Didn't they speak Yiddish?

Mitch Brauner asked the following question:

One question that’s been nagging at me about language is, didn’t they speak Yiddish?  Then it occurred to me that I rarely ever heard Uncle Dave speak Yiddish, though I do remember some conversations with Sophie [his grandmother on his mother's side] briefly veering into Yiddish.  I suppose writing in Yiddish would have meant using the Hebrew alphabet, but the fact that Charlie didn’t use it I find interesting.  Then again, maybe it was too close to German.

Mitch

That generated the following email conversation.  I’ve cut and pasted the emails, so that they read in chronological order.

Mitch –

I don’t know the answer to this.  I’ll copy Alice and Chet and Esme and see if they can help.

My father definitely spoke Yiddish, and read it (he got the Yiddish Forward every weekend), but I don’t know if he wrote it.  German was the native language in Beuthen and the language of business, but I think my father spoke Yiddish at home and probably while doing business with non-German speakers.   I don’t know if my father spoke or read any Polish….I know Regina did (she went to public school in Chrzanow….my father just went to Cheder).  I have some letters written to her in Polish.  But even then,  most of the letters written to her from Israel/Palestine after she emigrated to the US were in German, sometimes with a sprinkling of Hebrew in them. 

Lena Barber Mandelbaum (a second cousin) was born in Beuthen a couple of years after Charlie.  Her family lived there until they were deported to Poland in 1938.  She told me they didn’t speak Yiddish – they learned it in the US.  So Charlie may not have known Yiddish at all while he was in Europe.  And I don’t know how much he used it here.  Alice – can you help?

The only written Yiddish (in Hebrew letters) I’ve seen in family documents was a postcard from Max Schorr.  But we know that he was actively involved in the Yiddishkeitmovement in Chrzanow, so he may have been an exception.

Fran

Alice replied:

Charlie knew and LOVED Yiddish.  I don't think he  picked it up here - I think his mother Martha spoke it.  He knew Yiddish songs - one of the most difficult ones for him to hear was Rozhinkes mit Mandlen (Raisins and Almonds).  We spoke the usual amount of Yiddish to each other, primarily so the kids wouldn't understand (sound familiar?), but neither he nor I had any idea just how fluent we were.  When my uncle came from Israel for Michele's Bat Mitzvah, we realized he spoke only Hebrew and Yiddish.  I was flummoxed;

Charlie, on the other hand, spent the hour and a quarter ride home from Kennedy jabbering away as though it were his native tongue. 

Little by little, I became more comfortable with the language, but Charlie was light years ahead of me.  I don't know if Lily knew Yiddish- maybe Jay [her son] could tell you, but if not, they spoke Czech because Charlie detested the German language.  Remember Mrs. Newhouse (spelling?), Regina's neighbor?  She only spoke German to Gina, and if we happened to be there when she dropped in, Charlie would grit his teeth at the sounds.  What amazed him more than anything, I think, was that Jews who had survived the holocaust spoke that language.  He didn't get it, and neither did I. He felt their common language should be Yiddish.  But apparently German Jews thought Yiddish beneath them and so refused to speak it.

Wow!  I think I am ranting.  Guess I still feel strongly about  German vs. Yiddish vis-à-vis Jews.

Alice

I've sent an email to Jay Schwarz, Lily's son, but so far I haven't heard from him and don't have a good answer to Mitch's question.