Politics of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Literature and Society

by Dov-Ber Kerler (Editor)

Overview

Politics of Yiddish means different things to different people. For some it refers to the various social and political forces that shaped the status and the functional diversification of the language. For others it may be analyzed within the context of personal or even collective love and hate of one’s mother-tongue vis-à-vis the politically “mightier” and “culturally more prestigious” languages. After the Second World War, the post-Holocaust realities forced a complete reconceptualization of Yiddishism as both an ideology and a state of mind. Yet, despite or perhaps because of numerous heated debates for and against Yiddish, and the unabating personal wars within the “Yiddishist” camp itself, the subject of Politics of Yiddish is bound to fascinate many modern historians, sociolinguists, and literary scholars. In the present volume it serves as a general theme for studies devoted to internal and external politics of Yiddish language, literature, ethnography, and scholarship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780585223575
Publisher:	AltaMira Press
Publication date:	01/01/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

University of Oxford

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 On the Politics of Yiddish
Chapter 3 Politics, Ideology, and Scholarship
Chapter 4 Yiddishism and Judaism
Chapter 5 Yiddish language politics in the Ukraine (1930-1936)
Chapter 6 What was going on at the 1935 Yivo Conference?
Chapter 7 The Czernowitz Conference in retrospect
Chapter 8 The politics of research on spoken Yiddish
Chapter 9 Communities, Centres, and Cities
Chapter 10 Yiddish socialist press in New York, 1880s-1920s
Chapter 11 Yiddish in orthodox communities of Jerusalem
Chapter 12 Shloyme Mikhoels and his theatre
Chapter 13 Writers must eat: the New York City Yiddish Writers Group of the Work Progress Administration
Chapter 14 Petticoat Lane and the North-West Passage (London, 1880-1940)
Chapter 15 Art and politics: the case of the New York Artef Theatre (1925-1940)
Chapter 16 Language, Folklore, and Literature
Chapter 17 Zmires Purim—the third phase of Jewish carnavalistic folk-literature
Chapter 18 Dovid Bergelson's Bam Dnieper: a passport to Moscow
Chapter 19 Dovid Holfstein—our first wonder
Chapter 20 The Aston corpus of Soviet Yiddish lexicon
Chapter 21 A Vilna folklorist's collection: Structural analysis of Yiddish riddles
Chapter 22 Mr Khauruchenka, Miss Shaihets, Mrs Hoika and others: the origin of some other unusual family names
Chapter 23 List of contributors

What People are Saying About This

David Goldberg

This volume will introduce students of Yiddish and Jewish Studies to some of the important researchers, issues, and methodological and stylistic approaches in the field, and it will be a useful introductory text for language and culture courses where the teacher wants to extend the students' view beyond basic literary and linguistic material. The professional will find useful additions to a number of familiar discussions and may also find completely unexpected directions of considerable interest and value. The two essays translated from the Yiddish are an important resource and to some may be a revelation. All in all, Politics of Yiddish is a rich sampling of first rate work that extends the field. -- (David Goldberg, Modern Language Association)

Editorial Reviews

Eighteen contributors wax knowledgeably about the language's ideology ("politiks-smolitiks" say some), scholarship, declining linguistic communities, literature, press, riddles, names, and ambivalence evoked by the Jewish and immigrant language of Yiddish. Includes photos of the early Yiddish theater. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

Booknews

This volume will introduce students of Yiddish and Jewish Studies to some of the important researchers, issues, and methodological and stylistic approaches in the field and will be a useful introductory text for language and culture courses where the teacher wants to extend the students' view beyond basic literary and linguistic material. The professional will find useful additions to a number of familiar discussions and may also find completely unexpected directions of considerable interest and value. The two essays translated from the Yiddish are an important resource and to some may be a revelation. All in all, Politics of Yiddish is a rich sampling of first rate work that extends the field.

David Goldberg

The geolinguistic aspects are obvious, especially in terms of preserving the culture 'of our fathers,' government language policies and social developments antithetical to Yiddish, and so on....It is undeniable that Yiddish serves as a busy battleground for liguists with strong opinions and also as a subject for non-Jewish siciolinguists interested in the conflicts between favored and less favored languages growing and others fading in popularity or prestige, etc. The Yinglish if I may call it that, in which this book is now and then written, Yiddish words and expressions popping up with great regularity in a basically English text, is also fascinating. That is still another linguistic phenomenon in which sociolinguists ought to take more interest than they have heretofore done.

Geolinguistics

This volume will introduce students of Yiddish and Jewish Studies to some of the important researchers, issues, and methodological and stylistic approaches in the field and will be a useful introductory text for language and culture courses where the teacher wants to extend the students' view beyond basic literary and linguistic material. The professional will find useful additions to a number of familiar discussions and may also find completely unexpected directions of considerable interest and value. The two essays translated from the Yiddish are an important resource and to some may be a revelation. All in all, Politics of Yiddish is a rich sampling of first rate work that extends the field.--David Goldberg, Modern Language Association

The geolinguistic aspects are obvious, especially in terms of preserving the culture 'of our fathers, ' government language policies and social developments antithetical to Yiddish, and so on....It is undeniable that Yiddish serves as a busy battleground for liguists with strong opinions and also as a subject for non-Jewish siciolinguists interested in the conflicts between favored and less favored languages growing and others fading in popularity or prestige, etc. The Yinglish if I may call it that, in which this book is now and then written, Yiddish words and expressions popping up with great regularity in a basically English text, is also fascinating. That is still another linguistic phenomenon in which sociolinguists ought to take more interest than they have heretofore done.--Geolinguistics, Vol. 25, 1999

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