Reply To: Yiddish at Siyum hashas

In response to Ubiqutin

1. Joseph’s first point made no sense. I don’t know who considers it a Yiddish event. It is a Jewish event. Just bec. the two words share a commonality does not make them the same. (EX: Yabia Omer is Jewish but he is not Yiddish)

2. I never said our common language is Hebrew. That misses the point. The common language of Jews in America is English. For better or worse it is a fact.

3. I do not understand your comparison to bentching at a meal with people who do not understand. When you bentch you are not talking to them, you are talking to G-D. It is nice of you to explain what you are doing but I would not expect you to bentch in English. However, if you would want to say a dvar Torah at the table to teach and inspire the people at the table I would hope you would say it in a language they understand.

4. Whatever they do with Latin at a Harvard graduation is most likely in line with the main objective of that event-its a formal ceremony. If it makes them feel like they are part of some elite segment of society, they can knock themselves out with it. I don’t think they will tell you that a Harvard graduation shares the same objective as a siyum hashas. What do we accomplish with ceremonial exclusion?

I think a number of poster have missed the point. The question is not what is the national language of the Jewish people. The issue is that if we want to make the best use of everyone’s time at such a momentous event why not make a program from which everyone can gain? I do not believe that there are more than a handful of participants who have difficulty with English. Even American born chasidim who speak English with an accent are bi-lingual. I would estimate (I could wrong-it happen once) that when the speakers begin their presentations in Yiddish, at least half (probably more) zone out.

It is true that most of the program is English, but a very significant amount of time is shot bec. people want to make a point that Yiddish is important. The place to make that point is in the YWN coffeeroom not while tens of thousands of your fellow Jews are waiting for you to get your ceremony out of your system