My heritage on YouTube

In my view

By Anya Sedletcaia

Issue of Oct. 2, 2009 / 14 Tishrei 5770

There was a song that my grandmother used to sing to my sister and me whenever we visited her. I never knew all the words but I always remembered the tune, and I remembered that it included something about “Kinderlach” and “Alef Beis.” I was able to find a video of the song on YouTube and discovered that the song is called “Oyfn Pripetchik.”

Listening to it over and over gave me a newfound appreciation of my ancestry. I felt connected to the Eastern European Jews from whom I’m descended, their attachment to Judaism, and especially to my grandmother’s hopes and dreams as she used to sing that song to us.

Hearing the song again also reminded me of how we used to ask my grandmother to tell us what the song was about, since it was in a language that we had never heard before. She told us that it’s about a rabbi teaching the Alef Beis to his students. Her words were meaningless to me at age 5 as they spoke of a language I did not know existed.

Even though I’ve been religious for over 14 years now, and before that I lived in Kishinev, Moldova for 13 years, I had never before been able to connect to the stories and images of Eastern European Jews. They seemed so foreign to me — as foreign as the Yiddish language that sang about them. I knew that going back a couple of generations on both sides of my family my great-grandparents lit candles for Shabbos, kashered dishes for Pesach, and ate kosher meat, and it was always nice for me to know that I’ve returned to following in their footsteps. But this understanding was on an intellectual level only and I’ve often wondered: If I were able to see them today, the way that they were, would I embrace them and feel love and longing to know them? They’ve always seemed, to my mind, “stuck in the old ways” with their black caps and white beards, their backs bent from studying all the time, and as foreign to me as the language they spoke.

That was the case until now. As I sat in my room listening to Oyfn Pripetchik again and again I was thinking about my grandmother singing the song and I couldn’t help but wonder about her hopes and dreams at the time. What did she wish for the future, for us? What was she thinking about while she planted this seed, this little tiny connection between us and our ancestors?

They were a vast community of Ashkenazi Jews with a great knowledge of Torah, who sang in Yiddish to their children and grandchildren, in the soft whispers of the night, hoping for a brighter future free of religious persecution. I connect to them because I’m a product of their hopes. I exist because a small number of that vast community survived by running from the Nazis and hiding from communists. Today, I am a testament not only to my great-grandparents, but also to my larger “family” of Eastern European Jews who did not survive. I am a product of their tefillot (prayers) and soft lullabies about a future where one does not have to run and hide, and where one is proud to be a Yid.

I exist because of that tiny seed of Jewish identity that my grandmother planted in me so many years ago. And even though I’ve been frum for over 14 years and have loved the beauty and wisdom of Torah, not until today did the seed blossom, allowing me to connect to my Yiddishkeit.

The song turned out to be so much more than just a song. It turned into a window to the past, through which I was able to reach, through time and through memories of my grandmother’s voice, to the broader Eastern European Jewry of her time. Though they still might appear odd to me, they don’t seem like strangers anymore.

Anya Sedletcaia is originally from Kishinev, Moldova and went to high school in Richmond, VA where she learned to understand and appreciate Judaism. She is currently studying for a PhD in biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.