THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
6 April 9, 1976
If George Washington Spoke Yiddish . .
BY DAVID SCHWARTZ
(Copyright 1976, JTA, Inc.)
.
Dr. Louis G. Heller, pro-
fessor of classical languages
and Hebrew at City College,
speaking at the convention
of the International Lin-
guistic Association at New
York University, charged
that Washington, the father
of his country, was guilty of
bad spelling. Other mem-
bers of the association said
much the same thing but all
agreed that Washington in
later years showed much
improvement in the subject.
It should be taken into
consideration that there
was not the uniformity in
spelling in those days that
there is today. Noah Webs-
ter travelled about the coun-
try asking printers to con-
form to his style of spelling.
When Noah Webster got out
his spelling book in Wash-
ington's administration, it
was regarded as something
sensational. It was the top
best seller. Not since the
first Noah was there such a
flood — of books.
The country, as a result,
became "hyped" on spell-
ing. Today when a man runs
for the Presidency, we want
to know how he stands on
abortion, also about his sex
life and does he favor help-
ing out the American cities
or sending the tax money to
Egypt to help those poor
countries buy nuclear reac-
tors. But when Andrew
Jackson ran for President, it
was sensationally charged
that he had spelled the word
"which" wrong, that he had
left out one "h". Jackson evi-
dently thought that one "h"
was enough for a word. Why
should one word have two of
the same letters? It was
undemocratic.
The mistake Americans
made in early days was in
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not adopting Yiddish as
the national tongue. Yid-
dish is phonetic. Words
are spelled as they sound.
This gives\one freedom
and, after all, wasn't
Washington fighting for
freedom?
When the American co-
lonies broke with England,
according to H. L. Mencken,
some advocated the abando-
ment of the English lan-
guage and adopting He-
brew, the language dear to
the Puritan fathers, as the
national tongue. Dr. Heller,
who teaches Hebrew, no
doubt would have liked that,
but Hebrew has spelling dif-
ficulties like English. Yid-
dish is much easier.
Some years back when
the Hebrew poet Hayim
Nachman Bialik visited
America, many were sur-
prised to hear him speaking
Yiddish. "Why do you — a
Hebrew writer — speak
Yiddish?" they asked.
"All right," he said, "if
you have time, I will speak
Hebrew."
•
The flames kindled on the be extinguished by the fee-
4th of July 1776 have spread ble energies of despotism.
over too much of the globe to
• —Thomas Jefferson
rose, but she was dead set
against commas. Yiddish
does not favor them either.
There are other criti-
cisms. Dr. Heller quotes
from Washington's early
May This Passover Bring Joy, Peace
diary. He wrote, "he catched
and Happiness to All Our Friends,
a fox . ."
But these criticisms ap-
Customers and the World
ply to his earlier years.'
Washington, after all, was
and Mrs. Jerome Glassman
Washington would have a farm boy. He didn't go to
appreciated the many ad- college — not even to high
and Family
vantages of Yiddish. Think school. His father died
and
of thousands of words that when he was 11 years old.
have been written about the Considering the circumst-
the entire Staff of
sufferings of Washington's ances, he did rather well.
soldiers at Valley Forge. In
To be sure, it would have
Yiddish you can say it all in been better if Americans
one short word —0i. And had spoken Yiddish. At the
cannons, which Washington beginning of Washington's
had to face, don't disturb presidency, when the capi-
the man speaking Yiddish., tal was New York, Wash-
Kugel means cannon and ington lived on Cherry St.
Jews enjoy eating kugel ev- on the Lower East Side,
ery Saturday.
-near where all the Yiddish
Dr. Heller also criticizes papers would be printed. No
Washington's excessive use doubt Washington would
of punctuation, especially have enjoyed reading the
Brief-Kasten.
too many commas.
Gertrude Stein liked a lot
We can picture his father
of roses. A rose is a rose is a asking, "Son, did you chop
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on all makes
little George answering,
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old British law firm which
continues to include a large
number of Thailand law-
yers.
Few Westerners are so fa-
miliar with Thailand as
Lewis Cykman, the head of
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In Yiddish, you don't
need so much time. There
are no superfluous letters.
Thousands of our school
children seem unable to
learn to read English. We
never heard of anyone
speaking Yiddish having
any great difficulty learn-
ing to read a Yiddish
paper.
OLDSMOBLE I NC
Thai Jewish Community
Reduced But Still Thriving
BY JOSEPH POLAKOFF
(Copyright 1976, JTA, Inc.)
With the February clos-
ing by the U.S. Air Force of
the giant air base north of
Bangkok that it had built
for the Vietnam war, Thai-
land's Jewish community
has shrunken to its pre-war
tiny number of a dozen fam-
ilies including a few in the
Israeli Embassy. Nearly all
live in Bangkok and English
is their lingua fra Ica al-
though some have never
lived in an English-speaking
country.
During the Vietnam war
period, starting in the early
1960s and extending for
about a decade; the commu-
nity was enlarged by the
presence of hundreds of
American military person-
nel.
Air Force chaplains dou-
bled as rabbis for the Bang-
kok community. They con-
ducted services and taught
the children the fundamen-
tals of their heritage.
By the generosity of
Mrs. Elizabeth Zerner, the
oldest Jewish person born
in Thailand, Bangkok has
a synagogue and a commu-
nity center. They are in
buildings which she do-
nated in 1965 along with
their grounds.
A Washington, D.C. cou-
ple, both lawyers, are
among Bangkok's best
known residents. They are
Albert and Freda Ring Ly-
man, both of whose families
are also prominent in Wash-
ington. Lyman is a founder
and the first president of
the Bangkok Stock Ex-,
change. The Lymans emi-
grated to Bangkok after
World War II when they
acquired the interests of an
.
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U.S. Aid to Drop
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to expect American aid to be
as high as it has been up to
now.
Toon stressed that the
cutback in foreign aid is not
aimed at Israel specifically
but in part of a general re-
duction in American foreign
aid.
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