I first fell in love with Jewish languages as a Fulbright fellow at Tel Aviv University.

I was fascinated by the many languages that had converged in Israel: Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, Darija, Russian, Amharic and Ladino. I learned about different communities’ language and history, which built meaningful connections with the people who brought them to life in the present.

Learning Yiddish felt especially profound: the knowledge that it had once been the most widely spoken Jewish language in the world, and that millions of its speakers had been killed in the Holocaust.

I was a Roman Catholic from Texas. Moving to Israel was my first sustained exposure to Jewish life, and I was welcomed into it with a warmth that felt both casual and profound — Shabbat dinners, holiday tables and conversations that stretched late into the night.

About a year into my time there, I met my now-husband, Sagi. Through him, I met his grandmother, Sarah. He called her Savta Sarah (savta is Hebrew for grandmother), so I did too.

On Shabbat afternoons, we’d visit her home. She spoke Yiddish, Polish, Russian and by that time, primarily Hebrew – always with a Yiddish inflection – and little English. My Hebrew was still rudimentary. But I knew German, which is still intelligible to a Yiddish speaker. This became our shared language.

Savta Sarah taught me words like nudnik, mentsh, takhles, shtinker, meshugas, fargin — and pointed out how Yiddish lived on in Israeli slang over the decades. Yiddish, she told me, was a language of cynicism and humor, a way of making life’s tsuris bearable.

Sarah taught me how Yiddish articulated a sense of resilience through cynicism, poking fun at everything in life from the tragic to the banal – for example –  “Ikh vil dos nisht haltn, efsher vet emitser dos ganvenen” (“I don’t want to keep this, but hopefully someone will steal it”) can be used when you’ve been given something you don’t want, but feel too guilty about throwing it away.

I also loved “der mentsh trakht, un got lakht” (Man supposes but God disposes)” – used when bad things happen, to remind the hearer, mostly with humor, of the futility of mortality, but it can also refer to a sense of faith, despite the circumstances.

Cynicism was how people survived. This mentality existed alongside warmth in a culture rich with hospitality that always made sure to pause on weddings, bris-milah, holidays and Shabbos to celebrate life.

Sarah embodied that sensibility: perceptive and generous, yet direct and unsentimental. She was also the single Holocaust survivor of her immediate family.

Her memories occasionally surfaced without warning. We would be talking about something mundane, and suddenly she would shift into the past.

Sarah was born in the 1930s near today’s Polish-Ukrainian border. Her mother was murdered by the Nazis in a mass execution of Jewish women and children. Sarah, my mother-in-law told me, survived by luck.

Afterwards, during the chaos of a violent attack on the forced labor camp, Sarah was separated from her father, who was killed. She hid in snowy fields for days, later being taken back to the camp. There she reunited with cousins who smuggled her scraps of food. She was still a child.

After the camp was liberated by the Allied Forces, Sarah was sent to a refugee camp in Cyprus. A first attempt by Jews to escape to British Mandatory Palestine failed when the  government turned back ships carrying Jewish refugees. Sarah  considered joining an aunt in Venezuela, ultimately trying again to land in eretz-yisroel, at last immigrating in 1947, a year before Israeli independence. She built a life — marrying, raising children, and lovingly witnessing her grandchildren reach adulthood.

I never asked her about the Shoah, but her memories emerged in fragments during our visits. Once, Sarah recalled guarding a loaf of bread in her bed in the camp, only to wake and find it stolen. She told it plainly, without visible emotion. And yet, she joked often and radiated pride in the family she had helped rebuild.

Over time, my relationship with Savta Sarah became part of my own spiritual journey. What began as curiosity about Judaism deepened into a desire to convert. After years of learning, I entered a Modern Orthodox conversion program called “Project Ruth” and will soon immerse in the mikveh to complete the process.

There isn’t just one reason for that decision. But Savta Sarah, a very secular woman, is part of it — not because she argued for faith, but because she embodied a form of Jewish resilience and continuity through her stories and through the Yiddish she taught me. From her, I learned what it meant not just to inherit a tradition, but to participate in rebuilding it.

I have always been a spiritual person who has felt close to God, and feel drawn to Judaism’s daily prayers and the intimacy of putting on tefillin. I was drawn far less to kosher laws. But when I think of Jewish history and my journey that has led me into the Jewish people, stories woven together like the braids of a havdalah candle, it makes sense to be observant. I’m not doing it just for myself, but also as a way of honoring past generations and paving the way for future generations.

When Sagi and I left Israel in 2022, we visited Sarah one last time. By then, she understood we were a couple as two men, though we’d never needed to formally explain.

As we were leaving, she pressed several crisp hundred-dollar bills into Sagi’s hand, smiling mischievously. “This is for both of you,” she said. Then, more seriously: “Look out for each other, that’s all you have in this world.”

Savta Sarah died a few years later. Since then, I’ve continued learning Yiddish, slowly and informally. Language and memory have become central to how I understand my place in the Jewish story.

A century ago, Yiddish speakers in Eastern Europe could not have imagined who might one day take up their language. As fewer native speakers remain, the future of Yiddish may depend, in part, on unexpected inheritors.

And for me, that is an incredible honor.

The post How Yiddish and Savta Sarah shaped my Jewish journey appeared first on The Forward.

Protesters hold up placards against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his visit to Golders Green, northwest London, following a terror attack on April 29, 2026, in which two men were stabbed, in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERS

Fears and anxieties are running high among British Jews, and among Jews across Europe more broadly. There is only so long that a community can project strength and resilience while its members are being stabbed in broad daylight, and while vile antisemitic graffiti stains the walls of cities like Berlin.

At some point, the question must be asked: how much can a society tolerate before its silence becomes complicity?

This is not a theoretical concern — it is already visible in policies, media coverage, and public debate.

What is perhaps most disturbing is not only the rise in antisemitic incidents, now at record highs in many parts of Europe, but the muted response to them. Similar hatred towards other minorities would provoke outrage and sustained debate.

Yet when Jews are targeted, reactions are often subdued and short-lived. Coverage exists, but in everyday conversations and workplaces, the urgency is largely absent.

Living in Germany, I have found that antisemitism is rarely a topic of concern among non-Jews. It does not seem to stir deep emotional reactions or sustained attention. It exists, but almost in the background. This indifference is not neutral. It is part of the problem.

Many Europeans today do not personally know a single Jewish person. Their understanding of Jews is often filtered through biased media narratives.

There is a vague awareness of a connection between Jews and Israel, but little real understanding. Seen mainly through conflict and accusations, Israel often becomes a reason for disengagement. Even when Jewish co-workers may exist, their identity may remain hidden. I was reminded of this when my son told me about a Jewish boy on his football team who was mocked by teammates when they heard that one of his parents is Jewish. I encouraged my son, as captain, to confront such behavior immediately.

When I share such incidents with non-Jewish friends, they are often genuinely shocked and condemn it, unable to believe such things still happen in Germany today. For a moment, this is reassuring. Yet the concern rarely lasts as people move on with their lives.

But antisemitism is never just a “Jewish problem.” It is a societal one.

History has shown, time and again, that what begins with Jews does not end with them. Antisemitism is not an isolated prejudice; it is often a symptom of broader ideological movements that seek control and dominance. Whether in the forced religious expansions of the medieval period, the racial ideology of Nazi Germany, or modern Jihadist movements that weaponize religion, the pattern is clear: once a society tolerates the dehumanization of one group, it opens the door to the erosion of freedom for all.

This is why today’s indifference is so dangerous. It reflects not only a failure to protect Jews, but an unwillingness to confront the deeper threats.

There is yet another dimension to the issue of antisemitism that is often overlooked: the position of non-Jewish allies.

Across Europe and beyond, there are Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and other righteous individuals who stand up against antisemitism and support Israel, often at significant personal cost.

They lose friendships, face tensions within their families, and encounter hostility in their workplaces. Unlike Jewish communities, which are bound by a strong sense of shared identity and belonging in Am Israel, these allies often stand alone. They do not always have a community to turn to.

This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: what happens to these individuals if antisemitic rhetoric continues to escalate into physical violence? Jews, despite the immense challenges, have Israel — a homeland that represents refuge and continuity. For Diaspora Jews, aliyah remains an option, however challenging it may be.

But what about those who stand with them, who have tied their moral convictions to the fight against antisemitism? Who protects them?

They may well be the next in line — not because of who they are, but because of what they represent: resistance to hatred, commitment to truth, and refusal to conform to dominant narratives.

This is the hallmark of an unhealthy society — not only the presence of hatred, but the isolation of those who oppose it.

There is a broader irony: many who champion progressive values like anti-oppression, anti-colonialism, and human rights, fail to see how their silence or selective outrage contributes to the problem. In overlooking antisemitism, they undermine the very principles they claim to uphold.

The solution is neither simple nor immediate. But it begins with something fundamental: speaking.

We must continue to talk about antisemitism. We must do it consistently and persistently. There is a lesson in the propaganda strategies of the past: repetition shapes perception. Just as the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels demonstrated how repetition can amplify lies, it can also strengthen truth.

Silence allows distortion to take root. Speaking up on the other hand, creates the possibility of change. There is still hope that people will listen. Because the cost of silence is not only borne by Jews. It is borne by society as a whole.

Paushali Lass is an Indian-German intercultural and geopolitical consultant, who focuses on building bridges between Israel, India, and Germany.