I truly believe that much of the funding in the Jewish community should be seed money for projects that bring in their own money eventually–like seed money for the Yiddish Theater, the only one left in America, which is 87 years old and dying. If they could get a million, they could generate funds from performances and individuals to keep it alive and hook it up with other Yiddish orgs to keep the culture alive.
Why do I say this when many people think that Yiddish is dead? Without Yiddish theater, all our great comedians never would have been, here in America. The mass of comedy tradition in America comes straight from the Yiddish Theater, as did some of our best comedians. Sid Ceaser (sp, never get it right), Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Buddy Hackett, even Bob Hope, Robin Williams, all of them influenced by Yiddish.
People who say Yiddish is dead haven’t heard the dixie chicks use the word shpiel, haven’t seen headlines in the Daily News with the word Schlep, or headlines in the NYTimes that used the word shmooze.
If yiddish dies, Yinglish dies with it, and where would we be without an entymology of words like schlemiel, schmuck, putz, yold, bullvan, yenta, shmooze, schlep, schpiel, yentz, chutzpah, meshuga, schlemazel, mazel tov, and if you can think of others, add them to the list.
P.S. eruv, dan, not aruv.
An they don’t want one in Williamsburgh, probably so that the women would be forced to stay home on Shabbos.