget all the things it was. But I remember that was really fun to write, and I subsequently recorded that song without words in my klezmer band in college (laughs) "Uptown Klezmer." Our CD was called "Ashnelerando." Actually I remember that summer we had a conference where -- I forget what it's called. They bring in people for a conference. And we were there as the interns. And we must have performed the song or something, because one of the people at that conference bought the rights to that song, which is -- she gave us ten or twenty dollars or something. (laughs) She said she loved it so much she wanted to buy it. So, okay. So who knows if anyone ever did anything with that song, but it was definitely a fun project.

CW:And were there any people, mentors, that stood out in your learning Yiddish that were particularly important in that journey?

SBB:Yeah, well, I went to Columbia University and Miriam Hoffman and Rakhmiel Peltz were my main Yiddish teachers there, and they were very important. Very supportive and interested in my interest in Yiddish, and great teachers. And Rakhmiel Peltz was really important in helping me decide where to apply to grad school. Yeah.

CW:Yeah. You were at Columbia in the '90s. Was there a Yiddish velt [world] around the program at Columbia and YIVO?

SBB:Yeah. During the year, it was mostly the grad students at Columbia. So there 11:00were a number of grad students there: Beatrice Lang and Kalman Weiser and Vera Szabo and Eddy Portnoy and a few other people who were grad students there. And they were open to an undergrad being involved. And they were helpful. When I organized a Yiddish cabaret and a Yiddish wedding, they were involved. And I think Kalman was the groom (laughs) in the wedding, and they were all involved in the skits in the Yiddish cabarets, and when I organized events for the undergrads at Columbia they helped out. I remember one -- Brukhe led a little game in Yiddish at one of those events, so it was really nice having that symbiosis between the grad students and the undergrads.

CW:And I guess I'd like to ask this in Yiddish. (laughs)

SBB:Sure.

CW:Tsi hot er geredt yidish mit yidish reders fun der heym, mit eltere yidish reders [Have you spoken Yiddish with native Yiddish speakers, with older Yiddish speakers]?

SBB:Neyn, di bobe-zeyde redn nisht kayn yidish, ikh hob geredt yidish mit andere yidish reders nisht in der heym, in konferentsn -- in itst red ikh yidish mit alte layt in gimnazium, [No, my grandparents didn't speak Yiddish, I have spoken Yiddish with other non-native Yiddish speakers, at conferences -- and now I speak Yiddish with older people at the gym,] (laughs) at LA Fitness. Di froyen vos shvimn mit mir redn yidish tsuzamen un ikh red a bisl yidish mit zeyn. Un ikh red yidish mit fraynt in yisroel, vos lernen yidish un vos zaynen [The women who swim with me speak Yiddish together and I speak a little Yiddish with them. And I speak Yiddish with friends in Israel, who are learning Yiddish and who are] academics. Ober, in mayn mishpokhe, iz nishto kayn mentshn vos redn yidish 13:00[But, in my family, there is no one who speaks Yiddish].

CW:Un itst in ayer mishpokhe, ir redt a bisl yidish mit ayer tokhter, yo [And now in your family, you speak a little Yiddish with your daughter, right]?

SBB:A bisl. Ikh leyen bikher mit mayne tekhter -- ikh hob dray tekhter, nayn, zeks, un dray. Un zey ken a bisl yidish -- ikh hob geredt in mayn alte tokhters shul, [A little. I read books with my daughters -- I have three daughters, nine, six and three. And they know a little Yiddish -- I have spoken in my daughter's school,] in Pressman Academy. Ikh hob geredt vegn yidishe shprakhn, spetsyel yidish, un ikh hob gefregt, "Ver kent yidishe verter?" Un mayn tokhter, "Zeks." Zi ken di numern, un zi ken a sakh verter, ober zi ken nisht redn -- mir redn nisht zeyer ken sakh. Ven di elter iz geveyn zeyer kleyn, hob ikh geredt a bisl 14:00mer yidish, ober itst redn mir english, un a mol a bisl hebreish, far zey lernen zikh hebreish in shul. [I spoke about Jewish languages, especially Yiddish, and I asked, "Who knows Yiddish words?" And my daughter, "Six." She knows the numbers, and she knows many words, but she cannot speak -- we don't speak it very much. When the eldest was very little, I spoke a bit more Yiddish, but now we speak English, and sometimes a little Hebrew, because they are learning Hebrew in school.]

CW:Ikh veys az ir kent, ikh meyn az, dray yidishe shprakhn -- un far aykh, vosere meynungen hobn di farsheydene shprakhn in ayer lebn? Tsi redt ir hebreish in dem teyl fun leybn, un yidish in andere, oder epes azoy? [I know that you know, I think, three Jewish languages -- so for you, what meaning do these different languages have in your life? Do you speak Hebrew in one part of your life, and Yiddish in another, or something like that?]

SBB:Ikh red hebreish a bisl in yisroel, un ikh red yidish a bisl mit yidish reders, ober -- un vos iz di drite? Ladino, oder [I speak a Hebrew a little in 15:00Israel, and I speak Yiddish a little with Yiddish speakers, but -- and what is the third? Ladino, or] --

CW:Ladino.

SBB: Oh, okay. Vel, ikh red oykh [I also speak] yidish english, Jewish English. (laughs) Un ikh hob geforsht di ale shprakhn, iz zey hobn vikhtikayt far mir in mayn forshung, ober merstns red ikh english [And I have studied all of the languages, they have importance for me in my research, but mostly, I speak English]. (laughs) Dos iz mayn hoyptshprakh, un mayn mame-loshn [That's my main language, and my mother tongue].

CW:Yo. Un tsi es do a batsiung tsvishn ayer akademishe arbet un lebn bklal [Right. And is there a relationship between your academic work and your life in general]? (laughs)

SBB:Yo, yo, mayn akademishe arbet iz vegn yidn ikh bin zeyer yidish, dos iz mayn identitet -- dos iz mayn -- s'iz zeyer vikhtik far mir vos for ikh forsh yidishe 16:00shprakhn, vayl s'iz vikhtik vos ikh bin a yid. Un ikh fil zikh, az s'iz do a batsiung tsvishn mir un andere yidn iber der gantser velt. Zaynen do yidn in ale lender. [Yes, yes, my academic work is about Jews and I'm very Jewish, that's my identity -- that is my -- it's very important for me that I research Jewish languages, because it's important to me that I am Jewish. And I feel that there is a relationship between me and other Jews throughout the whole world. There are Jews in every country]. (laughs) Un dos iz far mir zeyer vikhtik un s'iz interesant vos yidn iber der gantser velt redn andere shprakhn, farsheydene shprakhn. Dos iz zeyer vikhtik. Un ikh hob a bletl, af der internet, vos heyst [And it's very important to me, and it's interesting, that Jews throughout the whole world speak different languages, varied languages. That is very important. And I have a page on the internet, that is called], "Jewish language research website," vegn di ale shprakhn, un s'iz vikhtik far mir, nisht nor vi a forsher, ober oykh vi a yid [about all of the languages, and this is important to me not only as a researcher, but also as a Jew].

CW:Yeah. Kh'l ariber in english tsu fregn a bisl mer, s'iz okey [I'll switch 17:00over to English to ask a bit more, is that okay? (laughs) Okay. I'm wondering if you can describe a little bit about how -- we heard a little about how you came to learn Yiddish. But how did Yiddish, and specifically Yiddish in English, become an academic focus for you?

SBB:Okay. So I remember I was in my junior year of college. I was taking a class on Romance languages, the history of Romance languages. And one of our assignments was to read an encyclopedia article about Jewish Romance languages. And I heard of Ladino, but I hadn't heard of Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Portuguese, Judeo-Provencal. And this article mentioned these. And I was like, Oh my God! That's amazing! This is what I want to do with my life! I want to study Jewish languages. And so I got interested in it. I started reading. And before that I had kind of assumed that I would become a Yiddish teacher, because I was really 18:00interested in Yiddish, but this made me excited about the academic study of Jewish languages. And so I decided to pursue that. And then in my reading I realized that the Jews around me today are speaking a Jewish language: Jewish English. So that's how I got interested in studying the Yiddish influences on English, through Jewish languages, which was through Yiddish, which was through klezmer. So it's kind of a big line from klezmer to my current research. And so I did my undergraduate thesis at Columbia about how the Orthodox Jews at Columbia University speak English with Yiddish and Hebrew words and other distinctive features, and I analyzed that as a Jewish language -- based on other research that I had read by David Gold and Sol Steinmetz, who argue that it's a Jewish language. And then I got interested in studying how non-Orthodox Jews 19:00speak English -- well, that was a little later. I guess in grad school I mostly studied Orthodox Jews and did my dissertation about baley-tshuve, newly Orthodox Jews, and how they learn the English in the Orthodox community, how they learn the Yiddish influences. And that's coming out in a few months as a book, called "Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism," and that's Rutgers University Press. So then after grad school I became interested in non-Orthodox Jews, partly because I work at a Reform institution, "Hebrew Union College," and got interested in studying non-Orthodox Jews, and actually, Jews in general in America -- and how they use Yiddish words and Hebrew words and other constructions, like, "I don't know from that" or "staying by them" or "I want that you should do this." So I started listening 20:00for those and reading about those. And then also I did a survey about Hebrew and Yiddish words and constructions and other distinctive features of Jewish English. And it was an online survey. We sent it to six hundred people or so, and we got over fifty thousand responses. Even though it's not a random sample, it's a huge sample of American Jews -- and non-Jews -- that really allows us to understand trends among American Jews in the Yiddish words that they use.

CW:Your interests sort of cross over between cultural studies and linguistics. How would you define yourself academically? Is there a term that you like to use?

SBB:Yeah. So I would say I'm a sociolinguist. And I'm also a social science researcher in general. Since I've started working at "Hebrew Union College" my 21:00interests have also moved into sociology and anthropology. I mean, I've been involved in anthropology since grad school. But I do interdisciplinary work that involves linguistics and social science.

CW:And I wanted to ask a little bit about -- some specific questions about Yiddish. How do you see the place of Yiddish in the academy right now?

SBB:Well, a number of universities still offer Yiddish courses and courses on Yiddish literature in translation. So -- I don't know, what else can I answer about that?

CW:Yeah. I'm wondering, what do you see as the role -- because you're involved 22:00in both academics and Jewish life beyond -- what role do academics play, or not, in the transmission of culture?

SBB:That's interesting. Well, I would say -- are you asking a broader question about Yiddish in America or even broader, about culture in general?

CW:I think just the most broadest -- the (laughs) sorry. I can't even speak any language right now. (both laugh) I think start really broad, just about culture in general, what role academics play in transmitting culture. And then we can go deeper into Yiddish.

SBB:Okay, that's a good question. I think academics could play no role or they could play a huge role, depending on their interest. I think some academics are really just interested in their own research and speaking to a very narrow audience, and some academics are interested in bringing their work to a broader 23:00audience. I'm in the latter category because I feel like what's the point of writing for a few dozen people? I'd rather write things that other people can read and be interested in also. So even though I do write a lot in scholarly journals, and my book is an academic book, I also write articles in popular venues, and my book is also accessible to non-academics. So I think academics can play a huge role in how we understand our culture. In terms of cultural transmission, I'm not sure that's the role of academics to transmit culture. I think that can be a partnership between academics and people who work in cultural organizations, like the National Yiddish Book Center and Yiddishkayt LA, which is an organization in my town, and various Yiddish clubs. And I think 24:00there's an opportunity for a partnership between academics and the people who work in those organizations so that the people who work in those organizations can learn from the ideas that the academics are creating and from their new formulations of our past and our present, and then they -- that can have an impact on the work that they do.

CW:And then specifically for Yiddish, where it seems like any Yiddish speaker is sometimes laden with the duty to pass on Yiddish culture, how do you see academics that are interested or working with Yiddish playing a role or not in the broader transmission of Yiddish?

SBB:Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, certainly outside of the ultra-Orthodox world, Yiddish is not doing so well. And one of the areas where 25:00it is doing well is in universities. But I don't see that as so central to the future of the Yiddish language. Because I see the future of the Yiddish language in the Chasidic world. And even though I think it's important for non-Orthodox Jews to learn Yiddish and to learn about Yiddish, it's not gonna have a huge impact on the transmission of the language. Now, there certainly are exceptions. There are people like Ken and Anne Moss, who are raising their kids in Yiddish, who learned Yiddish as adults, right? And that is an example of how the university can have an impact on the future of this language. But those examples are pretty few. And in my opinion people who want -- who are concerned about the future of the Yiddish language should go to Chasidic neighborhoods and hear it spoken in everyday life and realize that it's a very vital language. It has 26:00vitality. It's very alive.

CW:Um-hm. Well, you preempted one of my --

SBB:Oh.

CW:-- questions about -- no, it's fine. (laughs) But I think I'd like to -- I mean, you've been involved in Yiddish academically and also beyond, speaking with the women in the Y or in the LA Fitness swimming pool. (laughter) I'm wondering through that experience what changes have you noticed since you've been involved in Yiddish? Any trends? Let's start first with your students. Have you noticed trends in who is interested in Yiddish?

SBB:Hmm. Well, I have taught Yiddish at Hebrew Union College to rabbinical students and some in Jewish nonprofit management. But I haven't taught it enough to notice trends. So, I don't know. But in terms of trends about Yiddish in 27:00general, I do think that there is a trend for young people to be more interested in Yiddish than when I was in my twenties. When I was in college there weren't that many young people who were interested in Yiddish. And I felt like it was my job to show my classmates at Columbia how awesome Yiddish is, you know? And so that's why I did these festivals, 'cause I was so excited about Yiddish that I wanted to share it with them. And now I see a little bit more of an interest in that. And I think that relates to a broader trend within Jewish communal life, and that is the diversification of organizations, the explosion of options. I mean, in the last decade there have been several hundred new Jewish organizations that have started. And some of those are devoted to Jewish culture. And I see this in, for example, Yiddishkayt LA, an organization that 28:00started, I don't know, ten or fifteen years ago, but more recently it has really been oriented toward young people. And they had a fellowship called the Folks-Grupe, and it attracted a lot of young people who are interested in Yiddish. And so I think people are becoming interested in Yiddish as a way to connect Jewishly, when that wasn't as common when I was around age twenty, you know.

CW:Would you use the term "Yiddish revival" in -- how do you feel about that term, "Yiddish revival"?

SBB:Yeah, that's a good question. I prefer to make it a little more specific, as academics tend to do, and say something like "the revival of interest in Yiddish culture." Because it's not a revival of the language; first of all, Yiddish is not dying, so it's not a revival in that sense. But also it's not a revival of 29:00spoken Yiddish; it's really a cultural revival, a revival of interest in Yiddish.

CW:Um-hm. And do you see -- what do you think caused this surge of interest in Yiddish culture recently?

SBB:Well, once again, I do think it has to do with this diversification of Jewish cultural -- Jewish communal life. But also I think it has to do with the great-grandchildren of Yiddish speakers realizing that there was something lost and realizing that they wanted to connect to their past. And we see this kind of return in baley-tshuve, which is the subject of my book, people wanting to reclaim the heritage that was lost in their family, and for them they do that in a religious way. But I think people becoming interested in Yiddish is kind of a parallel trend on the cultural front.

CW:Um-hm. And is there a singular cause or maybe a group of causes that you see 30:00that led to this diversification of Jewish communal life?

SBB:I think it's part of a broader trend within American society of small groups and small niche interest groups. People -- and it's related to the internet, people finding each other on the internet or just this broader notion of, I want to find what's personally meaningful to me, and I want to be involved with things because I like them, not because my parents did it, right? So I think Yiddish is another example of that trend toward personal meaning.

CW:And what does Yiddish mean to you?

SBB:Yiddish means a very rich language. Studying Yiddish is studying the history of Ashkenazim, and it's a fascinating puzzle to try to figure out how all of 31:00these component languages came together. It's a rich treasure trove of interesting expressions and humor -- and when I say "humor" I don't just mean jokes, but I also mean linguistic creativity, how Jews took words that are from different languages and made inside jokes about them in their language. One of my favorite Yiddish words is "asheryotserl papir," which means "toilet paper." It's a euphemism that was used, and it comes from the blessing "asher yatzar [Hebrew: who has formed man]" that Jews say after they use the bathroom. So the name of this blessing paper means "toilet paper." And, I mean, that's just one of many, many examples of how Ashkenazic Jews have been linguistically creative.

CW:Well, we're nearing the end of our time. But are there any specific topics or stories that you really wanted to tell today?

SBB:Well, I guess to go back to one of your earlier questions about the revival of interest in Yiddish culture, along with that I would add that there is a revival of use among American Jews of certain Yiddish words. And I've been studying this recently, not only in my survey, but also in the Jewish-English press. So some of the words that I've looked at -- for example, "shul" and "daven" -- are both coming back. Younger people are more likely than older people to use words like this. Along with "bentsh [to say a blessing, esp. after a meal]" and "drash [Hebrew: non-literal interpretation of the Bible]" and some other -- well, "drash" is a little different, but -- along with some other Yiddish words and also expressions like "staying by them" and "coming to us." If you look at the data from my survey you see a trend upward, that younger people 33:00are more likely than older people to use words and expressions like these. And so I analyze this as part of this revival of interest in Yiddish, but that happened in an interesting way. 'Cause these are words that are connected to the religious domain. So Yiddish is having an impact on Jewish English through religious communities. And that's a really interesting phenomenon that's going on in Yiddish today.

CW:Well, I'd like to end with two questions. One is, Where do you see the future of Yiddish? I mean, you mentioned this a little bit in terms of being in the Hasidic community, but I'd like to give you a little more time to talk about that.

SBB:Yeah, sure. I certainly see Yiddish as alive and well in Chasidic circles. And the fact that Chasidim are pretty insular and have a lot of children 34:00suggests to me that Yiddish has a vibrant future ahead of it. And I know that that is a strange thing for non-Orthodox Jews to think about, and that a lot of non-Orthodox Jews feel that Yiddish is dying because they see that in their own communities; they see that people aren't using Yiddish in the younger generations so much. I do also see a future for Yiddish outside of the ultra-Orthodox world, in very small pockets of non-Orthodox Jews. And I certainly see a future for interest in Yiddish outside of the ultra-Orthodox world and in cultural organizations online. I think that the internet has really provided an important and helpful venue for people who want to learn about Yiddish and who want to connect with other people who are interested in Yiddish culture.

CW:And a closing question: what advice do you have for aspiring Yiddish speakers 35:00or students of Yiddish?

SBB:Connect with other people. You know, you can't speak Yiddish alone, so you need to connect with other people who are interested in Yiddish and are interested in speaking Yiddish. Go to one of the summer programs. Live in a yidish-hoyz [Yiddish-speaking communal living space]. Learn to speak Yiddish in an environment with other people who are learning. And I would also recommend going to Chasidic communities. Even though there is a concern that they're not that open and not interested in non-Chasidic Yiddishists, I think some people have had success with that and have learned a lot of Yiddish by hanging out with people who are speaking Yiddish at their mothers' knees.

CW:Great. well, a sheynem dank [thank you very much]. (laughs)

SBB:Nishto far vos [You're welcome], a sheynem dank.

[END OF INTERVIEW]