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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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Stuttering, "Zolst nit visn fun azelkhe tsores" (May you not know of such troubles.)
Today about 5 kids in 100 are stutterers or approximately 500,000 Jews are affected. There's even a Jewish Stuttering Association that will provide Torah-orented activities for children who stutter, including a shul where bar mitzvah boys can practice saying their bar mitzvah speeches and leading services.
Meetings for men, women, and teens who stutter are held in Brooklyn, the 5 Towns, Far Rockaway, NY, Monsey, NY, and Lakewood, NJ.
According to the Bible, Moses had a speech impediment. According to eNotes, "When God told Moses to free the Israelites (Jews) from slavery in Egypt, Moses replied, "But my Lord, never in my life have I been a man of eloquence, either before or since you have spoken to your servant. I am a slow speaker and not able to speak well" (Exodus 4:10). After reassuring Moses that he was the man for the job, God told him that his brother, Aaron the Levite would speak to the Israelites on Moses's behalf."
I recently had "der fargenign" (the pleasure) of seeing the movie, "The King's Speech." The film deals with George VI's stuttering and his relationship with Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist. Logue was retained by the Prince to help him overcome his stuttering in the years before, during and after the 1936 abdication by his older brother. Logue inspired his "barimt" (famous) patient mentally by assuring him that his stammering could be cured and that there was nothing psychologically wrong with him.
King George VI, who reigned from 1937 until his death in 1952, has been depicted among the many prominent people who stutter.
What do Winston Churchill and Marilyn Monroe have in common? They both spoke in a very "pamelekh" (slow) deliberate way. In Marilyn's case, it was breathy and sexy. Her speaking style taught to her by a speech coach helped control her stuttering. Winston Churchill had a "speech impediment."
Who were other famous stutterers? Bruce Willis Tiger Woods, Julia Roberts, Jimmy Stewart, James Earl Jones, Carly Simon, and our loquacious vice president, Joe Biden.
Biden stuttered as a child. He said, "God's gift to me was my stuttering. But he also warned, "Don't let your learning disability define you." He demonstrated to a crowd: "I co- co- couldn't talk. Biden worked on relieving his stuttering by reciting poetry in front of "der shpigl" (the mirror) while monitoring his facial reactions. Overcoming the disability and the outcast status it gave him made him that much stronger, and more empathetic later in life.
"Time and time again, my parents taught me that being different is no barrier to success," Biden said. "And the measure of a man isn't how often he is knocked down but how quickly he gets up."
Singer-Songwriter, Carly Simon, began stuttering severely when she was 8 years old. She blames her stuttering on her then 44-year-old mother's affair with their 21-year-old live-in tennis instructor. The affair caused her to be "eyferzikhtik" (jealous) and "broygez" (angry) while living in an affluent household. She said, "I felt so strangulated talking that I did the natural thing, which is to write songs, because I could sing without stammering, as all stammers do."
James Earl Jones said, "One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter." Jones, one of the iconic voices of our time, stuttered as a child and took acting lessons to help.
Tiger Woods told CBS's 60 Minutes that it
takes hard work and a competitive spirit to
overcome childhood stuttering.
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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe recommends that
everyone see the movie, "The King's Speech," starring Colin Firth
as King
George VI and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife, Elizabeth. It's "vunderlekh" (wonderful)!
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