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Learning Hebrew on Duolingo

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Hebrew, Yiddish, and My Jewish Experience

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Hebrew, Yiddish, and My Jewish Experience

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My senior project will be an exploration of Judaic languages, my experience as an American Jewish woman, and Judaica more generally.

I will accomplish this through learning Hebrew on Duolingo, Yiddish with "The New Joys of Yiddish," and consuming other Judaism-related media (with a particular focus on our region).

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Before jumping into Duolingo Hebrew, I decided to watch this YouTube video to familiarize myself with the Hebrew alphabet.

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Learn ALL Hebrew Alphabet in 40 Minutes - How to Write and Read Hebrew

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Let me begin this reflection with a Yiddish proverb I came across:

Dem Yidns simkhe iz mit a bisl shrek - A Jew's joy comes with a little fear.

And that's the crux of my project: the intersection of joy and fear; the ability to thrive despite trauma.

A particularly fulfilling part of this project was reading a book called The Jewish Woman in America. I was amazed by the depth—struggles, triumphs, nuances—of the Jewish woman's experience in the early 20th century. From fleeing progroms to the hard questions and expectations of assimilation, from being restricted by both non-Jews and Jewish men, from working tirelessly in inhumane sweatshops to fighting for unions, they persisted. They flourished. I now want to write fictionalized versions of early Jewish female experiences and deeply research the history of Jewish immigration to America, including that of non-Ashkenazi Jews.

By studying Hebrew and Yiddish (in his early life my grandfather was surrounded by the latter), I feel closer to my Jewish heritage. I have a renewed desire to clarify and define my religious and cultural identity.

I chose this project for my maternal grandfather, Arthur Cherry, who succumbed to COVID-19 in December 2020. Arthur was born in 1926, one of seven siblings. He was a first-generation American, as his parents immigrated from Moldavia. He lived through the Great Depression as a small child, and his father and eldest brother died within a year of each other when he was 11.  I was named after his mother, something I am immensely proud of.

I believe this project is a culmination of my Bat Mitzvah project (on my grandfather and the elusive definition of a "Jew") and my 7th grade search project on my grandfather and the Great Depression. He was here for those, but not for this. I hope that in the completion of this project, I have made him and the other strong Jewish women in my family—my grandmothers, mother, and aunts—proud.

zikhrono livrakha - may his memory be a blessing

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Currently reading: "The Jewish Woman in America" by Baum et al.

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Currently reading: "The Jewish Woman in America" by Baum et al.

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"I couldn't wait to show this and share this movie with women, because this was a celebration of the ability of women to be spiritual, to be child-bearers, and also to study and to learn and have brainpower" (Source)

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In the short story "Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy," written in the 1950s by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yentl is essentially framed as non-cisgender person reckoning with their religious, gender, and sexual identity. Singer was in fact very critical of the 1983 film adaptation. In The Huffington Post, Dana Beyer writes:

Singer had Yentl deal with her ongoing gender dysphoria by creating conditions where she can live as a man, not only by wearing men's clothing but by taking on the male role in its most respected form: as a scholar.