THE ANGLO-JEWISH YIDDISH LITERARY SOCIETY
The founder and moving spirit of this unique little Society is Miss Helena Frank, whose sympathy with Yiddish literature has been shown in several ways. Her article in the Nineteenth Century ("The Land of Jargon," October, 1904) was as forcible as it was dainty. Her rendering of the stories of Perez, too, is more than a literary feat. Her knowledge of Yiddish is not merely intellectual; though not herself a Jewess, she evidently enters into the heart of the people who express their lives and aspirations in Yiddish terms. Young as she is, Miss Frank is, indeed, a remarkable linguist; Hebrew and Russian are among her accomplishments. But it is a wonderful fact that she has set herself to acquire these other languages only to help her to understand Yiddish, which latter she knows through and through.
Miss Frank not long ago founded a Society called by the title that heads this note. The Society did not interest itself directly in the preservation of Yiddish as a spoken language. It was rather the somewhat grotesque fear that the rôle of Yiddish as a living language may cease that appealed to Miss Frank. The idea was to collect a Yiddish library, encourage the translation of Yiddish books into English, and provide a sufficient supply of Yiddish books and papers for the patients in the London and other Hospitals who are unable to read any other language. The weekly Yiddishe Gazetten (New York) was sent regularly to the London Hospital, where it has been very welcome.
In the Society's first report, which I was permitted to see, Miss Frank explained why an American Yiddish paper was the first choice. In the first place, it was a good paper, with an established reputation, and at once conservative and free from prejudice. America is, moreover, "intensely interesting to the Polish Yid. For him it is the free country par excellence. Besides, he is sure to have a son, uncle, or brother there—or to be going there himself. 'Vin shterben in vin Amerika kän sich keener nisht araus drehn!' ('From dying and from going to America, there is no escape!')" Miss Frank has a keen sense of humor. How could she love Yiddish were it not so? She cites some of the Yiddishe Gazetten's answers to correspondents. This is funny: "The woman has the right to take her clothes and ornaments away with her when she leaves her husband. But it is a question if she ought to leave him." Then we have the following from an article by Dr. Goidorof. He compares the Yiddish language to persons whose passports are not in order—the one has no grammar, the others have no land.
And both the Jewish language and the Jewish nation hide their faulty passports in their wallets, and disappear from the register of nations and languages—no land, no grammar!
"A pretty conclusion the savants have come to!" (began the Jewish
nation). "You are nothing but a collection of words, and I am nothing but
a collection of people, and there's an end to both of us!"
"And Jargon, besides, they said—to which of us did they refer? To me or to you?" (asks the Jewish language, the word jargon being unknown to it).
"To you!" (answers the Jewish nation).
"No, to you!" (protests the Jewish language).
"Well, then, to both of us!" (allows the Jewish nation). "It seems we are both a kind of Jargon. Mercy on us, what shall we do without a grammar and without a land?"
"Unless the Zionists purchase a grammar of the Sultan!" (romances the
Jewish language).
"Or at all events a land!" (sighs the Jewish nation).
"You think that the easier of the two?" (asks the Jewish language,
wittily).
And at the same moment they look at one another and laugh loudly and
merrily.
This is genuine Heinesque humor.