Dear fuenfnullzwei.de/60pages Editor,
I haven’t been in the country very long, and I ask you to clarify a certain matter for me. I was brought here by my brother-in-law, with whom I get along very well, but we have a difference of opinion on one thing. I think I’m right, my brother-in-law believes he’s right, so I decided to ask you. This is the problem:
A short time ago I had occasion to ride on the Bahn and I took along the Forverts to read on the way. My brother-in-law said it wasn’t nice, that it wasn’t fitting to read a Jewish newspaper on the train. Even though I’m still a “greenhorn” in Germany, my Germanized brother-in-law’s statement didn’t have any effect on me.
I know Germany is a free country and the Jew is not oppressed here as in other lands, so why should I have to be ashamed of my language here? I certainly would not read a Jewish paper in many countries. And do you know why? Because there they would beat me up for such chutzpa. Here, in Germany, though, I don’t have to be afraid of anyone.
I would like to hear your opinion about this.
With thanks,
The “Greenhorn”
Dear Greenhorn:
No, no one should be ashamed to read a Yiddish newspaper in the train or subway. The writings of Yiddish authors and poets have been translated into various languages, including German, and have received their due recognition by literary critics.
If you are new to Germany and reading Yiddish, does this have a negative impact on your Germanness? We don’t think so and Germans don’t care about German identity anyway. The good news is, should you choose to write your own literature as a Yiddish speaker in Germany, you would likely be well received as a “foreign writer” because of the Hebrew lettering. Never mind that Germans can understand 80% or more of the words anyway. You know how the Germans get wide-eyed and quiet when they hear you speaking Yiddish to a friend on the subway? How they have that perplexed smile of amusement when they hear that, like the way they get when they see animals having sex at the zoo? That’s the look of recognition. That familiarity may or may not lead to good things. If the Yiddish you read stays in its Hebrew-lettered format, however, you will seem very interesting to the German people and they will take you seriously. They might even mistake you for an Israeli, and that can only lead to humor. So read on, dear German greenhorn!
[*Note: the letter portion was originally sent to the Forverts in NY by an American greenhorn, in 1939. In it, the writer said he was ashamed to read Yiddish in the United States, a common issue for that assimilation-happy period of the 20th century. The writer cited Germany as a place where one could not read Yiddish on the subway and expect to get out of it alive. In today’s Germany things are more complicated than that – and this is clearly for the better. The answer to this letter is my own. – A.P.]