May 13, 2004 -- MetroCard vending machines at seven subway stations in predominantly Jewish Brooklyn neighborhoods speak a new language: Yiddish.
The Transit Authority has reprogrammed some of its vending machines to accommodate the many straphangers in those neighborhoods who speak that language, which looks like Hebrew and sounds like German.
"Everyone speaks Yiddish here," said a man at Marcy Avenue in Williamsburg on the J/M line, one of the affected stations.
"This is going to be a big deal for the people," said the man, who didn't want to give his name.
The other stations with the new Yiddish software are Fort Hamilton Parkway, 50th Street and 55th Street on the D line; 18th Avenue on the F line; and Hewes Street on the J line. The Kings Highway station on the B/Q line also has machines that display Hebrew - another first.
"It's cool," said Abraham Finkelstein, who used the Yiddish machine at Fort Hamilton Parkway to refill a card.
He described the translations as "basic Yiddish - but you know how Yiddish is: It's slightly different depending on where you're from.
"I'm just happy that someone was thinking of us," he said.
The move was motivated by Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn), who asked the Transit Authority to install the Yiddish software into MetroCard vending machines - which offer Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Greek, Russian, Italian, Japanese, Polish and Creole translations, depending on the neighborhood.
"In some of the communities I represent, Yiddish is the primary language," Hikind said.
"If I'm addressing a group of people and they don't understand me, I switch to Yiddish and everything becomes clear."
Hikind estimated New York City has tens of thousands of Yiddish speakers.
Still, it's unclear how widely the Yiddish machines will be used. In more than an hour and a half, a Post reporter saw only one man - Finkelstein - buy his MetroCard in Yiddish.
"They'll have to promote it," said one Yiddish speaker who added value to his card in English.
"They should take out ads in the Yiddish papers. Otherwise, it's meshugeh."
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/20766.htm
