ABSTRACT
My seventy-year-old mother stood in front of the crowd, clasping the microphone, singing a Yiddish song. I could see she was nervous. The crowd was only half Jewish, the others were "Americans," the tenants of the big new apartment building for the elderly that B'nai B'rith erected in southwest Houston. They were holding a monthly party for those tenants whose birthdays were in the month of October. Friends had come from outside, who did not even know each other, or that many of the tenants were Jewish. Of course, they did not know a word of Yiddish. And there was my mother, singing all those old Yiddish songs. She could not speak English, so when she saw me come into the room, she asked me to speak to the audience. When people come to America from all over the world--from Italy or Greece or Germanyshe told me to say, you listen to their songs and enjoy them, even though you may not understand the language. You are still able to appreciate their art. So I hope that even though you do not understand the words, you still can enjoy the songs.
