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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/29970/full/29970/eli-katz-yiddish-scholar-and-teacher-dies-at-77/ <br /><br /> <b>Eli Katz, Yiddish scholar and teacher, dies at 77</b> <br /> Friday, August 4, 2006 | by dan pine <br /><br /><p>It was one of Eli Katz's favorite Yiddish expressions: "A mensch tracht und Gott lacht." It means, "A man plans and God laughs." <br /><br /> But when Katz died July 22 from a stroke, there were only tears among family, friends and colleagues, as the Bay Area lost one of its most revered Yiddish scholars. Katz was 77.<br /><br /> A professor at U.C. Berkeley and, formerly, Sonoma State University, Eli Katz had turned a lifelong love of Yiddish into a serious academic pursuit. He taught Yiddish and German, translated classic Yiddish works and wrote many scholarly texts.<br /><br /> But those who studied under him say they will miss Katz's sharp humor and vast knowledge of all things Yiddish.<br /><br /> "He had an unmatched reservoir of memories about Yiddish theater and literature," said Dan Eisenstein, who studied Yiddish with Katz at Berkeley's Lehrhaus Judaica. "He'd see a word from a 1928 poem and say 'That same phrase was in a musical in 1913.' Then he'd sing it for us."<br /><br /> Added U.C. Berkeley Yiddish professor Yael Chaver, "He had a huge advantage of not only being raised in a Yiddish community, but also having the academic, linguistic and cultural background, which was a terrific combination. I don't think there was anyone else around here who had that."<br /><br /> Born in Brooklyn, Katz grew up in a Yiddish-speaking household, the son of a union organizer. "He had a very strong sense of Jewish identity as being secular, Eastern European and Yiddish-speaking," said son Daniel Katz, a Paris-based professor of English. "He believed in a kind of Jewish culture that came through language, a sense of humor and a certain approach to the world."<br /><br /> Katz earned a doctorate in Yiddish from UCLA, later joining U.C. Berkeley's German department in 1963. His left-leaning political views placed him in the middle of Berkeley's Free Speech movement. He declined on several occasions to take loyalty oaths, which initially led to his dismissal from the Cal faculty. He returned a few years later, exonerated.<br /><br /> At U.C. Berkeley, Katz led the fight to have Yiddish fulfill the foreign language requirement. He later taught Yiddish at Sonoma State for many years, retiring as a full professor in 1992. "He resisted making Yiddish cute and popular," said his wife, Dr. Helena Leiner. "He took it very seriously as an academic subject."<br /><br /> Among his most important works are his edition of "The Book of Fables" by Reb Moshe Wallich, and a translation of stories by I.L. Peretz.<br /><br /> In his private life, Katz was an accomplished amateur violist, an avocation that led him to meet his wife, herself a violinist. "We met in a string quartet," she recalled. "At the end of 1984 we were available at the same time." They married the next year and had a daughter, Paola.<br /><br /> Katz had three other children from previous marriages. Daniel Katz remembers a kind and loving father who stressed intellectual achievement.<br /><br /> "If I asked him what a certain word meant, he'd look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary," he said, "and go into the whole history. Some intellectuals have nonintellectual hobbies. He didn't."<br /><br /> But the younger Katz also recalls attending many an Oakland A's game, sitting in the bleachers. "He had a very good sense of humor," he added. "Not bitter or biting, but based on the idea that the world does not care about what you want. You should not be surprised by misfortune."<br /><br /> In the mid-1990s, Katz founded a Yiddish reading group that met regularly at Lehrhaus Judaica. "He was incredible," said Eisenstein. "He was a linguist and knew the underlying structures of the language. Eli often said 'I'm afraid to die because no one else knows all this stuff.'"<br /><br /> "He was one of the very best teachers we ever had," said Jehon Grist, Lehrhaus Judaica's executive director. "He understood what the joy of learning was all about and always left you with more questions, which is a teacher's best gift because then you never stop learning."<br /><br /> Katz suffered a series of strokes over the years, the second of which was serious enough to curtail his teaching. But Katz continued to enjoy the company of friends, family, colleagues and students.<br /><br /> "His class drew a lot of people continuously," said Eisenstein. "All came to soak up to their elbows this rich broth of Yiddishkeit. He made the language a rich place to be." <br /><br /> Katz is survived by his wife, Helena Leiner, and children Jeremy, Daniel, Mia, Paola, stepson Lawrence Brickman, and five grandchildren.</p>

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