Ot Azoy 2010. How was it for me?
I had attended Ot Azoy twice before and enjoyed it immensely both times. However, I didn’t make it to last year’s course and it was with some trepidation that I booked my place this year. For one thing, I hadn’t spoken, read or even heard any Yiddish worthy of note for at least eighteen months. It felt as if whatever Yiddish knowledge I might still have retained was shut away inside a tightly sealed box somewhere in my brain. Secondly, I certainly did remember, vividly, the frenetic pace of the courses I had attended, and I seriously wondered how well my constitution, now that bit older, would stand up to the strains of the week.
On the first count at least, I needn’t have worried. As the Sunday introductory session proceeded and the rich, slightly husky, tones of course director Khayele Beer’s Yiddish continued to resonate round the room, the lid of that box inside my brain began to ease open. As it did, familiar Yiddish words and phrases, even some quite sophisticated ones, began to find their way into my consciousness – forgotten friends. That night, while I was trying to sleep, the lid freed itself completely and shot wide open: all kinds of word-strings began swirling round my mind, Wonderful it most certainly was – but no way to get a night’s rest! Next morning I got up feeling totally shattered and went in for the first day of the course proper. Via a process over which I had little control, Yiddish began to come out as I opened my mouth, more and more of it, some grammatically correct and even quite idiomatic. And so it went on - Yiddish conversation flowing out of me during the day and a veritable internal Yiddish whirlwind devastating my sleep every night.
Mornings at Ot Azoy, readers may not know, are devoted to ‘formal’ classes in Yiddish language and literature. Four study-levels are offered, and, at the introductory session, each participant chooses the right level for him- or herself, in consultation with the tutors. In earlier years, I had opted to go into my comfort zone, that is, Level 3. But several people who had been Level 3 classmates in previous years felt it was now time to be a little more ambitious and I basically felt the same. So, knowing I’d be among established friends, I decided that, rusty or not, I would rise to the challenge of Level 4. A reason of a sadder kind also played a part. The incomparable Peysakh Fiszman’s teaching had been a delight at Level 3 in previous years. But, to the sorrow of all who spent even a little time with him, he is no longer with us, and I knew that if I stayed in Level 3, I would spend the week feeling his absence intensely.
Level 4 it was, though I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I soon found out. The entire five-day programme was given over to studying the poetry and prose of Avrom Sutskever, a writer of international renown as I now realise, even though, in my ignorance, I hardly knew his name when the course started. I freely admit that I would hesitate to attempt reading an English writer whose work was so enigmatic, multi-layered and intensely emotional. But Heather Valencia’s meticulous elucidations and Khayele Beer’s playful intellectuality guided us skilfully through. And so it was that we first successfully penetrated texts containing more than a smattering of, shall we say, esoteric Yiddish. Then we plunged into animated literary discussion – in Yiddish, of course – of what we had read. The remarkable thing is that it really did happen!
There is insufficient space to comment properly on the range of less formal activities - notably singing - which fill afternoons at Ot Azoy. (I use the word ‘fill’ advisedly here). I shall highlight just one of these. Khayele Beer, as many people will know, has a predilection for drama in the classroom. It’s a powerful pedagogic method, she claims. This year she conceived the idea of adapting a no more than mildly amusing text being studied in Level 3 classes and turning it into a brief comic sketch in Yiddish. As we sat round discussing increasingly zany possibilities, mainly in Yiddish of course, it became clear that her plan, all along, was for us actually to perform our sketch at the traditional Thursday evening concert. Well, the skit progressively took shape even though rehearsals, if you can call them that, suffered greatly from our inability to stop ourselves laughing. On the night, the audience laughed too (in all the right places) and generally seemed to enjoy the ‘production’ as much as we ‘actors’ did. At the very least, it hopefully offered a light-hearted counterpoint to the fine singing performances provided by a succession of students during the concert.
It is a personal view, I know, but, for me, Jewish events often have a tendency to be rather inward-looking. Not so, Ot Azoy. One factor militating against any such tendency is the simply wonderful diversity – in age, background, country of origin, interests, accomplishments, attitudes, lifestyle and more – of those taking part. A second factor is the presence, every year, of a number of committed and talented non-Jewish participants drawn from continental Europe and sometimes beyond. The primary attraction for them is, almost always, Yiddish music and song. But there is an underlying reason for this attraction and it has to do with a common European culture that Yiddish has absorbed and reflects back. Murderous antipathies made any sharing of this culture between Jews and non-Jews impossible in past centuries. But now the barriers have been lifted and maybe, just maybe, in all this diversity lies the germ of a possibility that will allow Yiddish to be sustained into the future, notwithstanding the annihilation of the communities for whom it was once the language of every day.
modified December 6, 2010
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