Address by Lilke Majzner
at the 2008 IAYC Conference
English translation by
Hershl Hartman, Secular Jewish
vegvayzer
Honored attendees; honored
guests; Board of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs;
Friend Norman Serkin, Conference Chair; and our beloved Fishl Kutner,
the tireless fighter, editor of Der Bay and the soul of this
Conference…I thank my dear comrades, Sabell Bender; I thank Hershl,
whom I often torment…I torture him, but that is the way of our world:
he who allows himself to be tormented is tormented (laughter).
Greetings to all of you. This is a celebration for all of us.
Many, many years ago I had
a teacher in the Yiddish folkshul (elementary school) named for
Vladimir Medem (a prominent leader of the Bund—trans.) in my
hometown of Lodz, Poland, who would say to us in moments of deep
emotion: “Children—words fail me, so let us kiss!” That is how I feel
at this moment. So I send you all my kisses, the hundreds and hundreds
of kisses that my teacher send out with her pupils. I send you my
kisses and gratitude. Gratitude for the recognition that is not for me
alone, but for the 83 years of activity of the Yiddish Culture Club of
Los Angeles, which you also honor…the club which was founded by such
inspiring spirits as the Yiddish writers Rosenblatt and Opotashu, who
was here for a certain time, and others who had the vision to create
an organization that would encompass the new trends that were born
here in 1923 and proceeded from city to city. The Yiddish Culture Club
became a presence, a presence in Jewish life that took wing and worked
doggedly so that the Golden Chain of our cultural treasures might not
be broken.
The doors of our Yiddish
Culture Club were open to both old and young creators, so that, in the
course of these 83 years we did not merely preserve old treasures, but
welcomed young writers, young creators, and established one of the
most prominent literary magazines, in existence for over 60 years,
khezhbn, which has been read not only on this coast, but across
the country and abroad.
This dogged determination
of the activists…they were the bearers of our huge legacy who give us
the will and energy to push, to push farther our Yiddish wagon that,
in the course of history and of historical events, has become still
heavier.
I belong to the generation
that was murderously destroyed. I am a charred branch of that great,
strong oak tree of Polish Jewry, ebullient, creative. Just as
legendary Atlas was thought to carry Earth on his shoulders, so we —
you and I — carry the legacy of our murder victims, the legacy of the
unspoken words, unfinished songs, dreams not fulfilled. Their spirits
hover in this room today, here, with me and with you.
May I be permitted to give
thanks, to express my deepest feelings of love to my parents, who
implanted in me a tremendous love for Yiddish; to my teachers in the
Secular Yiddish schools in my hometown, all of whom taught me to dream
in Yiddish; to my Bundist ideals of social justice, love for Yiddish
cultural values and love for the Jewish people. To my Shloyme, who was
my life’s companion and loved everything connected to Jewish values,
and to our children and grandchildren who have understanding and
respect for our destroyed world. And to the Yiddish Club in Los
Angeles which gave me the opportunity to continue further my Yiddish
cultural work and, together with its devoted membership, to spin
further the tattered thread.
We have gathered here
under the sign of the Centennial of the Czernowitz Conference that
took place in 1908. In our academic circles, in cities where that
great historic event is discussed, some facts are crippled and
interpretations made that are inaccurate. But the event in and of
itself is very important. The Czernowitz Conference was not only a
language conference. It was the beginning of the creation of a new
approach, a new path in our Jewish life. A new path in which Yiddish
was the spoken national language. And with it we could reach masses
and we could create and develop the strength that would build and
enrich our Jewish life. That new approach of Secular Jewishness was
called by Dr. Khayim Zhitlovski “our new cultural foundation.”
The historical and
political canvas was quite different in those formative years. The
past hundred years have seen the blossoming of Jewish creativity and
establishment of the new day. The idea of doikayt (here-ness),
which the General Jewish Workers’ Bund had as its ideology, created
the foundation on which were based all stages of Yiddish culture:
Yiddish education, the advanced concepts of sport leagues, higher
education, teachers’ seminaries, institutions that reflected and
impacted Jewish folk-life. That blossoming period, for all its
difficulties of antisemitism and assimilation, was so tragically
interrupted. Six million of our people were cut down. The physical and
cultural-spiritual banishment in the former Soviet Union erased Jewish
life. And yet…and yet we are here!
The emergence of the
Jewish State did not solve the issues of the diaspora. We live in
dispersal and will live on. We must go on with our Jewish life,
wherever we are, wherever we live. It is that here-ness that demands
of us responsibility, demands of us a historical duty. Jewish cultural
values that have existed for a thousand years cannot and dare not be
discarded.
Language is the instrument
of creativity. Our creative treasure is collosal. It is not only the
legacy, it is the wonderful metamorphosis of the wandering process of
now. Our yesterdays must be historically woven into today. The road is
hard, not easy. We live in a new technological world.Technology brings
both good and bad. But Yiddish vitality and endurance will come to our
aid. We must have faith and we must have great stubbornness.
Together…together we will preserve our values and build new values.
Our language and culture must be a component of our Jewish existence.
May the words of our great writer Leivick, “I rise up again and stride
off farther,” become our motto.
We must also bring order
to our path. We must have a certain structure, the discipline of a
creative path. We no longer have a specific Jewish quarter that might
stimulate us, so we must stimulate the so-called “Jewish street.” Our
work is grouped around academic circles which is good and well, but
the beginning is not there — that is not the nisn (biblical
first month—trans.). We must lay the foundation among the very
young…children…children’s schools. If we are not able to create such
schools, we must bring our baggage — our great Yiddish cultural
baggage — into the Jewish day schools in the cities in which they
exist. We must create institutions that will develop new Yiddish
teachers and inspire them with the idea of teaching Jewish children,
to acquaint them with our great creative road. We cannot easily return
to our old paths, no. But if we were all to be determined — all
together — we will have the strength to transmit to our young
generation our stubbornness, our deep belief that Yiddish culture
lives, that it will live, that the heritage that was created enriched
Jewish life and existence. It enriched them then and it will enrich
them now. The legacy lies in our hands. It must lie in secure hands.
And the further creative process will go on…it will go on if we become
determined.
May the Conference, which
will conclude tomorrow, or Monday, be the beginning of our great,
determined path to create — not more conferences, but wherever you
live and wherever you are — to exert yourselves, to enthuse your youth
so that they may understand you, that they may hear from your mouths
that long, long, hundred-year history of the Jewish people…and the
old, old history that is thousands and thousands of years old. Let us
discuss the issues practically and roll up our sleeves and begin the
labors. Words alone cannot help. Work must be done, and all of you
must believe in it. We must believe. We bear a heavy weight. But if we
do this, it will become lighter, and perhaps, after 120 years, they
will come and say to us “you were right, and now we will take over the
rudder.”
We dare not negate one
thousand years of life, a thousand years of creativity. We dare not
and we cannot. So let us erect the bridges, the bridges to the youth,
and let us with them greet our great will and determination to
continue our Yiddish cultural work with the great treasures that we
bear.
I want to thank you and I
would like to conclude these few words with a poem by a great Yiddish
writer (Moyshe Shklar) who lives with us in Los Angeles, who has
written these words:
The Sound of Yiddish
Oh no, oh no, not gone is
Yiddish sound;
it is laughter and tears,
it is the song the
generations found.
From generations’ path
through joy and woe,
through darkness to the
morning’s glow —
and lasting sound, and
lasting sound, and lasting sound…”
Thank you.