Mame-loshn

“Dos iz a tir,” says Vladimir, pointing toward the door of the classroom. “Dos iz a tir,” everyone repeats after him and points toward the door, intoning in different voices—thin voices and thick voices, clear voices and hoarse voices, old voices and young voices, self-assured voices and hesitant voices, all of them repeating the words, “Dos iz a tir.” Miriam’s voice was one of those not so sure of themselves. Even here, in the beginners’ class, there were some people who had some background from their homes, but Miriam had arrived not knowing a word of Yiddish.

“Dos iz a padloge,” says Vladimir, pointing to the floor while he walked on it with exaggerated steps, as though he were pointing to it with his feet as well. “Dos iz a padloge,” they all repeat and point toward the floor. This time Miriam’s voice was more self-assured. For some reason that particular word had made its way into her memory—padloge, a kind of rolling word, a word that requires no particular effort to pronounce, one that sort of speaks itself.

Sweat glistens on Vladimir’s brow. He is investing all his effort in this lesson, teaching with his whole body—his eyes, his shoulders, his hands, his legs, and when he says “Dos iz a stelye” and points to the ceiling, he points out the word with his whole body and does not just make sounds with his mouth. He has all sorts of tricks. For example, he throws a ball to one of the students and then says a word to him in Yiddish, and the student has to say the equivalent word in English, or Vladimir says a word in English and the student has to respond with the Yiddish word.

“Pilke,” says Vladimir with complete concentration and throws the ball to the older woman sitting to Miriam’s right. The old woman bursts out laughing and shrugs her shoulders. Vladimir smiles and says, “You’re holding it in your hands.” “Ball!” the woman calls out triumphantly and tosses the ball back to Vladimir. Miriam stands at the ready and goes over the words in her head: shtol, padloge, tir, fenster, stelieh. Please, let him just not ask how to say “table,” because that one, for some reason, she just can’t seem to remember. Vladimir tosses her the ball and says, “window.” “Fenster,” says Miriam with relief, and throws the ball back.

She looks around, moving her gaze to the door, the blackboard, the tables and chairs, the windows, the ceiling, the floor. The classroom is not the same place in Yiddish as in English. In English it is as it appears—new and clean, shiny and cold, just...