The Cape Jewish Chronicle’s columnist JULIAN RESNICK recently wrote this on Facebook.
You have to love this place (I do). On the train to trendy Tel Aviv.
Sitting opposite me, speaking Yiddish, an ultra-Orthodox family speaking Yiddish. All of them, except for the tiny baby, speaking Yiddish. That is eight energetic children plus Mama and Tata, speaking non-stop in the Mama Loschen. I just recounted: 10 children plus Mama and Tata. Weird after hearing so many stories from the Holocaust on Yom Hashoah, in Yiddish-accented English
and Hebrew.
There was just a great moment when the father, the Tata, asked a question he did not want the little ones (late teens to around three months) to understand, so he used Hebrew!!! Great scene this as the Mama has noticed my smiles, how much I am enjoying the chaos, and she just looked at me with a lovely smile.
We can enjoy people very different from ourselves. What would they say if I told them I just bought two tickets to the ‘Peace Summit’ in Tel Aviv for later this month? They might ask whether there will be Yiddish subtitles.
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