Abstract: Ashkenazic Hebrew is a unique language variety with a centuries-long history of written use among Central and Eastern European Jews. It has distinct phonological and grammatical features attested in texts composed by Ashkenazic Jews (e.g. adherents of the Hasidic and Maskilic movements) in Europe prior to the twentieth century. While Ashkenazic Hebrew is commonly believed to have been replaced by Israeli Hebrew in the twentieth century, this traditional written variety of the language actually continues to thrive in contemporary Diaspora Haredi (strictly Orthodox) communities, chiefly the Hasidic centres of New York, London, Montreal and Antwerp. This fascinating and understudied form of Hebrew is used widely and productively in the composition of a rich variety of original documents for a Hasidic audience (about e.g. Covid transmission, United States educational stipulations, Zoom schooling, lockdown rules, etc.). In this article we demonstrate that contemporary Ashkenazic Hebrew has many shared orthographic, phonological, grammatical and lexical features with its Eastern European antecedent. These include: orthography of loanwords based on Yiddish conventions (e.g. חולי הקאראנא xóylay ha-koróna ‘those ill with coronavirus’); morphology of plural loan nouns (בקאלידזשעס be-kóleǧes‘in colleges’, הפראגראמע״ן haprográmen ‘the programmes’); retention of the definite article with inseparable prepositions (בהשכונה be-ha-šxíne‘in the neighbourhood’);
Abstract: Cette contribution tente d’approcher les sentiments nourris par le souvenir du Yiddishland à la fin du XXe siècle et au début du XXIe siècle. Elle cherche, afin d’aborder cette sphère habitée par l’ancrage familial, traversée par des antagonismes idéologiques, hantée par le souvenir de l’émigration et de l’intégration ainsi que celui de souffrances inouïes et longtemps indicibles, à suivre les représentations idéales d’un monde perdu, dans le domaine de la culture et dans celui des utopies politiques, en s’intéressant d’une part à des aspects du renouveau de l’expression culturelle yiddish en France au cours des trois dernières décennies, en particulier dans la chanson (Jacques Grober, Violette Szmajer, Batia Baum, Michèle Tauber et le groupe du Paon doré) ; d’autre part aux survivances des motifs d’utopie politique trouvant leur source dans l’épopée idéologique et historique du Yiddishland (Charles Melman, Mojsze Zalcman) ; enfin à la réappropriation de la mémoire véhiculée par le yiddish telle qu’elle peut être perçue dans les interviews réalisées par Max Kohn entre 2006 et 2016. Cette recherche, tentative d’exploration d’un cheminement affectif vers le yiddish de la part d’un enfant né à cette époque en Israël et ayant grandi en France dans une famille non yiddishophone, se limitera à certaines expressions de cette mémoire et de ces motifs d’espérance en France, sans s’interdire de les mettre en rapport avec des expressions analogues dans d’autres pays de la diaspora juive ou en Israël.
Abstract: The aim of this article is to discuss the Yiddish varieties of Courland and Estonia in the general context of the co-territorial languages: Baltic German, Latvian, Livonian, and Estonian. As a rule, discussion of Yiddish in the region is mostly based on the classical descriptions of the Yiddish varieties from the beginning of the 20th century. It is demonstrated that common features in phonology and lexicon of Courland (and Estonian) Yiddish and Baltic German are, in fact, regional and attested at least in varieties of Estonian but often in Latvian and Livonian as well. It is argued that due to the multilingualism of Jews in the region, a wider perspective of modern contact linguistics and multilingualism and analysis is needed. In the 20th century, multilingual speech was a norm at least among Estonian Jews, and, based on fieldwork data from the 1990s among multilingual Estonian Jews, there is no clear preference of insertional or alternational code-switching. However, if alternational code-switching is preferred in a community, it might explain the low number of conventionalised lexical borrowings (as is the case for Latvian borrowings in Yiddish).
Abstract: Målet för den svenska minoritetspolitiken är att ge skydd för de nationella minoriteterna och stärka deras möjligheter till inflytande samt stödja de historiska minoritetsspråken så att de hålls levande. Ett av dessa minoritetsspråk är jiddisch. Inför regeringens arbete med att ta fram en minoritetspolitisk proposition behöver befintligt beredningsunderlag kompletteras med underlag som rör den nuvarande situationen för jiddisch och dess förutsättningar för att bevaras som ett levande språk i Sverige.För uppdraget svarar Susanne Sznajderman-Rytz, sakkunnig i jiddisch och minoritetsfrågor för Judiska Centralrådet i Sverige sedan 26 mars 1997. Uppdraget är utfört i samråd med företrädare för Judiska Centralrådet. Denna studie ska läsas med beaktande av att tiden och de resurser som ställts till förfogande varit begränsande. Det är nödvändigt att påpeka att jiddisch i jämförelse med övriga minoritetsspråk inte har samma ställning och inte heller fått motsvarande resurser för att kartlägga och på djupet studera de faktiska förhållandena för jiddisch i Sverige idag. För att kunna studera och beskriva situationen för jiddisch och de jiddischtalande har Judiska Centralrådet i Sverige ställt medel till förfogande. Med dessa medel genomfördes en enkätundersökning. I samband härmed vill jag uttrycka ett stort tack till alla som villigt medverkat i enkäten för att ge en bättre förankring till studien.Eftersom tiden varit starkt begränsad har professorerna Lars-Gunnar Andersson vid Göteborgs universitet, Kenneth Hyltenstam vid Stockholms universitet och Olle Josefsson vid Institutet för språk och folkminnenvarit välvilligt behjälpliga med sakkunskap och synpunkter. Under arbetet med studien har det framkommit aspekter kring de talandes relation till jiddisch som starkt berör andra områden än det rent lingvistiska. Med en jiddischkultur som marginaliserats och underordnats en majoritetskultur har de talande övergivit sina egna traditioner, undertryckt den egna identiteten och avstått från att uttrycka sig på sitt eget språk. Flera generationer uppvuxna i Sverige har känt ett starkt krav på assimilation och raderat ut sitt eget kultur- och språkarv i övertygelsen om att på så vis vinna acceptens både på ett personligt och samhälleligt plan. Detta har skapat en blandad och ibland kluven relation till den egna kulturen, det judiska levnadssättet och den icke-judiska omvärlden. För många har det inneburit utanförskap, kränkning och känsla av mindervärdighet. Vår studie visar att många judar i Sverige idag önskar att mer aktivt utveckla den egna kulturen, återta sina språk och praktisera sina traditioner. De flesta vuxna bär på minnen från sin barndom som påtagligt markerade känslan av utanförskap. Vi är många som minnsden obligatoriska morgonsamlingen, som innebar att knäppa sina händer och be icke-judiska böner, stå i korridoren under kristendomsund ervisningen, visa upp intyg för att få ledigt under judiska helger, gå hem på lunchrasten för att kunna äta en måltid som är koscher. Dessa händelser har präglat många generationer judar i Sverige. På det personliga planet och även i samhälle t finns det nu ett behov av upprättelse, försoning och rätt att på lika villkor med övriga grupper få del av det som är genuint för den judiska minoriteten. Vårt bidrag har varit en stor villighet att solidarisera och underordna oss samhället och majoriteten. Priset har varit på gränsen till utplåning av egna språk, identitetsmarkörer och den judiska kulturella särarten.Med språk- och ramkonventionen blir rätten till det judiska en väg att stärka och bekräfta värdet av att flera kulturer. I Sverige har judarna levt samman med majoritetsbefolkningen och bidragit till en dynamisk mångfald till gagn för kultur, ekonomi, forskning och utveckling. På många plan har minoriteten och majoriteten befruktat varandra.
Abstract: Yiddish was the everyday language spoken by most Central and East European Jews during the last millennium. As a result of the extreme loss of speakers during the Holocaust, subsequent geographic dispersal, and lack of institutional support, Yiddish is now an endangered language. Yet it continues to be a native and daily language for Haredi (strictly Orthodox) Jews, who live in close-knit communities worldwide. We have conducted the first study of the linguistic characteristics of the Yiddish spoken in the community in London’s Stamford Hill. While Krogh (in: Aptroot, Aptroot et al. (eds.) Leket: Yiddish studies today, Düsseldorf University Press, Düsseldorf, pp 483–506, 2012), Assouline (in: Aptroot, Hansen (eds.) Yiddish language structures, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, pp 39–62, 2014), and Sadock and Masor (J Jew Lang 6(1):89–110, 2018), investigating other Hasidic Yiddish-speaking communities, observe what they describe as morphological syncretism, in this paper we defend the claim that present-day Stamford Hill Hasidic Yiddish lacks morphological case and gender completely. We demonstrate that loss of morphological case and gender is the result of substantial language change over the course of two generations: while the case and gender system of the spoken medium was already beginning to undergo morphological syncretism and show some variation prior to World War II, case and gender distinctions were clearly present in the mental grammar of both Hasidic and non-Hasidic speakers of the relevant Yiddish dialects at that stage. We conclude the paper by identifying some of the language-internal, sociolinguistic and historical factors that have contributed to such rapid and pervasive language change, and compare the developments in Stamford Hill Hasidic Yiddish to those of minority German dialects in North America.
Abstract: This article analyses how Europe’s ‘Yiddish past’ is presented, commemorated and engaged with in contemporary Europe from a Public History perspective. It investigates the ways in which Yiddish, its culture and its speakers, are inscribed in representations of Jewish history in museums, websites, and other settings. In doing so a distinction is made between Western Europe, where Yiddish-speaking immigrants and their culture formed but a part of local Jewish populations, and Central/Eastern Europe, where Jewish life was to a large extent Yiddish life. The article shows how a growing attention for migration in Western Europe, and the demand for Jewish heritage from abroad in Central and Eastern Europe, drive new and revised versions of Jewish, as well as national, historical narratives. It also contrasts such larger developments and contexts with local, ‘bottom-up’, activities. At the same it moves beyond national contexts and considers the role that European institutions play in preserving Yiddish heritage. The article argues that definitions of Public History, which predominantly focus on how professional historians take history to a broader non-academic public, are insufficient. The case of Yiddish in Europe also highlights the important role of the state in driving public history activities. Key words: Jewish history; Yiddish; Europe; Public History; Representation; Museums.
Abstract: The topic of the present article is the socio-cultural history of Estonian Jews as well as main patterns of their linguistic behavior. This atypical Jewish community definitely deserves more scholarly attention than it has received. It is important to stress that not all Jews living in Estonia today are considered to be Estonian Jews. Only those who were born and/or whose socialization took place in independent Estonia (1918-1940) and their descendants are included in this group. Those who migrated to Estonia after 1940 belong socio-culturally and linguistically to a different community (Russian language and cultural orientation). Estonian Jews are multilingual as a rule (Estonian, Yiddish, Russian, German); however, reasons for their multilingualism differ from those of a traditional Jewish community. In our case these reasons include: small size of the minority, high rate of urbanization, lack of strict orthodoxy, acculturation and modernization. Yiddish dialect spoken in Estonia, or Estonian Yiddish, is highly valued by its speakers. The status of Yiddish among other co-territorial languages is discussed in this paper. Linguistic behavior is based largely on a high degree of linguistic awareness (speakers enjoy their multilingualism). However, the number of Yiddish speakers is constantly decreasing due to certain historical events (Soviet and Nazi occupation of Estonia, abolition of cultural autonomy, Soviet ethnic policy, etc). The possibilities of future developments -a shift to other languages, the emergence of a Yiddish-Estonian-Russian mixed variety, a new multilingualism of Yiddish-speaking immigrants -should all be taken into consideration.
Abstract: This essay explores two “real imaginary” worlds in Europe -- the “virtually Jewish” and the “imaginary wild west.” The author describes some of the ways that European non-Jews adopt, enact and transform elements of Jewish culture, using Jewish culture at times to create, mold, or find, their own identities. She also describes a surprising and remarkably multi-faceted Far West subculture in Europe that, stoked, marketed and even created by popular culture, forms a connected collection of “Wild Western spaces.” There are major differences between the “virtually Jewish” phenomenon and the “virtually western” European response to the American Frontier saga. One has to do with a real, traumatic issue: coming to terms with the Holocaust and its legacy of guilt and loss. The other is the embrace and elaboration of a collective fantasy and its translation into personal experience. But in certain ways they can be viewed as analogous phenomena. Both have to do with identity, and the ways in which people use other cultures to shape their own identities. In addition, in both “virtually Jewish” and “imaginary western” realms, the issue of “authenticity” is involved, as well as the distinction between creative cultural appropriation and mere imitation. Both entail the creation of “new authenticities” -- things, places and experiences that in themselves are real, with all the trappings of reality, but that are quite different from the “realities” on which they are modeled or that they are attempting to evoke. The process has led to the formation of models, stereotypes, modes of behavior and even traditions.
