On the Road with Bob Holman

Israel and the West Bank

Yiddish, which once had five daily newspapers in New York City, is now an Endangered Language. From the director of the Sholem-Aleichem House and the Yiddish storyteller, Sarat, we learn about the decline of Yiddish resulting from the rise of Hebrew as the national language of Israel. Sarat cooks us a delicious cholent, a stew combining many of the ingredients from the old countries. While in Jerusalem, we experience the musical sounds of Ladino, the Spanish Hebrew of the Sephardic Jews, which is also endangered. The poet Ronny Someck, a "true Israeli poet from Iraq," gives Bob a tour of Jaffa and tells us about the multilingual diversity that used to exist in Israel.