Reply To: Yiddish at Siyum hashas

Ubiquitin- Perhaps it is a pointless argument if we can not get real numbers and each of us is just giving our estimates. However you can look at the videos of the last siyum and see the crowd. Best shots of this are when they show everybody dancing. My guess is that there are less than 100 participants who do not speak English. I also guess that a minimum of 20-30,000 do not understand a Yiddish speech. You can best see the crowd during the dancing. Another two points to consider

1. The number of Yiddish speakers in America drops significantly every year. 7.5 years later means a big drop.

2. Keep in mind all of the people participating remotely from around the world listening to the same program in real time. The percentage of Yiddish speakers in these areas is even less.

My point was to not be concerned (too much) about the miut sheaino matzui (can’t understand English) and do be considerate of the tens of thousands who can not understand Yiddish.

_in response to lowertuition-I would rather spend the time trying to learn the real focus of the siyum- limud Hatorah