Episode 5: Khanike oder krismes

Nu, khevre …

This episode, entirely in Yiddish, focuses on the pressures on interwar immigrant and second generation Jews to engage with English life and the particular dilemma of what to do about Christmas. We hear Katie Brown’s story of a family negotiating Hanukkah and Christmas and the street song ‘Mayn heym in Ventvort Strit’. This week’s guest, Yiddish teacher Sima Beeri describes her multilingual background and her experience of Lithuanian-Yiddish Christmas. We discuss the way English and Cockney words, like ‘kapati’ (cup of tea), creep into Yiddish texts, with participants of the UK Sof-Vokh Yiddish learners’ and speakers’ Weekend, and the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre Yiddish Group.

The episode is entirely in Yiddish but you can read a full transcript here, in English.

‘Krismes prezents’ (1951)

Katie Brown, translated by Vivi Lachs

Katie Brown (1889-1955) was born in Ulanov, Western Galicia (today Ulanów, Poland). At the age of twelve, her family moved to London where she worked as a seamstress. By the 1920s she was a popular writer for the London Yiddish press and was active in Yiddish theatre circles and the Workers’ Circle. She wrote plays and theatre songs, womens’ pages and an agony aunt column and by the 1930s was a regular sketch writer for Di post and later Di Tsayt.

I don’t know what it’s like in other Jewish homes, but in ours I find it so stressful every year when the holy festival of krismes comes round. My children simply drive me crazy, constantly making plans for how to celebrate it. First, they give me an ultimatum: that I have to buy each of them a krismes prezent if I don’t want the festival to be ruined, because without prezents, krismes isn’t krismes. And second, we have to celebrate by having a party with a green tree and red lights, just like decent, respectable Jewish families do… [read more ]

Listen to the story in Yiddish below

‘Mayn heym in ventvort strit’ (My Home in Wentworth Street)

Streetsong, translated by Vivi Lachs

This song is sung by Raymond Kalman. Kalman described how he went to work as an accountant with his uncle, driving together in the car each day, and he remembered his uncle singing this song. It seems to be a parody of a slightly older street song ‘My Home in Morgan Street’. The two songs describe market streets at different ends of the Jewish East End. I have kept Kalman’s non-standard Yiddish accent in this transliteration.

Mayn heym in Ventvort strit
dort iz mir zeyer git,
mi shtey oyf in der fri
un mi trink a kap of ti…

My home in Wentworth Street
There it’s really good for me
I get up in the morning
And drink a cup of tea… [read more]

The Cockney Yiddish Podcast is written and presented by Nadia Valman and Vivi Lachs

Produced by Natalie Steed at Rhubarb Rhubarb for Queen Mary University of London

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Guest: Sima Beeri

Contributors: participants from the Yiddish Sof-vokh 2024: Joseph, Pam, Justin, Tamara, Jake, Barry, Motl, and participants of the London Holocaust Survivors Centre Yiddish group

Readers in Yiddish: Vivi Lachs,Sima Beeri

Featured story: Katie Brown, ‘Krismes Prezents’ (Alts in eynem, 1951)

Featured song: Raymond Kalman, ‘Mayn heym in ventvort strit’ (streetsong)

Theme music: Klezmer Klub, ‘Vaytshepl mayn vaytshepl’ (trad) and ‘Yiddisher Honga’ (trad). From the CD Whitechapel mayn Vaytshepl (Klub Records, 2009)

Website images:

‘How Jews Sit in a Yiddish Theatre’ Der blofer, November 1912 (courtesy of the National Library of Israel)
Maurice Sochachewsky,‘Wentworth Street Market’ (courtesy of Dave Skye)
Katie Brown, 1930 (courtesy of the Mazower private collection)