Snow in August by Pete Hamill

master Latin, he couldn’t speak it with anybody. As a language, it was dead. The blue books
     said so.
By the end of the eighth century after Christ, Latin was no longer the common spoken language, and was diverging into Spanish
     and French and other forms
…. Yiddish was different. Right there, on page 3067 of the
Wonderland of Knowledge
, was the entry.
    From Eastern Europe has come Yiddish, an extremely flexible language spoken principally by Jews. It is based mainly on the
     German of the Middle Ages, but the inclusion of Aramaic, Hebrew, and Slavic words and phrases has made it quite distinct from
     the language spoken in Germany today. Although Jewish scholars once frowned on Yiddish as a vulgar tongue, it is now accepted
     as a language of wide literary merit. Numerous high-grade works of literature have been written in Yiddish; first-rank writers
     have used it as their medium; and there are a number of newspapers printed in Yiddish. Russia, Poland, and the United States
     have produced the principal Yiddish literature
….
    If he could learn Yiddish, he could read the newspaper that Rabbi Hirsch sometimes had on his table, the
Forvertz
, and find out what they said about the goyim in a language the goyim could not read, and how they would cover the arrival
     of Jackie Robinson. And he could borrow books from Rabbi Hirsch’s bookcase and read them. He was thrilled by the example of
     Balzac. He wrote his books in French, which came from Latin, and here they were in Yiddish, which came from German, and wouldn’t
     it be something if an Irish kid could read those stories after they had traveled all the way to Brooklyn? It would be like
     reading Latin, French, German, and Yiddish all at once, and turning them into English in his head. There were some books by
     Balzac on the shelves in the public library, but Michael did not even try to read them. He wanted to hold off until he could
     read them in Yiddish, the way he had held off looking at the snow on the morning of the blizzard. But more than anything else,
     he wanted to have a secret language. Among his friends and classmates, among the priests and the shopkeepers, in a world where
     Frankie McCarthy swaggered around with the Falcons and old rummies died in the snow, Yiddish would be his.
    By the end of January, he had established a routine with therabbi for their classes. Saturdays were out. The rabbi had to preside over the downstairs sanctuary. A small group of old
     people would arrive early, and sometimes stay all day, and the rabbi had to be available for discussion. Michael did show
     up early on Saturday mornings to be the Shabbos goy, refusing money from the rabbi but always accepting a glass of tea. Sometimes
     he brought the rabbi a sugar bun from Ebinger’s Bakery, where the day-old pastries were only three cents. Sometimes they talked
     quickly about the weather. But then they would say goodbye until Tuesday. The lessons now were on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
     after school, which still gave him time to see his friends.
    But it wasn’t only the rabbi’s obligations that made Saturday lessons impossible. The rhythm of Michael’s week was changed
     one evening near the end of the month. He came up from the streets and found his mother happy and whistling as she listened
     to Edward R. Murrow on the radio.
    “I’ve got great news,” she said, turning down the volume on the radio. “We’re going to be the janitors. And I’ve got a new
     job.”
    She turned the hamburgers in the frying pan on the coal stove while she spoke, and stirred the boiling carrots. The McElroys
     were moving out of the first floor, his mother explained, going to Long Island, and Mr. Kerniss, the landlord, had asked her
     if she wanted the job of janitor. She had accepted.
    “The first thing he’s going to do is take out the damned coal stove and give us a gas range,” she said. “How do you like that?”
    “No more rotten egg smells!” Michael said.
    “And we