In addition to the “Exploring Yiddishland ” trip to Argentina, we (the Naomi Prawer Kadar Fellows) spent a month studying in an intensive Yiddish course at Tel Aviv University. Every day, we would have a literature and a grammar class, and finish off our day with an afternoon workshop. The workshops were different every day, ranging from singing workshops to lectures to shmues classes. My favorite afternoon workshop was the singing workshop with Yasmin Garfunkel. During our trip to Argentina, we met with Yasmin and had a mini workshop as a prelude to the summer program. We sang a beautiful song, ״,איך און די וועלט״ which I would later sing in front of my language class for a presentation. From that moment on, I fell in love with singing in Yiddish.
The program in Tel Aviv consisted of one singing workshop a week, where we would sing various Yiddish songs and learn about the artists who composed them. I fell in love with all of the songs we sang from the minute the words reached my vocal cords and left my mouth. I felt like my voice was made to sing Yiddish and nothing else.
As a farewell to the Yiddish students, the program hosted a party and asked various students to perform music, poems, or anything creative they had to offer. I was asked to perform something and I automatically knew that I wanted to sing a song from the workshop. After much deliberation, I decided to sing ״לייג דײַן קאָפּ אויף מײַנע קני״ by H. Leyvick. Performing during the party was one of the highlights of my time in Israel. At that moment, I felt how powerful my relationship with Yiddish had become in such a short amount of time. This moment was different than all of the other times in my life that I had performed. It became THE moment where two of my passions – singing and Yiddish – blended into one.
After the performance finished, someone started playing music and we started dancing. Suddenly, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Madonna came on, and I thought it would be funny to start singing new lyrics to the song – ״מיידלעך ווילן האָבן הנאה.״ Other people joined in, and suddenly the song transcended its normative English path and transformed into a new Yiddish catchy song. At that moment, I realized that I found the new way I want to have fun – singing in Yiddish.
