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October 11, 2002/Cheshvan 5 5763, Vol. 55, No. 7
'Yiddish, Yinglish and Borscht'
Catskills entertainer performs at Har Zion
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Archie Barkan will perform Oct. 20 at the Har Zion Yiddish Club's season opener.
Photo courtesy of Archie Barkan
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Former Catskills and Miami Beach emcee and entertainer Archie Barkan brings a taste of the Borscht Belt to Har Zion Yiddish Club's opening event on Oct. 20.
From 1957-1977, Barkan performed in various hotels in the Catskill Mountains in New York, Miami Beach, Fla., Lakewood, N.J., Atlantic City, N.J., and the Pocono Mountains.
He says his act, best characterized as "Yiddish, Yinglish and Borscht," includes "some plain, ordinary Yiddish" as well as "some Yinglish, which most of the Jews will understand because it's half English/half Yiddish, and shtick." He also plays piano, sings, tells stories, does vocal impersonations and encourages audience participation.
Barkan notes that in recent years, Yiddish's reputation has improved. "There was a time when it was all negative," he says. "Right now there's a tremendous revival in interest."
He credits that partly to the resurgence of interest in klezmer music and partly to people's interest in their past.
"Yiddish is at the root of Ashkenazi Jewish life for the last thousand years," Barkan says. "It's a return to roots."
However, he doesn't believe Yiddish's popularity will ever grow to its previous level.
Except for those learning Yiddish at colleges, as a student or on a research level, "there are thousands and thousands of Jews now learning well enough to know the language on a pretty good level," he says. "But the chances of newspapers sprouting up and books being published in quantity have diminished."
Barkan also teaches two Yiddish classes at Santa Monica Emeritus College in Santa Monica, Calif. One is a general Yiddish and Jewish culture class, while students in the second class read books in original Yiddish. These classes have a total average attendance of 75 students, ages 55 and older.
He also teaches in Elderhostels, mainly in California.
Although his shows attract a mainly over-55 crowd, for somewhat younger crowds, he changes his act a little to appeal to them. "I know that I can't do too much of (the typical) shtick because the younger generation doesn't relate to it," he says.
Barkan lists his proudest achievement as being a Yiddish translator for Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation.
He translated letters from Holocaust survivors, as well as articles written in the Yiddish press about the Shoah Foundation.
Using a Yiddish font, he also helped draft letters to members of ultra-Orthodox communities, who corresponded only in Yiddish.
Barkan has also helped keep Yiddish alive by translating a few books and he's listed on an Internet site as a Yiddish translator, so he's translated old postcards and letters that people have sent him. He can be reached at (818) 999-0433 or Archiefromca@webtv.net.
Details
- What: Archie Barkan: Master of Jewish humor
- Who: Har Zion Yiddish Club
- When: 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20
- Where: Har Zion Congregation social hall, 6140 E. Thunderbird Road, Scottsdale
- Cost: $5, $8 at the door
- Call: 480-991-0720
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