By Joel Keller
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

The most interesting thing about the English language is that it’s adaptable; words from any language can work their way into the lexicon, being “promoted” over the decades from a foreign word to slang to a proper form of speech.

Yiddish is one of those languages that have infiltrated their way into everyday speech. If you call yourself a “klutz” when you trip, for instance, you’ve just uttered a piece of a language that has been floating around Europe for almost a thousand years.

But there’s still a significant number of people, including second- and third-generation Americans, who used to speak Yiddish every day and want to make sure they maintain that relationship with the language of their ancestors. Those are the people Millie Eisenberg wanted to help when she started a Yiddish language group at Cedar Crest, a retirement community in Pompton Plains, N.J.

“There were a number of people who spoke Yiddish in varying degrees of fluency, and they wanted a way to get together and speak it,” she says of the group she started in June. She named the group Mamolushen, which means “mother tongue” in Yiddish. During their meetings members talk about different subjects, but they always try to do so in Yiddish, helping each other fill in any words they may miss.

A ‘feeling of warmth’
Eisenberg was surprised by the number of people who spoke the language to any degree; more than 30 people signed up for her first meeting. “I was flabbergasted!” she laughs. But she also understands why people want to remain connected with the language.

“These people heard it in their homes. Parents would speak Yiddish to keep  kids from knowing what was being said,” thus urging those people to learn it themselves, she explains. Because of this, she says, speaking Yiddish feels like home to those people. “You just have this feeling of warmth, and you want to maintain it. It’s part nostalgia and part true desire to keep up with something that you knew.”