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Five nights, a private room with cable TV, and a view of Sylvan Lake, three fabulous meals a day, an hour-and-a-half of daily Yiddish instruction at the onheyber, mitldike, or vaythalters (beginner, intermediate, or advanced) levels, stretching and kvetching, shvimen (swimming) in the tank (pool) or the ozere (lake), Yiddish origami, teater (theatre) and zingen (singing), world-class nightly Yiddish entertainment and much more (including internet access), all for $120 night? It's a metsie (bargain)! Nu? Vu? Where else but the Workmen's Circle's Circle Lodge in di Katzskils.

Four years ago, I wrote about my first visit to Circle Lodge in Dutchess County, N.Y. and my quest to recapture our mother tongue. Back then, I explained that I am among the few Jews who grew up in a home where no one (neither parents nor grandparents) spoke Yiddish. How could it be? Simply, we assimilated too quickly. Thus I never heard those songs that Jewish kinder learned from their mothers nor listened in on Yiddish conversations between the adults who were trying to keep the children from finding something out.

For the last three years, I have been studying Yiddish with Girsh Sorkin of Cranford and have advanced to what I would call the low intermediate level: I can read, write, and speak Yiddish (albeit slowly), yet my vocabulary is still too small, and I have difficulty understanding spoken Yiddish. So this July I once again attended "A Week in Yiddishland," one of the many weekly cultural programs offered by the Workmen's Circle at Circle Lodge.

Let me tell you, the tsveyter mol (second time) was even beser (better) than the first! With about 80 participants, I got to hear the "Yiddishes" of the world! My intermediate level instructor was Miriam Isaacs (who teaches at the University of Maryland). She conducted the class solely in Yiddish, and we discussed a number of songs (usually written in transliteration) as well as a poem translated from Spanish into Yiddish and a cartoon with Yiddish captions.

In this class of about 20 students, there were two of us who grew up in non-Yiddish speaking homes. Everyone else knew or was familiar with Yiddish from childhood and could speak and understand it fluently (at least it seemed fluent to me). However, I did learn later that most cannot read or write Yiddish. So during (and before and after) class, my English/Yiddish, Yiddish/English dictionaries were very useful, as I struggled to understand not only the class discussions but also the words of the songs (for example, A Shadkhn Darf Men Kenen Zayn! You Have to Know How to Be a Shadkhn! and A Redele Iz di Gore Velt, The Whole World is a Little Wheel). As the week passed, I learned many new words and found that I could understand, I would guesstimate, about 30 or more percent of what I heard. Now that is major improvement from four years ago when I understood gornisht!

The beginner's class was taught by Nikolai (Kolye) Borodulin (a native of Birobidzhan and now the Workmen's Circle's Assistant Director for Cultural Jewish life) and the advanced class by Chava Lapin, Yiddish scholar and teacher. Should you be wondering, there were no placement tests, nor tests of any kind. Yes, there was a bit of homework, but no penalty if not done!

Among the afternoon activities were zingen (singing) and teater (theatre). The young and talented teachers were Dmitri Slepovitch, a world class Russian musicologist, singer, and pianist (who can bring down the house with his clarinet playing) and Mathew "Motl" Didner, the Associate Artistic Director of the Folksbiene Theatre in New York City (who is also an actor and director). With only three days to practice, our efforts culminated in an abbreviated and very comical production of Isaac Bashevis Singer's Gimpl Tam ("Gimpel the Fool") with the acting and singing performed by Yiddish students of all ages and abilities.

The evening programs were fabulous. New York's "New Yiddish Rep" performed "The Essence: A Yiddish Theatre Dim Sum" which humorously presented the "entire history of Yiddish Theatre... in 80 New York minutes". Theresa Tova, a Canadian "pan-cultural, jazz, cabaret diva" presented "A bisl Yiddish, a bisl Jazz" singing in both English and Yiddish. Among her best was a bilingual rendition of Cole Porter's "Night and Day, Nacht un Tog". A young threesome, Sarah Gordon, Daniel Kahn, and Benjamin Fox-Rosen, played and sang their way through not only the old Yiddish and Klezmer favorites but also introduced us to some of the "hip" new Yiddish music which they are writing and performing. Dimitri Slepovitch accompanied Tova as well as the threesome on his clarinet and proved himself to be an extraordinary performer. All of these musicians are part of a worldwide movement to reinvigorate Yiddish music and to move it into the 21st century. And, for anyone who wanted to continue "partying" after the evening performance, there was folk and Israeli dancing followed by Yiddish films.

So, sing the songs from your ancestors' shtetl in a nice, air-conditioned room! Study with some of the best Yiddish instructors on the east coast just by walking to class in the frishe luft (fresh air). Listen to Yiddish hip hop and jazz! If you are interested in brushing up your Yiddish skills or want evidence that Yiddish is far from a dead language, spend "A week in Yiddishland". Circle Lodge is a kleyner gan-eyden (little paradise), two hours away from central New Jersey. Zay gezunt un gliklekh (be healthy and happy)!