Spring is risen. Indeed She is risen!
This exchange, in various languages, and with deities culturally-pertaining thereunto, is a long-standing tradition of our coven Ostara.
(Yes, it's a steal from the Church. Call it reparations.)
Through the course of the evening, the greeting, like a golden ball, is tossed back and forth in various languages, call-and-response style, a playful ritual game. Sometimes only one or two voices reply. Sometimes everyone calls out together. No matter where you go, or what language you speak, we're all glad to see Spring.
Every year, we try to add a language or two. (Greek: Korê anéstê. Alithôs anéstê! Akkadian: Ishtar tebîtum. Kînish tebîtum!) We try to include all languages spoken by coven members. (Dutch: Ostern is opgestaan. Echt, zij is opgestaan! Arabic: 'Ástarût qámat. Ḥáqqan qámat!) Recently, we've been incorporating ancestral languages as well. This is, after all, paganism: the ancestors are not only important, but axial.
For some of us, this means Yiddish, the Jews of northern Europe having been, for the most part, Yiddish-speaking. So come along with me on a fantasy journey into the depths of time.
Say that there were, among the Jews of Europe, some who had managed to hold on to the Old Gods all along. Say that, like their neighbors and kin, they too spoke Yiddish.
(If this were 40 years ago, I would here be claiming to have been born to one such family: “...and in my family, we say....” Thank Goddess, it's now, and no one could ever possibly believe such a ridiculous bobe-mayse. Um, right?)
What, then, would this Springtime exchange have been back in the shtetloch of old Europe?
To get there, let's first start back in the old Old Country. In Hebrew, translated into the appropriate Hebrew/Canaanite goddess—Hebrew is a Canaanite language, after all (bet they didn't teach you that in Sunday school)—it would have been 'Ashtéret qamá. Be-emét qamá!
(Ashteret is the goddess known in Greek—and English—as Astarte, the same goddess usually referred to in the Bible as Ashtoreth*, a kakonymism made up of the consonants of Her name vocalized with the vowels of the word bóshet, “disgrace.” Gods, talk about juvenile.)
About 20% of Yiddish vocabulary is Hebrew, usually retained in religious contexts, Hebrew having been the language of prayer. So we'll hold on to Ashteret and be-emet, but we'll give them their Yiddish pronunciations and stress.
So: how would the crypto-pagan Jews of the Pale have greeted the risen Spring?
Easily told.
Ashteres iz ufgeshtanen.
Be-emes tzi iz ufgeshtanen!
(ASH-ter-iss izz OOF-ge-shtan-en.
Be-EM-iss tzee izz OOF-ge-shtan-en!)
A freilich Ostara to you and yours.
*The variant Ashtaroth is plural.