Jana: Greetings, my name is Jana Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh, I am from Poland, I have studied in Europe and in America, I have studied various things, languages, literature, world history and so on, I also studied Yiddish and Judaism, and now I live in San Diego California and I am a president of Yiddishland California.
Eitan: What role did Yiddish play in your childhood year? Did you learn Yiddish outside the home as well?
Jana: When I was a child I did not learn any Yiddish, my parents did not learn and did not speak Yiddish, and I did not hear much Yiddish around me in Poland. I learned a little Hebrew when I was a student there, now I know it’s different and Yiddish is taught in several Polish Universities which is very good. And I learned first when I traveled to several summer courses of Yiddish, for example, in Warsaw, Vilna, Brussels, Paris, Strasburg, and so on, Tel Aviv, that was wonderful. And later as a doctoral student I also studied in Michigan and that was also very very nice.
Eitan: I also hope to visit many of the interesting cities were you studied. These days, what is your main work, and what connection does Yiddish language and culture have to your work?
Jana: My profession is in theater and I’m a Yiddishist.
Eitan: Why is Yiddish important to you?
Jana: Yiddish is very important to me because I very strongly want to pass it on, I want my daughter to become a Yiddishist, I hope she will become a Yiddishsist, I hope she will speak Polish and also Yiddish, and our home is full of Yiddishkeyt [Jewish/Yiddish culture].
Eitan: I understand that because I also come from a home that is full of Yiddishkeyt, and also from a family that speaks several languages. Now I would like to talk about Yaana. What is it and how did you begin you work there?
Jana: I live now in San Diego, and there a few people here who speak Yiddish but there is no organization here where people can meet and cultivate the culture and traditions, and that’s why I founded this organization. I am very happy because it gives me a very good feeling to be together with other Yiddish-speaking people and the people who have an interest in Yiddish generally.
Eitan: Yiddish is my mother tongue, but I have few people with-whome to speak Yiddish outside my family. Because of that, I would very much like to visit Yiddishland. I imagine it to look like a type of Yiddish utopia, maybe it looks like a European Jewish Shtetl, with chickens and cows that wander around, except in addition there is also wifi. Can you talk a little about Yiddishland and what it hopes to achieve?
Jana: I think that a lot of people want to visit Yiddishland, I don’t yet know exactly where our big Yiddishland will be. The big plan for Yiddishland is to build a Yiddishland hotl. Like you said something about a utopia, but a Yiddish utopia for tourists. Meaning, it’s more realistic to make a Yiddishland hotel than a Yiddishland museum. Meaning, if we find a nice plot of land, maybe in Mexico or who knows where, we’ll buy the land and build the Yiddishland hotel. And I will let you know when it happens, and you’ll definitely be able to come visit us there.
Eitan: Do you enjoy Yiddish? Do you have a favorite Yiddish word or phrase?
Jana: Of course I love the language a lot. What I like are many linguistic terms and so on, for example, Man Plans and God Laughs, because that is actually true. And I also very much love how we say email in Yiddish; we say Blitzbriv, and that is very very fitting and nice.
Eitan: Yes, blitzbriv is in fact a fitting word – email in English – because your mail arrives in a flash, even to the end of the world. Even at the world’s end, mail arrives in a flash, and now you have also some of my favorite Yiddish phrases as well. Are all your programs specifically about Yiddish, or are certain programs about other elements of Yiddish culture? How do you choose the various programs?
Jana: It depends, some years we organize Yiddish programs but sometimes there are in San Diego guests from Los Angeles or other places, for example, a few months ago we had guests from Ethopia, and I thought it would be fitting to have a program about Jews in Ethiopia, because they have a similar history and similar troubles as we do. They have Jewish troubles. Meaning, the program about Etheopia was very fitting in Yiddishland.
Eitan: Ethiopian Jews a quote an interesting group in fact. My friend’s grandfather is fully committed to helping Ethiopian Jews, and would surely be interested in a program like that. What do you want people to know about your work, and specifically your work with Yiddish?
Jana: What I want people to know is that Yiddishland is for everyone. For children, for older people, For parents, for Jews and non Jews, it is very important to me everyone must be able to come and enjoy Yiddishlad.
Eitan: How can we use technology in order to spread Yiddish, in order to reach the greatest audience?
Jana: I think technology can be very useful in order to spread Yiddishkeyt everyone to all countries, and in the virtual world also. Yiddishland uses social media like facebook and instragram, nd we use ChatGPT, and we love these technological tools that we can use.
Eitan: To you have an image about the way the language and culture can develop in the next few generations of this century?
Jana: we can’t know what will be, we can only hope that young people will learn Yiddish and spread Yidishkeyt and they will reap pleasure from Yiddish culture, and that would be a new world with a lot more Yiddishkeyt than we have now.
Eitan: It’s just as you said before – Man Plans and God Laughs. We have to do our job and plan for the future, but in the end, God will be the one who decides the future of Yiddish and Jews in general, and we leave it finally in His hands. Jana Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh, thank you for giving your time to me and my audicne to be able to hear your ideas about Yiddish in today’s modern world. To end with another one of my favorite Yiddish cliches, from your mouth to God’s ears. May Yiddish continue to thrive for many years to come.