Yeshivish: Orthodox Jewish American English Video
About This Entry
This is a promotional video for a yeshiva in the Orthodox community of Rockland County, New York. The Yeshiva has programs for boys and men from high school through adulthood and has strong ties to the Mir Yeshiva, originally in Eastern Europe (today Belarus) and now in Jerusalem. The video is included here as an example of Orthodox Jewish English that includes many distinctive linguistic features, including Hebrew and Yiddish words, Yiddish grammatical influences, and distinctive pronunciations. The transcript is included with links to the corresponding entries in the Jewish English Lexicon. Footnotes indicate six distinctive linguistic features beyond words.
The hallmark of the mesivta of the Yeshiva Shaarei Torah is that the rebeyim have a tremendous, beautiful kesher with each and every one of the talmidim.
Besides the classic,1 first seder, English, intense learning,2 first seder we offer a lot of extracurricular activities, which adds to making the boys feel connected with the rebeyim.
We try to create an atmosphere of simcha that the boys should3 want to come to yeshiva and they should go home happy from yeshiva.4 They should be able to accomplish not only in their academics, we also want them to have that geshmak in learning that'll take them on to Beys Medresh.
Rabbi Chaim Schwartz, Menahel: “Baruch Hashem the hatzlocha that the Yeshiva has had with all of its divisions from the Mesivta through the Beys Medrash and the Kollel we have seen tremendous hatzlocha and we look forward, b’ezras Hashem, that the hatzlocha should continue.”5
Rabbi Dovid Delouya, 10th Grade Magid Shiur: “It’s my utmost tfilah to Hakodesh Baruch Hu, that he gives the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Mordechai Wolmark, shlita, the continued koyches, the continued siyata dishmaya, he’s had until now to continue being marbitz Torah6 and, uh, building talmidei chachamim for the future.”
Notes
1. Extra emphasis on the final c.
2. Final devoicing: learningk.
3. Yiddish-influenced construction with “should.”
4. Intonation pattern.
5. Yiddish-influenced construction with “should.”
6. Yiddish-influenced periphrastic verbal construction: to be + Hebrew noun/verb.
Transcription and notes by Sarah Bunin Benor.
Credits
Promotional video for Yeshiva Shaarei Torah, March 9, 2019, YouTube.com.
Discussion Questions
Watch the video without the transcript. Do you understand what the speakers are saying? Do you think Orthodox Jewish English is a separate language from general American English?
Watch the video again, and write down any distinctive linguistic features you hear, such as grammar, stress, and intonation patterns, and any Hebrew or Yiddish words that you recognize.
What do you notice about the written words, both in the speakers’ titles on the screen and on the whiteboards and curtains pictured in the video?
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The Voice of Gladness
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This project recorded the code words, biographies, and institutional descriptions of a Jewish community under the stress of Nazi occupation.
The Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East
The New Wave in Hebrew Fiction
A Culture Stillborn: The Birth of Levantine Literature
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