The Great Hebrew-Yiddish Rivalry
One hundred and fifty years ago Hebrew wan the not the native mother tongue, habitual or spoken vernacular of anyone. Hebrew was the mother tongue and habitual language of more than seven million people throughout Russia, Central and eastern Europe and among Jewish emigrants from these areas. Israel succeeded in reviving and modernizing an ancient language by linking it to its historic past, whereas Yiddish was dealt twin death blows by mass emigration and the Holocaust. In the State of Israel, independence was recreated along with a cultural rebirth in the face of great odds and massive doubts regarding the viability of both modern nationhood and the language. Even Theodore Herzl, the founder of the Zionist vision that launched the political efforts to create a Jewish state, skeptically asked at the time of the First Zionist Congress in 1897, "Who among us can as much as ask for a train ticket in Hebrew?" His skepticism was shared by many European Jews who felt that reviving the language was an impossible task (or a profane or even a sacrilegious one). In Herzl's romantic, utopian novel of a future idealized modern Jewish state, Altneuland (Old-New Land), Jews are pictured as cosmopolitan multilingual speakers of major European languages. Neither Yiddish nor Hebrew is mentioned. For centuries, Hebrew had been used as a liturgical language of prayer and, on occasion, as the means of communication between educated Jews travelling abroad, whose native languages were mutually unintelligible but it was not until the pioneer work of Jewish scholars committed to "The Enlightenment" who sought t modernized the language and the genius of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the individual most responsible for the revival of Hebrew, adapting it to modern needs in order to make it a spoken language, that it made its rebirth as a spoken language in Europe and then in Palestine in the late 19th century. Such efforts were looked upon as eccentric by most ultra-Orthodox Jews for whom the language was reserved for the Word of God. Today, Hebrew is an everyday language spoken by more than six million people including non-Jews (Arabs, Druze, Circassians) in the State of Israel, and it is understood or read by at least another million people in the Diaspora. For a time, a lively rivalry and debate existed between Hebrew and Yiddish that vied for the loyalty of several generations of literary figures, playwrights, writers, philosophers and Zionist inspired immigrants in Palestine. In 1908, a famous conference of Yiddishists in Czernowitz (Austria-Hungary) boldly proclaimed Yiddish as "A Jewish National Language." They pointed to the undeniable fact that Yiddish was spoken by more than ten million Jews, whereas Hebrew was not a spoken vernacular but more an experiment to breathe life into a moribund tongue incapable of meeting the demands of 20th century life. Hebrew's Deep Connection with the Past On the other hand, Hebraists, at their congress in 1913 in Vienna laid claim to Hebrew as THE Jewish National Language, and pointed out the superiority of its historical continuity, the immense prestige of the Bible, its influence upon much of European literature and its venerable age. Yiddish, they proclaimed as a "jargon" or "dialect." The growth of resistance to the British mandate encouraged the younger generation of Jews in Palestine to identify more with the ancient past and the use of a modernized and revitalized Hebrew to express nationalist sentiments in favor of independence along with the creation of a new vital culture rooted in its ancestral homeland. As dissatisfaction with the British Mandate grew, a clandestine underground emerged and began to contest the official Zionist leadership. These movements made more and more use of the term "Hebrew" (Ivri or Ivrit) as an adjective to express their instinctive attachment to the soil and landscapes of the homeland, their creativity in music, song, literature, dance as nationally "Hebrew" rather than "Jewish." The noted Israeli author, Amos Kenan, gave poetic expression to this link between the Hebrew language, the new nativist nationalist sentiment and Ancient Israel in an article that appeared in the Hebrew daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot (June 18, 1982). He wrote: "I feel a closeness to all that was, is and will be on the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean which I am a part of, and which is a part of me. The Hebrew language which is my language today was 4,000 and 2,500 years ago the language spoken in Jerusalem and Tyre, in Shechem and Sidon, Jaffa and Ugarit.and in Carthage.. Why shouldn't we feel a sense of pride in our proximity to that ancient contemporary of ours who stamped his image on the area and gave the world writing, and once sent his elephants across the Alps under Hannibal's leadership and momentarily brought mighty Rome itself in danger of destruction." Visitors to Israel today can scarcely believe or appreciate the enormous difficulties that were involved in the restoration of Hebrew as a living language. The Hebrew-Yiddish conflict in Palestine took three generations to resolve. Hebrew's triumph, that seems such a foregone conclusion today, was a tenacious struggle that on occasion resulted in pitched street battles by ardent supporters on both sides using their fists to settle the issue. It was greatly aided by the natural process of territorial concentration and emigration to Palestine by Jews who were already sympathetic to the Zionist cause but faced skepticism from critics. The latter labeled the language "artificial" until the first group of children could unconsciously play in Hebrew and express a full range of emotions without the assistance of adult guides. The Great Hebrew-Yiddish Rivalry Detractors of Modern Hebrew ridiculed both the halting speech of their native Yiddish speaking colleagues unable to converse freely in Hebrew and what they regarded as the stilted character of Hebrew novels attempting to portray real conversations in a language that was not yet the vernacular of a community outside the struggling Zionist colonies in remote and backward Palestine. Yiddish speakers made a comparison of the artificial character of Modern Hebrew with Esperanto, when both languages were in their infancy and could not rely on the broad social base of national existence in a homeland embracing two or more generations. Yiddish progressively lost strength through assimilation in Europe and America with continued emigration from Poland and Russia, while Hebrew grew in power and prestige, the British Mandate that recognized Hebrew as one of the three official languages of the country and ultimately through recognition as the primary official language of the new Jewish state (Arabic is the second official language of the country although Arab citizens contend that it is slighted). Yiddish had reflected the folkways and religious life of the mass of European Jews but Zionists correctly foresaw that Yiddish could never achieve the status of a "National Language" linked to a specific territory or independent state anywhere and would suffer an inevitable decline even though it had met the requirements of sophisticated urban life and modern literature in Eastern Europe. As late as 1978, Yiddish could boast a Noble Prize winner in Literature (Isaac Bashevis Singer) but the Holocaust and assimilation had dealt it a death blow. In Palestine, the rivalry of the two Jewish languages reached a fever pitch in the 1930s. The arrival of tens of thousands of German-speaking Jews from Germany and Austria radically changed the balance of the language controversy in Palestine. The new immigrants who had been proud of their fluency in German, a renowned European language, became enthusiastic converts to Hebrew. They had always looked down on Yiddish as the "jargon" of East European Jews and were determined to forge a new Zionist identity. Today, the authorities and a large segment of the Hebrew speaking public have regained a sympathetic attitude and nostalgic appreciation of honoring the language of many of their parents and grandparents. Estimates denote Yiddish as a language of origin of at least 80% of the world's Jewish population and nearly 50% of Israel's Jewish population. Israel's broadcasting system "The Voice of Israel" (Kol Yisrael) maintains a full schedule of Yiddish programming. The Yiddish theater and Yiddish singers have a devoted audience and there is a host of degree granting programs offered by Israeli universities in Yiddish language, literature and linguistics. Today, Yiddish is an optional subject in Israeli secondary schools and is held in high regard by all segments of the Israeli cultural establishment. Even the famous Habimah Hebrew Theater now offers plays in Yiddish and subsidies for cultural and scholastic endeavors in the language have been made available by the government, local municipalities and institutions abroad, notably from Germany. Countless Yiddish expressions have entered popular Israeli Hebrew speech and it may be said to have risen from the bottom of the social ladder of languages spoken in Israel. Nevertheless, a consequence of the great debate between Yiddish and Hebrew has been the growing gulf between the sense of Israeli nationhood and the traditions and values of the Diaspora that had been based on Yiddish and other Jewish hybrid languages. The so called "Yiddish Revival" alluded to in the article cited is a phenomenon based wholly on nostalgia. As a professional translator/interpreter and instructor of Hebrew at a major university, I can relate that in spite of the wide use of English in Israel, neither it or Yiddish is a SUBSTITUTE for an appreciation of Israeli social, cultural, economic, and political life. Israel is today a super economic power and all laws are drafted and debated in the Knesset in Hebrew. All contracts are negotiated in Hebrew, all patents are adopted in Hebrew. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2011 1:18 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [RC] Language classes Huff Po Oy Vey! Yiddish Making A Comeback At Colleges DORIE TURNER <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/oy-vey-yiddish-making-a-c_n_116262 7.html> 12/21/11 ATLANTA - A group of American college students stands in a semicircle, clapping and hopping on one foot as they sing in Yiddish: "Az der rebe tantst, tantsn ale khsidim!" In English, the lyrics mean: "When the rebbe dances, so do all the Hasidim." This isn't music appreciation or even a class at a synagogue. It's the first semester of Yiddish at Emory University in Atlanta - one of a handful of college programs across the country studying the Germanic-based language of Eastern European Jews. The language came close to dying out after the Holocaust as millions of Yiddish speakers either perished in Nazi concentration camps or fled to other countries where their native tongue was not welcome. Emory and other universities like Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and McGill University in Canada are working to bring the language back, and with it, an appreciation for the rich history of European Jewish culture and art. "If we want to preserve this, we need to do so actively and consciously," said Miriam Udel, a Yiddish professor at Emory who uses song to teach the language. "The generation that passively knows Yiddish is dying out. There are treasures that need to be preserved because we'll lose access to them if we let Yiddish die." Experts estimate there are between 1 million and 2 million native Yiddish speakers in the world, but only about 500,000 speak it in the home - mostly orthodox Jews. When YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City began offering summer programs in Yiddish in 1968, they were the only such program in the world. Now, they compete with summer intensive Yiddish programs in Tel Aviv, Israel; Ottawa, Canada; Indiana and Arizona, said YIVO's dean, Paul Glasser. About 20 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada now offer some Yiddish courses, though just a few of them have degrees in the language. The interest has grown because of the younger Jewish generation, which doesn't feel their parents' embarrassment that their family spoke Yiddish rather than English, Glasser said. "Eighteen-year-olds today don't have that," he said. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about. No one can question their American-ness." Emory junior Matthew Birnbaum said he took Udel's Yiddish class because he feels a personal connection to the language: his grandparents still speak it. "It's taught me a lot about my own roots and where my people have come from," he said. "It's been a really interesting learning experience, not just from the language perspective but also from the historical perspective." It's not just college classes where the interest in Yiddish has grown. Klezmer music has made a comeback with young musicians like Canadian Yiddish hip-hop artist Socalled - whose real name is Josh Dolgin - and Daniel Kahn, a New York-based folk singer who is recording with some of the most popular Yiddish performers in the world. At the Folksbiene national Yiddish theater and the New Yiddish Rep theater company, both in New York City, young actors flood auditions for "Gimpl Tam" and "The Learning Play of Rabbi Levi-Yitzhok, Son of Sara, of Berditchev." The Congress for Jewish Culture holds coffee houses monthly where young Yiddish musicians perform and bring in guest speakers like graphic novel artist Ben Katchor, hoping to appeal to a younger audience. A search for Yiddish on Facebook produces dozens of links to groups like "Di Kats der Payats (The Cat in the Hat in Yiddish)" and "Yiddish Slang Dictionary." "This is what everyone in Yiddish is trying to do: to get to the younger generations and show people what's out there," said Shane Baker, president of the congress and a non-Jewish actor who appears in Yiddish productions at Folksbiene and New Yiddish Rep. "They used to say in the family: `Speak Yiddish so the children don't understand if you're talking about something serious or arguing.' Now a hook is: `Speak Yiddish so your parents won't know what you're saying.'" At Emory, Udel's students spend a semester learning Yiddish grammar through songs and reading before performing a cappella at Atlanta nursing homes and Emory's Jewish student center. The performances give them more confidence in their language abilities and help them connect with older Yiddish speakers, she said. All the students in this semester's class are Jewish, Udel said, but she's had non-Jews - or goyim - in past years. The class had only a handful of students when upperclassmen registered for courses over the summer, but the class filled up during freshman registration, Udel said. Emory freshman Elizabeth Friedman, 18, said she signed up because she was unsure what to take during her first semester at college. She said the class has become like a family and a fun respite from her "dense" pre-business coursework. "That is why I love this class - there's so much interaction, so much teamwork and much talking, it's like you're learning so much without feeling the stress," the Los Angeles native said. "In the final, I realized how much I learned from the beginning because I was never naturally good at languages." -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
