I love Yiddish!

When the emperor Napoleon was fleeing Russia, he found himself running through a Jewish village. He's running, and the Russians are right behind him!

When he saw a passel of soldiers hot on his heels, he ran quickly into the little house of a simple tailor and said to him in a shaky voice: "Hide me quickly or they'll kill me!"

The tailor didn't know who he was, but when someone begs you to save him, you save him. He said to the emperor: "Be so good as to crawl into my bed under the feather comforters, and lie there and don't move!" And the emperor got into the bed, and the tailor covered him with one feather comforter and another, and a third and a fourth as well.

Not a moment had passed when the door flew open and and two soldiers with spears rushed in. "Has anybody come in here to be hidden?"

The Jew said, "No! Who would come here to be hidden?"

The soldiers searched here and there, and finally stabbed through the feather comforters on the bed a couple of times - there was nobody. They went away, back to wherever they came from.

When they were well and truly gone, the emperor crept out from under the comforters, pale as the wall. He says to the Jew: "You should know - I'm the emperor Napoleon. And because you've saved me from certain death, you can ask me for three things. Whatever they may be, I'll give them to you!"

The poor Jew thinks a minute and says: "Look here, emperor my dear, see how my roof leaks? It's been this way for two years already. Maybe you could have somebody fix it?"

The emperor looks at him and says: "You blockhead, of course I'll do it! You're asking such a modest thing from me? Ask for something better! But remember, now you can only ask for two more things."

The little tailor turns it over in his head: what better thing can he ask for? He thinks and thinks, and eventually he says: "Here, on the same street as me, lives another tailor, he's taking some of my customers. If only you could get him to to move someplace else!"

The emperor waves impatiently and says: "There's an idiot for you! Typical! OK, I'll get that other tailor to go to the devil! But can't you think up anything bigger to ask for? You only get one more wish!"

The Jew heard this and thought very hard; finally he smiled and asked: "I'd like to know, please tell me, how did you feel, lying in my bed, when the soldiers stuck their swords through the bedcovers?"

The emperor heard this and was outraged. "How dare you ask? The nerve! For this kind of impudence I'll have you shot, you so-and-so!" He immediately called a couple of his soldiers, and they clapped the tailor in irons and carried him away.

You can just imagine how the Jew's heart trembled in his bosom, especially after they said: "You'll be shot tomorrow morning." He probably didn't sleep all night! He cried and shook, quivered and quaked, and said confession.

Next morning he was tied to a tree, and three soldiers stood facing him with their rifles. And a fourth stood to one side with a watch in his hand, waiting for the moment of execution.

Finally he raised his arm and started counting: "One! Two! Thr..."

He had not quite called out the word "three" - and here comes a General on a horse, shouting "Stop, don't shoot!" He goes to the Jew and says: "The emperor forgives you, and he's sent you this note."

Sighed with relief, the Jew took the note and started reading. And this is what the note said: "I felt then exactly as you were feeling just now."

The tailor has kept the note with him to this very day.

I really wanted to give my Yiddish learning a boost, and North Carolina is no treat in the summer, so I decided to sign up for three weeks in Paris in July 2006.

I boned up furiously to be ready for the Intermediate level. Then I booked a flight and looked into housing.

At the time, Craigslist Paris turned out to be an excellent resource. It's no good combing through the ads yourself, because they're mostly from agents. What I did was put in my own ad, saying I was looking for a short-term rental in one of the arrondissements close enough to the library (which is at 18, passage saint-Pierre Amelot) so I could walk to school.

I was contacted by a nice lady and the rental went perfectly. She met me at her place with croissants and juice. I paid her cash (best practice is to use the ATMs once you get where you're going, that's supposed to be the best exchange rate) and she gave me the keys. The place was lovely, in the Place Leon Blum, right near a boulangerie and a subway stop useful for afternoon adventures.

Warning for Americans: Paris is not air-conditioned

That turned out to be a very hot summer ini Paris, and my apartment was not airconditioned and neither was the library! Our room was quite full of students. They opened the door to the street and turned on a pedestal fan, but only the people quite near the fan were comfortable. However, I don't mind heat so much.

My typical day in Paris

The first morning we met at 8:45 am to mill about and be friendly. However, as I don't understand French and there were people from all over the world, I felt pretty shy.

We had a long class which ended before lunch. I would go to a near-by cafe for lunch and usually had a fabulous salad and bread of course. There was another class after lunch which ended in the mid-afternoon.

In the late afternoons and some evenings there were lectures, workshops, movies and the like, but I was often over-stimulated by all the info I was cramming in my head so I'd go touring.

I walked miles and miles, visiting at least the outsides of the famous spots - I didn't go up in the Eiffel Tower, but I went under it (see Yiddish Saying #3); I didn't go into the Louvre, but I sat in the park and watched people go in and out. One favorite moment: on the Ferris Wheel looking down over the fabulous city.

I didn't do the math for this summer, but in 2006 it was cheaper to go study Yiddish in Paris, even taking the airfare and the hotel etc. into account, than to go to the program in New York. A no-brainer for me!

Neyn, ikh bin keyn korev nit
fun koyanim un neviim
Mayn shprakh hot shver gehorevet
In fishgesl fun Vin.

Mayn lid - es trogt keyn glekhlekh nit
keyn shlifes un keyn kreygn
Ikh trog i proste peklekh mit
mayn mamedik farmegn

Ikh shrayb mit shtiker luft oyf tog
un klor vi a gut-morgn,
Un ver es darf, un ver es vil
zol kumen un zol borgn

No, I'm no relative
of priests or prophets
My language was hard won
In the fish streets (ghetto) of Vienna

My poem - it doesn't have ...
No epaulets and no crowns
I carry it in a simple pack with
My motherly possessions

I write with bits of air by day
And clear as a "good morning!"
And whoever needs and wants it
Can come and borrow.

I first met Sheva in the early 1980s when Burt Chessin of Di Yiddishe Bande asked me if I'd take over as singer for the annual Yom Ha'Shoah memorial services. (This is a time every year to honor those who died in the Holocaust.)

Sheva would choose a theme every year, pick music for it, and give me a cassette from which to learn the music. Then we'd sit down together and she'd pick apart my pronunciation.

I must have gotten better over the years because around 2002 she asked me to record songs for her second collection of cds that accompanied her Intermediate textbook. I'm honored to be in that set!

At this point, it seems like Professor Zucker knows just about everything. When I was translating "Yosele," she was able to give me social and religious background that made everything more understandable. She knows lots of words that aren't in my dictionaries, too! What a resource!

Sheva Zucker produced this collection.

Yankev Glatshteyn, Celia Dropkin, H. Leivick, Aron Glanz-Leyeles, Yente Mash, Kadya Molodowsky, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, Sholem Aleichem, Yekhiel Shraibman, Avrom Sutzkever - reading from their poetry and prose

The CD is accompanied by 2 booklets with:

• Complete Yiddish text
  
• Notes on each work in English
  
• Glossary in Transliteration
  
• English, Hebrew, & Russian Bibliography
  
• Biography of each writer in English and Yiddish

TO ORDER: Cost $25.00

Postage within the US $3.00. $1.00 each addition CD.

Canada $4.00

International $7.25
Send check made out to Sheva Zucker to:
Sheva Zucker
1114 Iredell St.
Durham, NC 27705

Please include email or phone number with your check.

This lens is part of Chapel Hill Fiddler's Jewish Lenses CollectionBest Jewish Books • Best Jewish Lenses • Mystery band from the Ukraine • Chai Lifeline helps sick Jewish kids • Hamsa: beautiful good-luck charm from Israel • TJC Hanukah Songbook • When does Chanukah begin in 2009? • How do you spell Hanukkah? • Jewish choral music songbook • I love Yiddish music! • The Jewish Storyteller • Jewish Wedding Music • Mani Leib, famous Yiddish poet-shoemaker • Purim Puppets of Michel Nedjar • A Sephardic song about eggplants • Uncle Shlomo's Pushcart • I love Yiddish!