We speak to the Project Coordinators behind the hit booklet North Manchester Yiddish Dictionary and the subsequent short film, Alevai.
Bury New Road, a heritage project seeking to highlight the uniqueness of the eponymous area, have teamed up with women’s group Alevai to produce a booklet and film about the lives of North Manchester Jewish women and the Yiddish slang they frequently use. Project Coordinator Louise Garman explains how that came about: “At the Bury New Road project were looking for groups along the road. We wanted to involve the community and Bury New Road is full of people from all races and backgrounds, and a lot of Orthodox Jewish people. I’ve lived there most of my life. There are a lot of heritage projects with very elderly members of the Jewish community, but there aren’t a lot outside of that. I contacted Denise and we put together a group of Jewish women in our 60s from the area to create this film and booklet.”
The film focuses around the Yiddish words and phrases that have slipped into common usage, as the second Project Coordinator Denise Librae explains: “It’s about the traditional Jewish female in the
North Manchester area. It’s about the community and speaking Yiddish, not in full sentences like many Orthodox people do but mixed in with English.”
Denise was particularly proud of how the film turned out: “I think the whole thing is great. I’m friends with most of the people involved in it. I’m proud of them all. I can’t pick any particular part out. It’s quite humorous at one point when the cleaners are in the background. From the filming to the editing, everybody that got involved, I’m proud of.”
Often humorous, Louise enjoyed the natural conversations which feature in the film: “I like where we’re sat around the table and we’re just naturally coming out with things. We almost forgot the camera was there. I love some of the descriptions that a couple of the women use to describe their families, why they were around Bury New Road, and why they’d stayed there. It was lovely and upbeat.”
The short film was presented to the public with a red carpet premiere at the Manchester Jewish Museum: “It was a fantastic evening,” Louise shared. “We invited a klezmer band to play: four music students and their teacher. That was fantastic, it created a great atmosphere. Half the audience were not Jewish, which we’re very proud to say. We didn’t want it to just be a Jewish event, we wanted to invite everybody from the community who has been involved with the project. And they loved it! They found it hilarious, and the museum was very supportive.”
Naturally, with the film centring around the language we had to find out which were Louise and Denise’s favourite Yiddish phrases: “Ti mir nit kayn toyves is my favourite,” said Louise. “It means do me no favours. You use these words without even realising. You just come out with it.”
For Denise, it wasn’t possible to pick favourites: “All my friends tell me that I use so much Yiddish all the time, and it’s true. I use it to express myself a great deal. You can’t translate to English in the same way. I just think Yiddish generally is brilliant.”
We don’t like to schmooze, but the team at JLife loved it!