When the Warsaw Ghetto started being liquidated into death camps, an inhabitant named Emanuel Ringleblum led an effort to hide as much Yiddish literature and documentation as possible, to so it would not be destroyed by the Nazis. He did this by burying as much as he could underground in milk cans and other receptacles, with the hopes of survivors someday returning to transmit the collective message of Warsaw Jews to future generations. After the Holocaust, some but not all of the milk cans were recovered and preserved. They contain a treasure trove of written voices. They are the voices of my ancestors calling out to me, eighty years later here in New York. So I created a Yiddish podcast because it is my way of responding to those voices: I hear you. Your words - in their original authenticity - matter to me. Your story is now my story to tell, and your words are now my words to pass along to into the future.
I chose to use the opportunity of this contest to talk about my existing podcast about Yiddish language and culture. The podcast, called The MetaShtetl, is not about the Holocaust, though it does come up, as might be expected in conversations about the importance of Yiddish. I try to explore how Yiddish, which was flourishing until its sudden all-but eradication during the Holocaust, can use technology to redevelop some of its luster and international reach almost a century later.
Each episode of the podcast features a detailed interview with a special guest expert in Yiddish, analyzing their work in contributing to the propagation of Yiddish in today’s world. In order to create a concise submission on the matter for the contest, I focus on a common thread of the interviews, which is the question of WHY. Why bother with Yiddish; why bother trying to revive a dying language? Yiddish speakers vary greatly on every issue, including their purpose for Yiddish. I used quotes from three interviews which I translated into English because The MetaShtetl full episodes are in Yiddish. I close with a quote I have always found moving and which I feel makes my point best.
