Folklorists Honor Norwood Woman -- in Yiddish By JORDAN MOSS
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman bristles when anyone suggests that the Yiddish language is dying. For good reason. The long-time Norwood resident has spent most of her life making sure that the language she brought with her to the United States from Romania in 1951 remains very much alive. For her accomplishments in this area, as a poet,
songwriter and teacher, Schaechter-Gottesman was one of
five New Yorkers inducted on Nov. 19 at the Museum of the
City of New York into the City Lore Hall of Fame, an
award that honors "grassroots contributions to New
York's cultural life." Her name will appear on a
wall at the museum along with those who have received the
award since the program's inception in 1993. City Lore is
a Manhattan-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving
Gotham's rich cultural traditions and creative
expressions. "New York is really held up by and sustained by its neighborhoods and communities," Zeitlin says. "We want to honor people that are contributing in a creative way and help give meaning to those communities." Schaechter-Gottesman's contributions to reviving Yiddish culture is especially precious in light of the fact that so much of Yiddish culture was obliterated by the Holocaust. "A lot of great art died in the Holocaust," Zeitlin says. "A number of artists here in the United States have tried to resuscitate that culture and make sure it doesn't die out. Beyle Gottesman has devoted a lot of her life to a creative response to reviving Yiddish culture." Schaechter-Gottesman's family was one of many in the area that participated in the Sholem Aleichem Folkshul, a Yiddish language school for children on Bainbridge Avenue founded in the 1930s. Though the school closed in the '70s, the Folkshul continues to this day as a center for Yiddish culture where Yiddish music, film and lectures are regularly on the weekend agenda. Schaechter-Gottesman is among the committed core of leaders in the Folkshul that have ensured its survival. But Schaechter-Gottesman is known far beyond Norwood. Her songs are sung by young Klezmer (a form of Yiddish music that originated in Eastern Europe) musicians the world over. Her son, Itzek Gottesman, a professor of Yiddish at the University of Texas at Austin, reports that he is greeted at conferences by people delighted to meet Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman's son. Zeitlin says Schaechter-Gottesman's accomplishments are impressive because she is "showing that not only is Yiddish something that we need to perpetuate, but a language you can use to still be creative because it lends itself to creating new songs." A Yiddish renaissance of sorts among young people encourages Schaechter-Gottesman. She attributes it to the trend in "people looking for their own roots, their own culture." Schaechter-Gottesman nurtures this trend by regularly hosting and teaching young students in her Bainbridge Avenue home. Currently, she is passing on her knowledge to a student from Seattle who is staying with her. Referring to native Yiddish speakers who were bent on assimilation and failed to pass on the language to their children, Schaechter Gottesman says, "They didn't know what they were losing." Luckily for Yiddish enthusiasts, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman has been around to help pick up the slack.
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