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Hebrew, Yiddish and the creation of contesting Jewish places in Kazimierz
Author(s): Burdin, Rachel Steindel
Date: 2021
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Language, Jewish Revival, Jewish Neighbourhoods, Hebrew, Yiddish, Tourism
Abstract: This paper examines the use of Hebrew and Yiddish in the linguistic landscape of Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter of Krakow, Poland. Specifically, I examine how the use of these languages in primarily symbolic modes as a part of the Jewish ethnolinguistic repertoire is a part of the creation of three different types of Jewish places in the quarter. These places present different stances towards whether or not Jewishness can exist in present-day Poland, which are, in turn, reacted to by American Jewish visitors to the quarter. This work shows that nonvernacular and fragmented use of languages, while in some cases is a part of the construction of a purely commodified “Disneyfied” landscape in which users of those languages have been displaced, in others, it can be perceived as a sign of more authentic community revitalization.