Teacher brings Yiddish music, stories into kids’ lives
By MIKE ISAACS misaacs@pioneerlocal.com January 30, 2012 5:12PM
Skokie resident and Northwestern University teacher Dr. Khane-Faygl Turtletaub reads from her new book, "Yiddish Songs for Children." The book includes a CD of songs Turtletaub sang to her own children. | Joel Lerner~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 3, 2012 8:10AM
They were playful songs she used to sing to her children in the car or at home, anywhere where she could put a smile on their faces.
And anywhere where she could continue to teach them Yiddish.
Dr. Khane-Faygl Turtletaub of Skokie always sang her made-up songs to her kids in Yiddish, a language she wanted to pass down to them.
A Yiddish teacher at Northwestern University, Turtletaub is now trying to pass down her treasured language to other children as well. Her songs make up a vibrant new book/CD, “Yiddish Songs For Children.”
“The first words my children ever heard were in Yiddish,” said Turtletaub who had four children in three years.
“They were like little puppies all over the place, and I didn’t let them watch television except for Sesame Street,” she said. “I would sing to them. Whatever I saw, I would make up a song just to entertain them.”
Fourteen of those songs are part of the colorful picture book that includes writing in both Yiddish and English. The accompanying CD is in Yiddish sung by talented children.
“It’s hard to believe these are the very same songs I wrote for my children 30 years ago,” Turtletaub said.
She wrote many more than those 14 songs, in fact, but her children became the best test as to which ones would make the cut.
The songs that were most memorable to them would be most memorable for other children as well, the Yiddish teacher figured.
The book and music are lovingly rendered in their simplicity and cover subjects such as the Yiddish language, the rain and the wind, being a Jew, celebrating a birthday, giving to charity and honoring the Sabbath among others.
“I would always try to distract my children with these songs,” Turtletaub said. “When dinner was on the table, I’d sing about it and about what I was serving. They would crack up but they would come to the table.”
Her philosophy was built around the idea that kids don’t listen nearly as well when you tell them something as opposed to sing them something.
Turtletaub never learned to write or read music. Asked how these tunes were created then, she shrugged, “God only knows.”
She went through a difficult divorce, and as a single mother, she would sometimes park her kids in front of the TV to watch “Sesame Street,” the only show they were permitted to see. But they grew to love their mother’s songs just as much if not more than the songs on TV.
Turtletaub herself learned Yiddish even before English since the former was the only language spoken in her home. Her parents were immigrants born in Poland who then fled to Russia because of the war.
Turtletaub was born in Russia and came to New York with her parents and younger sister as an infant. Although her new neighborhood was mixed, she said, Turtletaub didn’t learn English until age 5 when she went to kindergarten.
Yiddish was always a major part of her life but music never was.
“My mother always felt that (learning music) was the height of indolence,” she said, “Anyone who had the time to sit down at the piano just didn’t have enough to do.”
Still, the young girl was exposed to Yiddish music — through singing at family get-togethers and on Jewish radio shows — and she just naturally had a good ear for it.
Turtletaub began her career teaching English at a community college in Cleveland. She taught Yiddish on special occasions and soon realized there was no comparison in which she enjoyed most.
For one thing, she said, kids have to take English so they’re not nearly as motivated. Her students who learn Yiddish are there because they want to be.
She’s been teaching Yiddish now for more than 30 years, the last six or so as a part-time teacher at Northwestern. She began with only two students but there has been growing interest, she said. She now she teaches three sections of Yiddish, a rarity among colleges.
For Turtletaub, her long-awaited book/CD is another way to expose young people to Yiddish, a language she says is not going away.
“For anybody who thinks Yiddish is a dying language,” she said, “I’d love for them to listen to these songs. Because it brings Yiddish into the 21st Century.”
Those who have listened so far have been impressed.
“My children are listening to the CD and really are enjoying it,” wrote Rabbi Mendel Moscowitz, a choir director. “The arrangements are beautiful, gorgeous.”
Skokie resident Moshe Klein called the songs “music to the ears.”
Rabbi Elimelech Silberberg said Turtletaub’s work is “a wonderful addition to the library of Yiddish songs.”
Her first thought years ago was to make these songs into an album when they still were making albums. But that project never came to fruition.
“I feel like I’ve been pregnant for the last 30 years with these songs,” she said. “I finally gave birth to something that is just a little less precious to me than a child.”
Released for about a month, the book/CD is being sold by Turtletaub herself for at least the first year. She will soon have her own website, but she’s already sold copies from her home to people as far away as Israel and Australia simply by word of mouth.
Remarkably, “Yiddish Songs For Children” is finally here and all because of the love her kids had for these songs some 30 years ago.
“No, that’s not really it,” she corrected. “It’s here because of how much I loved my kids.”
“Yiddish Songs For Children” sells for $30 including postage and handling. To order, call Turtletaub at (847) 675-3335 or e-mail her at doctorkf@rcn.com.
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