By DAVID CRUZ

A memorial is slated for Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, the borough’s lifelong authority on Yiddish art, music and poetry, who passed away on Nov. 28 from natural causes. She was 93. Her son Itzik, a Yiddish studies professor, has organized a Jan. 12 tribute in her name hoping guests will learn about “her widespread influence on the younger generation of Yiddish poets, singers and songwriters.”

Well over dozens are expected for the commemorative ceremony at the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center on Bainbridge Avenue at 208th Street at 1:30 p.m., where they will be presented with Yiddish-language songs and a video presentation showcasing the life of Schaechter-Gottesman, who for decades advanced Yiddish culture through her lyrical body of poetry and songwriting she penned exclusively in Yiddish. The language, derived from ancient German and Hebrew tongues, is heard mostly in Jewish enclaves, though the customs tied to the language are slowly eroding within Jewish communities, according to Itzik.

Schaechter-Gottesman’s contributions as a spirited writer earned her worldwide admiration, establishing a reputation that attracted singers from all over the world to visit her home on Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood just to learn more about Yiddish. “She believed that Yiddish reflected the Jewish world, experience, history–it all can be found in the language and in its literature and culture,” said Itzik. “And it’s a great treasure that should be kept up.”

Early Life

Schaechter-Gottesman was born Aug. 7, 1920 in Vienna, though raised in Czernowitz, Ukraine, formerly in Romania. She “grew up in song,” exposed to music as a young child, thanks to her mother, Lifshe Schaechter, who sang Yiddish folk songs at home. But Schaechter-Gottesman, a Jewish woman, soon experienced the brutalities of World War II, crammed into a Romanian ghetto with her family and husband Jonah during the height of the war.

She eventually left Romania for Austria, eventually flying to the states to carve out a life for herself in the Bronx. She first settled in Tremont in 1951 before moving to Norwood in 1964.

Bainbridge Ave.: A Yiddish Cultural Center

Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood served as the lynchpin to Yiddish life in the Bronx, with a half dozen Yiddish-speaking families buying up the two-story homes that lined the block. Yiddish presence was so dominant there that neighbors eventually coined the block “Bainbridgifke,” inserting a eastern European style akin to the play on words read and seen in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Schaechter-Gottesman felt at home there. As Itzik remembered, “We had a little Yiddish community here,” with notable figures such as social linguist Dr. Joshua Fishman, his wife Gela, a Yiddish cultural leader, presiding there. Several doors down was Schaechter-Gottesman’s brother Mordthe, a renowned Yiddish professor and linguist at Columbia University.

Down the block on Bainbridge was the folkshul (at 208th Street), formerly an after school institution, now occupied by the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center. Schaechter-Gottesman served as a teacher there, authoring plays and songs while teaching neighborhood children lessons in Yiddish, the preferred language for many in the community.

Life’s Work

It was on Bainbridge Avenue that Schaechter-Gottesman developed her life’s work–an enormous body of poems and songs written strictly in Yiddish, earning her recognition as a Yiddish folklorist. She’s quoted in several published articles that declare her first passion in the arts was drawing, sketching her works in charcoal or pen. Indeed, she was known never to leave the house without a pen and paper.

She later composed children’s songs and poems, serving as a vehicle for her children to learn about Yiddish, said Itzik. She later explored a spectrum of themes in her works, often writing about European life or the eclectic hustle and bustle of the Bronx, offering stirring prose that emoted a sense of meditation and reflection.

In all, Schaechter-Gottesman wrote seven poetry books, and composed three CDs of her songs that were published with help from Itzik. Her most famous musical piece, Harbstlid or Autumn Song, was sampled by singers from all over the world. Her works had attracted attention from several noteworthy musicians, including Austrian-born folk singer/composer Theodore Bikel.

“There aren’t that many people singing in Yiddish” said Itzik.  So she was a model for them.”  She earned critical acclaim for her devotion to Yiddish arts, eventually earning a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005. She was also invited to the Yiddish Summer Weimar in 2004, a week-long workshop devoted to her songs.

With Schaechter-Gottesman’s passing, Itzik believes her life’s work, disseminated around the globe, will help preserve Yiddish culture. Today, Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood has served as the epicenter to Yiddish culture, a distinction borne from Schaechter-Gotteman’s lifelong devotion to preserve the culture.

 

“She helped make Bainbridge Avenue world renown,” said Itzik.