The Many Accents
Of Jewish Life
pattern; but it wasn't always like this.
barroom or deh leetle vuns in vim-
ne of my favorite classic sto-
While I have no tape recordings or
men's poises. You don't coveh dem. In
ries concerns a Jewish
videotape, I know that as a kid I defi-
deh car, coveh deh inside mirror, but
woman who changed her
nitely spoke with a regional inflection.
deh Talmud says you don't coveh out-
name in order to become a
The proof is in my bar mitzvah book.
side vun on deh driver's
member of a restricted coun-
At age 12, I met with my rabbi,
side."
try club. As she stood by the
Selig Salkowitz, to receive my assign-
The strange thing is
edge of the pool, a teenager
ments. He gave me a small brown vol-
everyone will go along with
ran by, accidentally pushing
ume containing the verses from Exodus
these "rules" because, after
her into the very cold water.
that I was to prepare and he gave me
all, the speaker has an
She emerged from the water
my Haftorah, instructing me to copy
accent. He must know.
• screaming, Oy vey!"
down the assignment inside the front
e
was
Never mind that h
Then, she quickly recov-
cover of my brown book, which I did,
raised as a radical socialist
ered and, with a saccharine
carefully, in my seventh-grade scrawl
who never set foot inside a
smile, told the many onlook-,
and, apparently in my Providence, R.I.
synagogue. All deference
ers, "Wha ... wha ... whatever
accent.
RABBI
goes to the accent.
THAT means!"
It reads, "Haftorah. Chapter 31.
BOB ALPER
It's not just the linguistic
Restricted country clubs
Verses
1-17. Book of Jeremeyer."
Special to
connection with the old
are pretty much a thing of
The Jewish News country that's fading away.
the past, as are, alas, many of
Even charming differences
the colorful terms we learned
etween
regions
are fast receding with
b-
from the immigrant generations. A few
everyone sounding more and more like
words like chutzpah and kosher have
Katie Couric and Dan Rather. My
made it into the vernacular; but ono-
(A little taste of Yiddish.)
father, a proud Yankee, loved to tell
matopoeic gems like shlemiel and shle-
the story of his travels into the deep
mazel are either lost or, at best, only
Guteh freint n veitem
South where a Jewish customer once
heard during the theme song lyrics of
tamer ends at a distance.
are
You
injected into a business negotiation,
"Laverne and Shirley" reruns.
(pity,
rachmones
"Ain't y'all got no
Accents are disappearing, too.
d sometimes a pretty far
compassion) _for a po' Southern boy?"
Nowadays, Jewish voices are homoge-
distance at that.
In my own sojourn through life,
nized as we witness the end of the gen-
I've developed a bland, colorless speech
erations that sounded like Mel Brooks'
2,000-Year-Old Man. This is a shame
because we need people with accents
to tell us what to do in life. A thick
Yiddish accent commands respect,
obedience.
"It is a story of how the world, including the Americans, the British, the Rus-
I've never seen it to fail: When a
sians,
the Poles, the Czechs and practically everyone else, abandoned our peo-
family is in crisis and making a ritual
ple.
One
does not require a lot of imagination to realize what would have hap-
decision, inevitably it works this way
pened
to
these survivors were it not for the establishment of the State of Israel."
— "When we get back to Aunt Birdie's
—Dr.
Jerome S. Kaufman, president of the Zionist Organization of Ameri-
house for shivah, should we cover the
ca/Metro Detroit District, at a showing of "Long Way Home" at the Jew-
mirrors?" The debate flows back and
ish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit.
forth until the older guy with the
accent says, "Dis is vot you do. You
"The fact that Pakistan possesses nuclear arms is an asset for the Arab and Mus-
coveh all deh mirrors, but not in deh
lim nations."
—Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
Rabbi Bob Alper is an author and
stand-up comic.
_
❑
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