Yiddish Metropolitan Diary: A Subway Encounter

by DR. DALIT WARSHAW, YIVO Yiddish student

Mayn tayer yidish togbikhl (Dear Yiddish diary):

It was a brisk yet sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-December. I was sitting on a crowded 1 train, amid a long and ruminative trek downtown from Riverdale. As is my wont during such commutes, I took out my Yiddish homework, which in this case was preparation of an excerpt from Bella Chagall’s memoir Burning Lights, the chapter “Der ershter shney” (“The First Snow”).

Suddenly, a voice resounded from above: “Ah, redt ir yidish? (You speak Yiddish?)” I looked up: my reading happened to be in the direct line of vision of a man with a beard, standing and holding the subway pole! Before I knew it, I was responding in Yiddish, and thus began a conversation on all manner of topics lasting from 137th St. down to Lincoln Center, completely in Yiddish!

As I neared my destination, it was clear that this yidishe discussion had to continue (especially as, musician that I am, I was greatly relishing this ershte [first] opportunity to discuss Mahler, Wagner, and Scriabin all in the mameloshn [mother-tongue], quite joyfully off-kilter as every encounter with this fantastisher [fantastic] language has thus far promised to be)... He dictated his cell number to me (in Yiddish, of course), and the shmues (conversation) is still going on, weeks later (if with the admitted assistance of the verterbukh [dictionary])!