One of my former Chronicle colleagues, Mollie Fromstein Katz, and I once were talking about something relating to Jewish continuity issues. She suddenly said, “How could anybody want to leave a religion that has Yiddish in it?”
How indeed. Not least of Jewish creative achievements has been this amazing language, a delicious verbal cholent (stew) of medieval German mixed with some Hebrew and bits of many other languages.
It would be too much to say the language is undergoing a “revival” today, though some of its associated culture — klezmer music and Yiddish song — has come to new life in recent years.
But the language retains its fascination and today has garnered a respect that it often didn’t receive in its heyday. Colleges and universities are offering courses and advanced degrees in it. The Internet today has numerous web sites devoted to the language and its literature. (They include one on the works of Milwaukee Yiddish poet Alter Esselin that was featured in the Chronicle of Nov. 23, 2001.)
I myself have only the barest acquaintance with the language, primarily from having read and loved Leo Rosten’s “The Joys of Yiddish” (1968) when I was a teen. But several recent events, past and coming, may rouse further local interest in Yiddish.
Toward the end of last year, two books came out. Free-lance journalist Miriam Weinstein produced an excellent popular history of the language titled “Yiddish: A Nation of Words” (Steerforth Press).
Jewish communities from Spain to China have created their own versions of local languages. Yiddish became the greatest of them all in geographical spread and in the quantity and quality of literature created in it, much of which remains untranslated.
Yet Yiddish received little respect for much of its history. Not only did anti-Semites throughout its home regions despise it, but many Jews also disliked it.
Most Zionists associated Yiddish with the vulnerability and “passivity” of diaspora Jewish life, while Hebrew was the language of the ancient Jewish independent states. Therefore, they revived Hebrew and waged a bitter war against Yiddish that only in recent years has begun to wind down in Israel.
All this and more is presented clearly and entertainingly in Weinstein’s book. I did not appreciate how amazing is the story of Yiddish until reading it.
Meanwhile, Rosten’s “Joys of Yiddish” has been reissued as “The New Joys of Yiddish” (Crown Publishers) with Rosten’s joke-illuminated text amplified with commentaries by Lawrence Bush, editor of the journal Reconstructionism Today.
Bush’s additions mostly are footnotes and sidebars that explain some of Rosten’s dated references, amplify and update his information, call attention to recent developments like the klezmer revival and occasionally contest Rosten’s presentation of some words, etymologies and concepts.
Bush also nods to Yiddish scholars, who severely criticized “Joys” when it first appeared. Among other things, he distinguishes between Rosten’s transliterations (shmooz) and those blessed by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Studies (shmues).
These two books together provide a splendid introduction to Yiddish for new generations of Jews and non-Jews. But there is even more.
There are Yiddish clubs all over the world, including in Milwaukee (meeting once a month at Congregation Shalom), giving people chances to use and learn more about the language. This April, the International Association of Yiddish Clubs will come to Milwaukee for the first time, holding a conference that will include some 25 presentations on aspects of the language, its history and its culture. (See story in next week’s Chronicle.)
Moreover, Irv Saposnik of Madison, a teacher in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, told The Chronicle that a Yiddish conference is planned to be held at UW-Madison, the state’s largest university, in 2003.
As Yiddish author Isaac Bashevis Singer said in his 1978 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “Yiddish has not yet said its last word” — and certainly not in Wisconsin.
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