Yanky Kaufman shares his stuttering journey and how he helps others today.

The fourth grade boys filed one by one into the classroom, wide eyes taking in the colorful posters on the walls. Shyly, they found their seats, put their brand-new backpacks on the floor and looked up at the rebbe. Nervous himself, the young rebbe went up and down the rows, asking each boy to introduce himself. One at a time, each one stood up and said his name.

“Moishy Friedman.”

“Yossi Cohen.”

“Akiva Stein.”

As the rebbe greets each boy, the tension in the room eases and small smiles peek out on the boys’ faces. But then the rebbe reaches the last boy in the third row.

He stands up slowly, panic evident on his face, and says nothing. The rebbe gently asks the boy his name, but the boy is still silent. His eyes dart frantically around the room, face growing red. Finally, he ekes out, “Y … y…y….” and then stops. Quiet giggling erupts among some of the boys and the boy quickly sits down, wishing for the millionth time that words could flow smoothly off his tongue like they did for everyone else.

Speech plays such a central role in a human being’s life that a person is described as a medaber, one who speaks. If one struggles with that basic function, life can be a huge challenge. Most kids go back to school excited for a new year, but if expressing oneself is a daunting task, then school can become dreaded instead of anticipated.

Yanky Kaufman, a renowned stuttering expert, vividly described the challenges implicit in having a speech impediment. “Stutterers will often try to find words that are easier for them to say that express the same idea. That can make a boy with great social skills and an eloquent vocabulary sound very awkward and strange.”

Kaufman continued, “Stutterers will also often avoid social scenes where they are concerned they might stutter. They might not pick up the phone or introduce themselves to new people since their name is a typical stumbling block.” He added that along with these challenges comes the crippling fear of stuttering — even when it doesn’t happen.

Kaufman would know, as he once struggled with a debilitating stutter. His experiences and empathy are what drive him to help others today. “As far back as I can remember, I stuttered,” Kaufman related. “I went to therapist after therapist, going up the ranks of specialists, never getting anywhere.”

Kaufman went through the typical milestones of dating, interviewing for jobs, raising a family and giving shiurim, all with the challenge of stuttering. “I did find that when I learned I stuttered less, maybe because I was more confident in that area. But I still stuttered.”

Today, Kaufman said, the latest approach to stuttering is acceptance. Since the medical world has not come up with a foolproof way to fix the problem, they instead advise building courage and confidence and being okay with struggling to get words out.

That was an idea that Kaufman never accepted. “The best method I found,” he remarked, “the one that really works, is tefillah. Every Yom Kippur, I would daven for a new gezeirah, (decree). Purim, I would ask for v’nahafoch hu, and since Chanukah is the time of miracles, I felt renewed hope then.”

What motivated Kaufman to keep hoping and davening for a yeshuah (saving)? He attributed it to his belief in Hashem and also his belief in himself. “I knew I didn’t stutter every time I spoke, so I was sure there was a way for me to not stutter at all. The therapists just hadn’t figured it out yet. I also knew that Hashem could do anything, so why give up?”

And eventually, his heartfelt tefillot was answered. “It might not have been the time I thought was best, but Hashem picks the best time.”

One Monday evening, when Kaufman was already married and living in Eretz Yisrael, he received a phone call from an acquaintance. “There’s an Israeli bachur I know who stutters terribly and he could really use some chizuk. Maybe you can meet with him?”

“Me?” Kaufman replied in shock. “I’m used to getting chizuk, not giving it!”

The man pushed him to do it, telling him he just had to befriend the boy, not necessarily help him with his stuttering, and Kaufman agreed.

“First, I davened that I should be able to help him. After that, Hashem gave me some inspiration. I took out a piece of paper and jotted down some ideas to experiment with regarding stuttering.”

Kaufman met with the boy the next day and tried out his new ideas. He was surprised that the meeting was a real success and the boy wanted to meet with him again the next night. The two met twice more over the course of the week and on Thursday night, after a few days of working with this boy, Kaufman came home with a new awareness.

“I just felt so much more in control over my own speech. I was helping this bachur, but I was really helping myself. I couldn’t really pinpoint why it had all happened so fast-but, there was a change.”

The next morning, Kaufman approached his rebbe, Rav Yehuda Wagschal, to tell him the good news. Before he could even say two sentences, Rav Yehuda stopped him. “Just one second. What happened to your speech? I hear such a remarkable change.”

The improvement, just a few days old, was already noticeable.

Despite the quick progress, Kaufman needed more proof to show himself that he wasn’t necessarily a stutterer anymore. Hashem sent it to him the very next day. “A friend asked me to come with him to a new shul. As soon as I got there, the rav, a friendly person, turned to me and said, ‘Hey, what’s your name?””

Kaufman just stood there. His own name had always been one of the hardest things for him to say. Racking his brain, he made the rapid decision to try saying his name using the new method he had just developed. He was shocked to hear the words “Yanky Kaufman” come out of his mouth flawlessly. When the rav, who had no clue that something momentous had just happened, smiled and asked him where he was from, Kaufman utilized his method again and answered without stuttering.

The rav smiled and turned away, never realizing that this young man usually spoke with a terrible stutter. For Kaufman, that marked the moment he realized that he could change the reality for other stutterers as well.

“After Shabbos, I took out the phonebook, extremely excited. I called rabbonim and rabbeim from every neighborhood, asking if they knew someone who stuttered. I wanted to see if I could help them, and at no cost.”

Kaufman’s stuttering program, Smooth Speech Solution, developed from there. Kaufman’s method, although beyond the scope of this article, is based on empowering people to take control of their speech through an accessible and effective combination of speech and behavioral therapy. The program is constantly evolving as its creator seeks to enhance and optimize it.

Kaufman soon received haskamos (aaprovals) from rabbonim and therapists for his program after they saw his success. After his move to Lakewood, his reputation grew until there was a long waiting list for his services.

“I’m a strong believer that this process needs to be done in person. Zoom is very bedi’eved (less than ideal).” To that end, Kaufman trained many people, including therapists and former stutterers who had worked with him. “My goal is to create effective, quick and lasting results,” he said. Today, there are therapists trained in Kaufman’s program working in branches across the tristate area, including Lakewood and Brooklyn, and in places around the world such as Los Angeles, Montreal, England and Israel.

Kaufman considers himself fortunate to have seen so much hashgacha (divine providence) in helping people. He chuckled as he recalled one story from the early days of his program. “There’s a rosh yeshiva in Brooklyn, Rabbi Gutfreund, who wanted to help a talmid who stuttered but he didn’t know where to look. Although Rabbi Gutfreund doesn’t buy newspapers, he picked up a copy of the Yated that week, hoping to find a lead there. That week,” Kaufman said smiling, “was the very first time I ever advertised in the Yated. They actually put my ad on the first page, making it the first thing Rabbi Gutfreund saw when he opened the paper.”

For the frum stuttering male, the shul experience is fraught with challenges. Davening from the amud (pulpit), receiving an aliyah, even just introducing oneself to strangers can all be extraordinarily difficult. “I dreamed of creating a situation that would allow boys to overcome that trauma and feel confident.”

A few years ago, Kaufman arranged an eight-day bein hazmanim retreat. He rented a yeshiva, gathered a group, and set up a program that both conquered the stuttering and the fear in shul issue. Over the course of the retreat, all the boys got aliyot, davened from the amud and spoke in public. “It was amazing to see how quickly they bonded,” Kaufman mused. “I planned for this to be a skills group, a place to work on stuttering, not a support group. But the boys really connected with each other. A shared struggle really brings people together.”

After Kaufman felt that the boys were confident enough on campus, he took them into Lakewood, to BMG and local restaurants, to show them that their success was not limited to the retreat. When Kaufman introduced his group to the owner of Glatt Bite, he couldn’t
believe that these bachurim were part of his group as they were speaking totally normally.

By now, Kaufman has done similar skill-building groups a total of 63 times, most of them as one-day seminars, and each has been a resounding success. “After helping thousands of people, we were able to encapsulate the program into one session,” Kaufman clarified.

However, Kaufman cautions that his program is not magical; it will only work if the person is ready to put in the effort. “I’m not touting this as something someone needs to do. Clients should only come when they’re ready. Jackson, New Jersey is a very good location for me to help people from all over because everyone has family or connections nearby where they can stay while I help them. There are a lot of local shuls, so it’s easy for me to find places to work with my groups, ” he said.

As a school year approaches, parents may be noticing concerning speech patterns in their younger children and wondering if they should do something about it.

“Many times, when dealing with younger children between the ages of 2-8 who are still developing their speech, parents are told, ‘Just wait,’” said Kaufman. “But there’s really a lot that parents can do to help their children at that stage.”

In collaboration with speech therapists who have personal experience with stuttering, (i.e., either they stuttered themselves or they had a sibling or child who stuttered), Kaufman has developed a program to guide parents as their child’s speech is developing. This program teaches parents everything they should know about stuttering and what they can do to help their child to prevent the need for speech therapy when they are older.

But speech issues aside, every parent wants to do the best they can for their child and every teacher wants to help each student to develop the confidence they need to succeed. “As a kid,” Kaufman related, “I once had the idea of learning Sefer Chafetz Chaim during recess. A member of the administration laughed at me, telling me to stop with my ideas. That shut me down for years.”

Kaufman begs parents and educators to give children a chance to express their ideas and talents.

“So many people told me that my skills groups could never succeed. But I had the confidence to develop my program because of the people in my life who encouraged me, and we are now preparing for the 65th skills group, b”H.”

Kaufman continued, “Do the same, and encourage the children in your care. Believe in your children. Believe in your students. With passion and creativity, there is no limit to what they can accomplish.”