When the members of the Yiddish Club meet every week at The J, their learning and conversation serve as evidence that the Yiddish language is still alive in Kansas City.
Every Friday afternoon, a small group of Yiddish speakers gather at Heritage: Lifelong Learning for Adults 55+ (previously known as the Heritage Center) for a few hours of komunikatsye — communication.
The club meetings, currently led by Esther Rudnick, average six attendees. Conversations and topics often focus on yiddishkeit (Jewishness), history, family and jokes.
“It’s a fun language,” Rudnick said, “and we laugh a lot together… Everybody that comes is happy.”
Rudnick ensures that the group always learns, bringing textbooks or highlighting and expounding on certain phrases or aspects of the language. Phrases meaning “laughter is a good thing” and “when my parents came to this land, they did not speak the language” – translated at a recent class – embody the ethos of the group.
Most of the members’ parents and/or grandparents spoke Yiddish, and they connect with their families’ histories through continuing to learn the language.
“I’m delighted to keep learning,” group member Cynthia Ellis said. “It’s important as we all age, and Yiddish connects us to our past and family… It’s thrilling to have the language, to know we still have it with us.”
Longtime member Estelle Edelbaum and recent addition Marsha Naron share similar backgrounds to Ellis’ — the Yiddish they know is from their family and their history.
Rudnick leads the group as a fluent Yiddish speaker. The daughter of a kosher butcher, she grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Philadelphia. She learned Yiddish simply “because it was all around me. It was my environment,” she said.
After getting married, Rudnick moved to Milwaukee before moving to the Kansas City area. For a long period, she didn’t speak Yiddish. Despite her time away from the language, she discovered it was ingrained in her, and she hadn’t forgotten any of it.
“At my age, I remember every single word,” she said.
Rudnick became involved with the group when it was led by Ray Davidson (z”l). The current iteration of the Yiddish Club is the continuation of Ray Davidson’s Yiddish Circle, established more than a decade ago at Congregation Beth Torah. After Davidson died in 2015, Rudnick began to lead. Last year, the group relocated from Beth Torah to The J.
The group continues with Davidson’s original intent; he told The Chronicle in 2011 that he was committed to Yiddish’s revival because “any culture that is allowed to die only to be revived someday with bones is a terrible thing. Bones don’t talk.”
Over the past few decades, Yiddish culture has emerged far beyond the peppering of words and phrases appropriated into English (oy vey, schmutz, chutzpah, klutz, etc.). Yiddish theater is burgeoning in places with large Ashkenazi Jewish populations (like New York City), and Jewish celebrities like Mandy Patinkin have brought Yiddish entertainment to a wider audience through social media and late-night television appearances (Patinkin is also heavily involved in Yiddish theater).
Movie director Steven Spielberg also was a big impetus in the Yiddish revival, helping launch the Yiddish Book Center’s Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library in 2009.
Despite the Yiddish renaissance in larger cities and communities, Kansas City has lacked a significant resurgence of Yiddish-specific events and groups. Rudnick hopes the Yiddish Club can prevent the language and culture from fading in Kansas City.
“Anywhere else, it’s growing,” she said about Yiddish. “Only here, it’s dying.”
With the Yiddish Club remaining free and unaffiliated — and now located centrally at The J — Rudnick sees a bright future for the group.
“If people find out about it more, I think it will grow,” she said. “It can grow here.”
The Yiddish Club takes place at Heritage at The J (by the White Theatre entrance at 5801 W. 115th St., Overland Park, KS 66211) every Friday from 1 to 3 p.m. More information about the Yiddish Club is available by clicking on Yiddish Club dates at thejkc.org/events.
