SOURCE: Goldsmith, Emmanuel S. “The Emergence of Yiddishism” and “The Growth of Yiddishism.” In Architects of Yiddishism at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: A Study in Jewish Cultural History, pp. 45-69, 259-75. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/London: Associated University Presses, 1976.

[In the following essays, Goldsmith traces the emergence, development, and growth of Yiddish literature around the world.]

Alexander Zederbaum (1816-1893), the publisher of the first Hebrew newspaper in Russia, was embarrassed at the thought of publishing a Yiddish newspaper. At first his Hamelitz, which began appearing in 1860, contained only articles in Hebrew and in German in Hebrew characters. When the newspaper failed to sell, however, Zederbaum decided to issue a newspaper in Yiddish that would be called Kol Mevaser, together with Hamelitz. More than any other single factor, Kol Mevaser, which appeared from 1862 to 1871, contributed to the standardization of Yiddish orthography and the development of modern Yiddish literary diction. It marked the emergence of Yiddish as a standard literary tongue.

Kol Mevaser helped establish a mass audience for Yiddish and a Yiddish writing profession. It paved the way for the Yiddish newspapers of the seventies in Rumania, Galicia, England, America, and Palestine. It introduced the Jewish woman to the outside world and helped prepare the Jewish reader for modern literature. Here the earliest Yiddish literary works of Mendele Mokher Seforim (Dos Kleyne Mentshele) and Yitskhok-Yoel Linetsky (Dos Poylishe Yingl) appeared in serialized form. Here, too, a conscious awareness of the national and literary values of Yiddish in modern Jewish life gradually developed.

As a maskil who wanted Russian Jewry to learn Russian and who viewed Hebrew as the only “pure” Jewish tongue, Zederbaum at first saw no particular significance in Yiddish. “We need not wait until scoffers inquire of us,” he wrote in Kol Mevaser. “It is better that we state immediately that our common Yiddish is certainly not to be considered a language because it is corrupt German.”¹ Only practical considerations and the promptings of two friends, S. J. Abramovitsh (Mendele Mokher Seforim) and Y. M. Lifshitz, persuaded him to publish the newspaper. As a result of the financial success of Kol Mevaser and of Lifshitz's arguments on behalf of Yiddish, however, Zederbaum eventually became a defender of the language and wrote that it was idle to believe that Jews would ever be weaned away from it. As an outspoken early Zionist, he even proposed that Yiddish become the national language of the Jews in Palestine.

We do not consider it impossible for the Jargon to eventually develop itself into an independent Jewish language in the way that all languages developed out of earlier ones. Let us imagine that the plan to settle Jews in colonies in Palestine is realized. What language will they be able to use there? They will be unable to transform Hebrew into a language suitable for all purposes. Arabic, which is spoken there, is not easy either. … Therefore the language most suited to their needs is a developed and improved form of the Jargon. Should the Jargon actually be accepted as the national language in Palestine, it would certainly not have to be abandoned and betrayed by us.²

In 1861, Yehoshua Mordecai Lifshitz (1829-1878), the father of Yiddishism and Yiddish lexicography, circulated an essay among the leading maskilim of his day about the significance of Yiddish. Lifshitz was instrumental in getting Mendele as well as Zederbaum to turn to the language. In an essay entitled “The Four Classes,” published in an early issue of Kol Mevaser, he referred to Yiddish as a “completely separate language” and as “our mother tongue.” The education and humanization of Jewry, he contended, could not proceed without Yiddish, and for that reason the refinement and development of the language were necessary.

It is still contested that Yiddish is a corrupt language. I admit to being unable to comprehend how a language in which so many thousands of people live and work can be said to be corrupt. The word “corrupt” applies only to something which was once better and has been spoiled. But where is the proof that other languages were initially better? They all developed, as did our language, from other languages. Why, then, not term them “corrupt”?³

In order to popularize his ideas, Lifshitz wrote a poem for Kol Mevaser entitled “Yudel and Yehudis” about a married couple who personified the Jewish people and the Yiddish language. Here, too, he explained the importance of Yiddish and defended it from its detractors. Lifshitz published another essay in Kol Mevaser, entitled “The German-Jewish Bridge,” in which he attacked linguistic assimilation and viewed Yiddish as the bridge linking the Jewish and European cultures.

Lifshitz compiled the first Yiddish-German, German-Yiddish (1867), Russian-Yiddish (1869), and Yiddish-Russian (1876) dictionaries. He eventually became a virulent anti-Hebraist and, in the introduction to his Yiddish-Russian dictionary, bitterly attacked those who sought to review Hebrew as a modern tongue. His position was symbolic of the conflict between Hebraists and Yiddishists that was emerging at the time and that became more acute in the years that followed.

With the appearance of Kol Mevaser and the success of his story Dos Kleyne Mentshele, which appeared in it in 1864, Mendele Mokher Seforim (1836-1917), who was destined to become the “grandfather” of modern Jewish literature in both Hebrew and Yiddish, decided to write in Yiddish. His motives were shared by many Yiddish writers of the day.

I observed the life of my people and I wished to impart to them Jewish tales in the holy tongue. The bulk of them, however, did not understand this language, but rather spoke Yiddish. What profit accrues to the writer for all his thoughts and all his labors if he does not thereby serve his people? This question … placed me on the horns of a dilemma. In my time, the Yiddish language was a hollow vessel, the work of fools who couldn't talk like human beings. … Our writers, the possessors of the gift of expression, were interested only in the holy tongue and did not care about the people; they looked down their noses contemptuously at Yiddish. If one in ten ever reminded himself of the “accursed tongue” and dared to write something in it, he would hide it behind seven locked doors, he would hide it beneath his holy prayershawl, so that his shame might not be discovered to damage his good name. … How great then was my dilemma when I considered that if I were to embark upon writing in the “shameful!” tongue, my honorable name would be besmirched! … My love for utility, however, conquered my hollow pride and I decided: come what may, I will write in Yiddish, that cast-off daughter—it is time to work for my people. One of my good friends, Yehoshua Mordecai Lifshitz, stood by me and we both began to convince the editor of Hamelitz [the leading Hebrew literary journal of the time] to issue a journal in the language of our people. … Then the peace of God descended upon me and I wrote my first story Dos Kleyne Mentshele.⁴

With the publication of Kol Mevaser, the language controversy between assimilationists, Yiddishists, and Hebraists emerged as an important issue in modern Jewish life. Russian and Polish Jewish assimilationists and their counterparts in other countries actively furthered linguistic assimilation by Jews as a necessary prerequisite to civic and political emancipation. They were also opposed to Hebrew because of its association with Jewish nationalism and to Yiddish because of its low status among non-Jews. Hebraists and Yiddishists, on the other hand, viewed linguistic assimilation as a serious threat to the integrity and continuity of Jewish life. The press and literature of the two languages developed concurrently and the outstanding Hebrew and Yiddish writers were bilingual. Despite differences, Yiddishists and Hebraists stood together against assimilationists and many of them were even sympathetic to each other's aspirations.

An intensive battle against Yiddish in the 1860s was waged by the Polish-Jewish journal Yutshenka, which, in addition to the general ideals of the Haskalah, sought to propagate Polish nationalism and the Polish language among Jews. While discussing the achievements of Yutshenka in the pages of the Hebrew journal Hatsefirah, Hillary Nusbaum, an important contributor to the Polish journal, savagely attacked those who sought to educate the people in Yiddish. It was imperative, he felt, that Polish Jews learn Polish and translate the Bible and Prayer Book into that language. He deplored the fact that Polish Jews spoke what he called “an unfortunate, abandoned and crippled dialect which lacks all structure and represents a mixture of all kinds of tongues.”⁵

Simon Dankovitsh, one of the first modern Jewish nationalists in Warsaw, published an item in Yutshenka in 1862 about the need to collect Jewish proverbs and other folklore, since they reflect the national philosophy of Jewry. He was summarily rebuffed by H. Glatstern, a frequent contributor to the journal. According to Glatstern, the Jews no longer constituted a nation but a religious union. The idea of gathering Jewish proverbs was mere propaganda aimed at strengthening the despised Jargon. When the enlightenment of the masses called for the uprooting of Jargon, Dankovitsh sought to develop its literature. The requirements of archaeological research, he felt, were not worth the damage that buttressing the despised dialect would entail.

When Daniel Nayfeld, editor of Yutshenka, heard of plans to publish a Yiddish weekly in Johannesberg, Prussia, as well as Zederbaum's plans to issue a Yiddish supplement to the Hebrew journal Hamelitz in Odessa, he wrote a vitriolic editorial attacking Yiddish and impugning the motives of those behind the new publications. Unless the new trend were countered, he felt, a Yiddish grammar and dictionary would eventually be published. These would be followed by poetry, drama, and history in the language. The true intent of these publications would not be the enlightenment of the people but the profits of the publishers. “And then our Christian fellow citizens will also be compelled to learn this babble because several hundred thousand people will speak it.”

Would that our words find a response in all hearts which love our homeland, would that our Christian fellow citizens stand on guard and protest every time the sound of this dialect rings in their ears. Would that the public press punish the authors, publishers, distributors and propagandists of books and newspapers of this type because we feel that our efforts will not be realized soon enough without the assistance of our Christian brothers.⁶

The Emancipation Act granting Polish Jews civic equality was promulgated on June 5, 1862. The seventh point of that Act, which forbade Jews to use Hebrew or Yiddish in legal documents, was hailed in Yutshenka as an opportunity for Jews to learn to speak and write Polish. Zederbaum attacked the point as an insult to his people but Nayfeld took the opportunity to berate Yiddish once again. “Down with filth, spiderwebs, Jargon and every kind of refuse!” he wrote. “We need a broom, a broom!”⁷

The appearance of Kol Mevaser signaled a new turning inward among Russian and, later, Polish maskilim, which in turn drew strength from the success of the paper, the theoretical arguments of Lifshitz, and the artistic accomplishments of Mendele. The growth of populism among Russian students and intellectuals (Narodniki) in the 1870s also influenced Jewish students and maskilim to acquaint themselves more intimately with their own people and its language and culture.

During the period of political reaction, persecution, and pogroms in the early 1880s, assimilationist ideology was completely shattered.

How long is it [wrote the Russian-Jewish writer, B. Brandt, in 1881] since we did everything we could when walking in the street, riding on a train or sitting in our homes, not to be recognized as Jews. Now we have at last cast off that false shame. We are not even ashamed to speak Jargon because it is the language of the people. Our finest writers in the Russian and Hebrew tongues have even begun to write Jargon of late, in order to be closer to the people and so that the people understand them and derive some benefit from them.⁸

Modern nationalist, populist, and romantic trends emerged in Jewish life and letters toward the end of the decade. Yiddish writers turned to Jewish historical and national themes and many Hebrew and Russian Jewish authors turned to Yiddish. The prestige of Yiddish rose together with the growth of Jewish national sentiment and self-respect. Yiddishist theory evolved together with the developing Yiddish press and literature and with the Jewish political movements that employed Yiddish in order to reach the Jewish masses.

With Sholom Aleichem's literary anthologies, Yidishe Folks-Bibliotek (1888, 1889), and Mordecai Spektor's Hoyz-Fraynd (1888, 1889, 1891, 1895, 1896), the flowering of Yiddish and the renaissance of Yiddish literature in the modern period begin. These literary annuals, edited by two outstanding Yiddish writers, represent the culmination of a process that began with the pogroms in the early 1880s. The growth of the Russian populist movement, the mass emigration to the United States and Argentina, and the rapidly emerging Jewish national consciousness were other factors contributing to this development.

Gradually, the feeling that Yiddish was not a temporary phenomenon, that it had roots in the past as well as the present, began to take hold. Sholom Aleichem and Spektor published works of deceased Yiddish writers that had hitherto been available only in old manuscripts. They brought writers of the older and younger generations together in their annuals, including many who had not written Yiddish for many years. Many Hebrew and Russian-Jewish writers contributed to the anthologies. A new awareness of the possibilities and significance of Yiddish was emerging from these annuals and from the literary creativity that they were stimulating.

Many Jewish intellectuals, however, were appalled by these developments, which smacked of antiquarianism and reaction. In 1889, the celebrated Hebrew poet Y. L. Gordon responded to Sholom Aleichem's invitation to contribute to his Yiddish journal as follows:

You ask for my opinion of the Jargon? If you promise me to distinguish between this question and personalities and between the Jargon literature and its writers, I will openly declare that I have always considered the survival of this dialect in the mouths of our people as the most unfortunate phenomenon of its historic existence. It is the badge of shame of the hounded wanderer and I consider it the duty of every educated Jew to do what he can to see to it that it is gradually erased and vanishes from our midst. It may be tolerated as a necessary evil. It may be used as a means with which to realize the best ideas among our benighted masses. But under no circumstances should one concern himself with its strengthening or flowering. Truth to tell, I am surprised at you. You write Russian well and have a beautiful command of our literary tongue (Hebrew). How then can you devote yourself to the Jargon culture? There is no doubt that you possess a magnificent writing talent. I know that our benighted brothers take delight in your works and it is your right to write in Jargon as much as your heart desires. But it would be a sin for you to educate your children in that language. It would be like compelling them to march down Nevsky Boulevard in undershirts and with their boots sticking out.⁹

The theoretical underpinning of the new Yiddishist trend was supplied by the literary critic, dramatist, and folklorist Joseph Judah Lerner (1847-1907), who wrote extensively in Russian and Hebrew as well as Yiddish. Lerner was a radical Yiddishist who defended the language as a tool of enlightenment and as an essential aspect of the Jewish nationality. He praised the language for its originality and for having absorbed the precision of French, the depth of German, and the rigorousness of English. He believed that only in Yiddish would the Jew be willing to listen to new ideas that would enable him to improve his life. In the renaissance of the language and its literature he perceived the rebirth of Jewry. Yiddish, he said, would endure as long as the Jewish people. In an address delivered in 1889 he said the following:

Three generations back our parents linked the fortune of the Jewish people with the language. They bound both their nationality and their sad experiences to Yiddish so that this threefold cord will never be broken. Our children and the younger generation may be fluent in the language of the country and not even understand Yiddish. Nevertheless, our language will continue to live because it is called Yiddish and is indeed Jewish! It is in the Jargon that one meets the Jewish proverb, the ingenious Jewish stratagem, the clever Jewish notion, the striking Jewish argument, the Jewish sigh. Here one finds the essential Jew. No matter how estranged one may be from the externalities of Judaism, no matter how far his education takes him from Jewish concerns, he remains bound to that which we call the spark of Jewishness. … As long as he loves Jews he will love Yiddish. … If his brethren are close to him, he will not withdraw himself from their language. Who can remove himself from his own unfortunate, powerless people? Who can reject that which his people call “Yiddish” and which they exhibit proudly on the banner of their nationality? … The language has been transformed into the tablets of stone upon which the Jew has engraved his hopes and his national feelings, his very life. … As long as there are Jews they will speak Yiddish. In other words, Jargon will live as long as the Jewish nationality.¹⁰

In attacking those who saw nothing of literary value in Yiddish poetry, Lerner advanced the concept of Yiddish literature as the national literature of Jewry instead of merely a temporary concession to Jewish women and uneducated men. The Yiddish muse, he believed, was endowed with its fair share of God's gracious blessings.

On the green hill where all the muses stand before the throne of glory, the Yiddish muse has an honored place and has been graced with an equal measure of loveliness and beauty. She is not a withered limb but a stream of the source which refreshes the thirsty human heart. She is part of the flame which will burn forever and never be extinguished.¹¹

Yehoshua Hona Ravnitsky (1859-1944), a Hebrew and Yiddish literary critic, was also extremely sympathetic to the new developments. In 1882, Ravnitsky wrote that the Jewish people and the Yiddish language shared the same fate. While the nations refused to recognize the Jews as a nation, the Jews refused to recognize Yiddish as a language.¹² As we shall see, this idea was later developed by Chaim Zhitlovsky, the principal exponent of Yiddishism. Ravnitsky's viewpoint was that Yiddish literature was primarily a means of raising the cultural level of the masses. He attacked his fellow Hebraists who refused to acknowledge that fact.

Hebrew is precious and ever so sacred. But what should the thousands of our poor brethren and the hundreds of thousands of our sisters, the mothers of our children, who do not understand that language, do? Why is it that when Hebrew writers sometimes write in Russian, German, etc., no interpretations are attached to their actions, while the unfortunate stepchild, the Jargon, arouses the envy of all. When it opens its mouth to speak, it is accused of wanting to swallow the world!¹³

Ravnitsky also wrote that, in addition to the functional desirability of Yiddish, “Jewish life can in no language be depicted as correctly as in the Jewish folk tongue, in Jargon which is spoken by several million Jews.”¹⁴

Ravnitsky viewed Hebrew as the only national language of Jewry and took issue with the militant Yiddishists among his colleagues in the Zionist camp, whom he considered “folkists” rather than true nationalists. But he also opposed the anti-Yiddishists, whom he accused of being blind to the historical and practical significance of the folk tongue that they jeered at as the “language of the exile.”

There is nothing [he wrote in 1903] which angers me more than this epithet which is used by so many and particularly by our young nationalist and Zionist maskilim who know Hebrew. Consider how this language which our parents and ancestors spoke for several hundred years (not just one party or Jewish sect but all sections of the people from the smallest to the greatest, the masses as well as the great rabbis, the poor and the wealthy)—this language in which the people thought, laughed, sighed and cried for such a long time, which comprises part of its soul and clearly bears the stamp of its unique spirit; consider how they frivolously come to abolish it, degrade it, defame it and turn it into a rag which the Hebrews wore during medieval times. Such a language they seek to consciously erase and destroy? … The language of the Exile! But what are we and what is our life? Are not our people in the Diaspora children of the Exile and is not their life the life of the Exile? I am unable to comprehend what is meant by an ugly and disgusting language. If an untalented writer writes Jargon and what he writes is unacceptable, it would be just as unacceptable if he wrote Hebrew. … But that is not the case when a writer like Mendele or even a writer of modest talent writes Jargon. Jargon—corrupt German! But English, too, was once like this corrupt language, this patois. … If we carefully dissect and analyze this animosity to Jargon we find that it contains a variety of elements: elements of the old Haskalah spirit which, because it sought to accommodate itself to European tongues, detested the language as a symbol of ignorance; elements of the aristocratic spirit which snubbed the language and attempted to retreat from the “ugliness” and separate itself from the small oppressed community with its hovels and cellars of benighted masses with faltering, earthy speech … and other such alien elements. All of this is unconscious, of course. Consciously they try to justify their opposition on flimsy “nationalist” grounds. On the basis of such noble considerations they proclaim: Rid yourselves of the Jargon! It is a disgusting, contemptible, revolting abomination which must be destroyed … !¹⁵

The Jewish historian Simon Dubnow (1860-1941), who also wrote literary criticism in Russian for the Russian Jewish journal Voskhod, became another defender of Yiddish during this period. Dubnow's attitude toward Yiddish was of particular significance because of the influence of his ideas of Jewish national and cultural autonomy in the Diaspora. Dubnow believed that despite emancipation, the national characteristics of Jewry could be preserved in the Diaspora by means of democratic Jewish self-government within the framework of multinational states. These ideas, which influenced all shades of Jewish nationalist thought, served as the basis of the Russian Jewish Folkspartey, which was formed in 1906, and of the Polish Jewish Folkspartey, organized during the First World War.

As late as 1886, in the course of a review of a book of Yiddish poems (Sikhas Khulin) that the anti-Yiddish Hebrew poet, Y. L. Gordon, had grudgingly consented to have published, Dubnow wrote:

The right of the Jewish Jargon to literature and to poetry in particular has always appeared questionable to me. In order to be a literary language, Jargon must first of all become a language with an established grammar and phraseology which are not in dispute. Jargon does not fulfill these requirements. There is something awkward and laughable about the Jargon language. It is suited to a very limited group of concepts.¹⁶

Only two years later, however, as a result of the literary renaissance engendered by the publications of Mordecai Spektor and Sholom Aleichem, Dubnow radically altered his position.

Before our eyes a transition which makes us rejoice is taking place in the Jargon literature from flimsy primitive works which the masses were given of necessity, to serious works which stimulate thought and convey a fertile refreshing stream to the popular mind. We see very promising beginnings in the Jargon literature of serious period fiction. We see talented authors who are coming forth with spirit. We notice the rise of a periodical press which satisfies the needs of a specific section of the reading public. We are witnesses to a folk literature in the process of organization which is filled with a variety of sincere efforts and which appreciates the responsibilities and needs of the modern age. What makes Yiddish worse than Bulgarian or than the minor Slavic, Germanic or Romance dialects which no one denies the right to possess literatures? Is the number of Jews who speak Jargon smaller than the number of Czechs and Bulgarians who have their own literatures (there are about 3 million Czechs and 2 million Bulgarians)? … Jargon is more suited to the depiction of Jewish life than Russian or Hebrew.¹⁷

In his influential Letters on Old and New Judaism, which originally appeared in Voskhod between 1897 and 1907, Dubnow compared the Jewish people to a cripple with one natural leg (Hebrew) and one artificial leg (Yiddish). The Jewish people had stood and survived on those two legs for many generations. The linguistic dualism of Hebrew and Yiddish was similar to that of Hebrew and Aramaic in former generations. “Do those nationalists who affirm the Diaspora wish to remove the artificial leg, which for some time now, has gained the strength of a natural leg? Do they not wish to use it in order to gain a firmer foothold in our national life?”

Among the forces which are the basis of our autonomy in the Diaspora, I also set aside a place for the powerful force of the folk language used by seven million Jews in Russia and Galicia which, for several generations, now fulfills the function of a spoken language of instruction in the school (the heder and yeshiva), and to an appreciable degree also a language of literature. … Let our relation to the “Jargon” or, more correctly to Yiddish, be what it may, we dare not abandon one of the foundations of our national unity in the very hour that the languages of the peoples around us rob our people of thousands and tens of thousands of its sons, so that they no longer understand the language used by their parents. We must not destroy with our hands the power of our folk language to compete with the foreign languages, which lead to assimilation. Such destruction would amount to suicide. There being no hope of converting our ancient national tongue into the living and daily spoken language in the Diaspora, we would be committing a transgression against our national soul if we did not make use in our war against assimilation of the great counter-force stored up in the language of the people. … When the language problem is posed in all its ramifications and when it is clarified not from the viewpoint of one party or of one literary clique or another, but from the general national viewpoint, then there will be no place for errors in this matter. Insofar as we recognize the merit of national existence in the Diaspora, we must also recognize the merit of Yiddish as one of the instruments of autonomy, together with Hebrew and the other factors of our culture.¹⁸

The appearance of Sholom Aleichem's Folks-Bibliotek gave rise to a significant series of articles on the language question in the Hebrew journal Hamelitz in 1889.¹⁹ E. L. Levinsky, a leading Zionist publicist, wrote that the revival of Yiddish was artificial and misleading. The days of the language were numbered. He recognized that the language had fulfilled an important function for hundreds of years and had been hallowed in the eyes of the people. But with the growth of a significant literature in the language, the danger that it might supplant Hebrew was very real. Levinsky attacked the contributors to the Folks-Bibliotek, most of whom were Hebrew writers, as traitors to Hebrew. They had gone over to Yiddish solely for the substantial fees that Sholom Aleichem was paying for contributions to his journal. Hebrew, on the other hand, was in a sorrowful plight, abandoned by its erstwhile devotees.²⁰

The deep affection of the genial Yiddish humorist Solomon Rabinovich (Sholom Aleichem, 1859-1916) for both Yiddish and Hebrew remained constant throughout his life.²¹ He responded sympathetically to Levinsky, for he too was moved by the plight of Hebrew. He assured Levinsky, however, that the bond that existed between the editor of the Folks-Bibliotek and its contributors was deeper and nobler than Levinsky had realized. What Levinsky termed an artificially induced renaissance of Yiddish was actually, according to Sholom Aleichem, an expression of the awakening of the Jewish national spirit. The Yiddish writers were serving the best interests of the Jewish people as a whole. The future of Yiddish was not necessarily bleak and, in any event, the needs of the present indicated its usage.

Every objective person will have to admit that the revival of Jargon is the best proof of the fact that the self-awareness of the Jewish people is growing. The success of Yiddish attests to our writing not for a handful of elite individuals but for an entire people. The people understands us. Our ideas and opinions penetrate the hearts of our brothers. What more need we ask?²²

Ravnitsky added his voice to the discussion. Levinsky, he believed, had misunderstood the intentions of the “handmaid” that was Yiddish. She sought not to replace her “mistress,” but to serve her. Yiddish would bring the masses closer to their writers, educate them, and make them more receptive to Hebrew as well.²³

Levinsky renewed his attack in several additional articles in Hamelitz. He impugned the motives of the Yiddish writers, pointing out that most of the contributions to the Folks-Bibliotek were beyond the comprehension and appreciation of the masses. The Yiddish literati were, in fact, interested not in the common man but in his language, in Yiddish itself. In the past, even the masses had used Hebrew in their letters and for business purposes. Hebrew usage was the true yardstick of Jewish independence and its replacement by Yiddish was a sign of the weakening of that independence. The notion that Yiddish would inspire Jewish national consciousness was false. It was the reverse of that proposition that was nearer to the truth.²⁴

The publicist Yehuda Leyb Gamzu took issue with another contention of Levinsky, namely, that modern Yiddish literature sought to replace the traditional religious literature in Yiddish that was still read by the masses. According to Gamzu, the traditional ethical tracts and the collections of talmudic legends had long been abandoned for the sentimental pulp novels that were primarily historical romances bereft of aesthetic taste, ethical value, and Jewish content. It was the latter that Sholom Aleichem's Folks-Bibliotek sought to replace with good literature that could offer the people authentic knowledge of its own past.²⁵ In 1888 Sholom Aleichem had actually published a ferocious attack against the leading Yiddish pulp novelist, Nakhum-Meyer Shaykevitsh (Shomer).²⁶

Ravnitsky supported Sholom Aleichem in still another article. He argued that it was not language but the purposes and goals that writers took upon themselves that were of primary importance in a literature. The future belonged not to the writers of one or the other language, but to those who wrote well. The demise of Yiddish would not benefit Hebrew and could only harm those Jews who knew no other language.²⁷

Sholom Aleichem had planned to publish a Yiddish translation of Heinrich Graetz's History of the Jews. Shlomo Skomorovsky, one of Sholom Aleichem's colleagues, wrote to Graetz for permission but was refused. In his reply Graetz gave expression to his negative feelings toward Yiddish and Yiddish literature. Skomorovsky presented his own views of the matter in an article in Hamelitz reviewing the correspondence.

Yiddish is the language of 3,000,000 Jews, writing for whom is a privilege for any author. Yiddish is an instrument with which knowledge may be spread among the masses in order to raise their cultural level. Graetz's opposition to Yiddish is attributable to his having been raised in Western Europe where Yiddish has lost its significance for the Jewish community. If he saw what great success Sholom Aleichem's publication is having among the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe, he would certainly alter his opinion and say: Congratulations, wonderful author, on your works in the field of Jargon!²⁸

In 1899, Der Yid, a Zionist bi-weekly in Yiddish edited by Ravnitsky, was published in Cracow. With its twenty-first issue, the journal became a weekly under the editorship of Joseph Luria (1871-1937), who made it the outstanding Yiddish publication in the world. The leading Yiddish writers contributed to it and Sholem Asch made his debut in it. Luria was one of several leading Zionists who may be considered militant Yiddishists, although he later turned to Hebrew exclusively. On several occasions he opposed the official negative attitude of the movement toward the language. “The people,” he once said, “is more nationalistic in Jargon than in Hebrew.”²⁹ Luria believed that both from the standpoint of Jewish nationhood and Jewish culture, Yiddish was valuable in its own right. He felt that it merited being treated as more than merely a means of propaganda and argued on behalf of its literary development. He even proposed that Yiddish be used as the language of instruction in modern Jewish elementary and secondary schools.³⁰

In the Jargon, the Jewish people has invested part of its soul. It is not without reason that the Jewish people considers the language its own, loves it and feels insulted when true and false intellectuals are ashamed of it and estrange themselves from it.³¹

In 1900 Simon Bernfeld, a well-known Hebrew scholar and author, published an article in Der Yid entitled “The People and Its Intelligentsia,” in which he advocated closer ties between the two groups through the medium of the Yiddish language. Yiddish, he believed, could be of great assistance to the national movement.³² Bernfeld's article was an indirect response to an anti-Yiddish article by Ahad Haam that had appeared earlier in the same publication. As we shall see, Ahad Haam's attack was countered directly in the Hebrew periodical Heatid by the young scholar Matisyohu Mieses, who was to play an important role in the Czernowitz Conference.

A number of important articles exploring the language controversy from a variety of viewpoints were published in Di Velt, an official Zionist weekly in Yiddish founded by Theodor Herzl in Vienna in 1900. One of the participants in the discussion was the Hebrew writer Yitzhak Lubetsky, who, in a series of articles entitled “Concerning a Museum,” attacked the attitude of the maskilim and the Zionists, Ahad Haam included, toward the language of the folk.

In spite of all that has happened, the enlightened and awakened Jews are still up to their necks in the period of self-deprecation. They hate and despise everything obviously Jewish that lacks an archaic mark of mummification, or the scent of the graveyard. An example of this is the attitude of our so-called maskilim to the Jargon. … Its spirit makes it even closer to us than the sacred tongue. The little that has remained with us of the ancient Hebraic and Talmudic spirit we have incorporated in Jargon. That which was not included has been lost to us in spite of our having received a basically Hebraic-Talmudic education. From the point of view of habit and experience, it is clear that ninety per cent of the Jewish masses have ever since childhood become accustomed to the sounds of Jargon which rouse every Jewish heart that has been uprooted and estranged from Jewry. Jargon is an aspect of the life and soul of the Jewish people.³³

A significant statement explaining Zionist and Hebraist sympathy to Yiddish was made by the Hebrew writer Mordecai ben Hillel Hakohen in 1903:

Without being convinced of the great value of Jargon, we cannot deny that our people created this language and imbued it with both the spirit of its ancient language and their own spirit. Within this language which is basically alien we find many sparks of the light of Israel and rays of its national soul. … There is therefore no ground for prophetic writers in the Jewish camp to avoid Jargon which is spoken by most of our people. Only by means of the Jargon can we understand the internal life of the Jewish masses which are hidden from the eyes of foreigners. As long as we do not understand Jargon, we will not feel the pulsebeat of the masses or train our ears to hear the whisper of the strings and the tunes which quietly waft towards us from the lips of the masses when they address us or each other. Nor will we have the real key to the sealed garden, to the people's heart.³⁴

Max Nordau, Herzl's colleague and an outstanding figure in the history of Zionism, was also a sincere devotee of Yiddish. “To feel ashamed of the Yiddish language,” he once wrote, “is to be guilty of anti-Semitism.”³⁵

The distinguished Hebrew writer Mikha Yosef Berdichevsky (1865-1921) was the most eloquent expositor in both Hebrew and Yiddish about the respective functions of the two languages and their literatures in Jewish life. He saw Hebrew as the language of the book and of the traditional heritage and Yiddish as the language of daily life and ordinary experience in the present. In Hebrew were contained the values of the Jewish past and the products of the great geniuses of Jewish thought, whereas in Yiddish the common people had created a vessel for their own spirit.

The Yiddish language is indeed taken from foreign soil and drawn from another spring. But it is ours, it has become part of us. It became ours when it ceased being German and became Jewish. It is not roots and words or nouns and verbs which create a language but declensions and usages, conjugations and compound forms, and the way Jews use them orally and psychologically. The Yiddish language, attached as it is to the soul of the simple masses and delimiting as it does their national and intellectual boundaries, is purely Jewish. In it is expressed and revealed the soul of a people which although removed from books was nevertheless raised in an atmosphere of books, of Torah and of mitzvot. Yiddish is a hybrid, a combination of parts, and yet a single creation. Its grammar book consists of the winding corridors and rooms of the folk spirit. The Hebrew portion of the Yiddish language, too, is no longer purely Hebraic but has become part and parcel of Yiddish. … If we lacked the popular stories of the leading Yiddish folk writers (a portion of Mendele and all of Sholom Aleichem) we would be missing a whole world, a Mishneh Torah of the soul of the common people in their own language and their own spirit.³⁶

With the mass immigration of Jews to England and the United States in the eighties and nineties, came the flourishing of Yiddish literature, press, and theater. For the first time, modern Yiddish culture was able to develop without religious or governmental restrictions. Yiddish became the vehicle for the propagation of various shades of socialism, anarchism, and nationalism among the immigrants.³⁷ The first document of Yiddishism in the United States was Di Yidish-Daytshe Shprakh, which appeared in a New York Yiddish newspaper in 1886 and as a separate brochure in 1887. Written by the distinguished linguist and lexicographer Alexander Harkavy (1863-1939), it attempted to prove that Yiddish was a language like all others by describing its principal characteristics.³⁸ In 1889, a group of Yiddish writers in New York attempted to establish a Society of Literati (Literatn-Fareyn) for “the improvement of the Jargon literature in spiritual attitude and external form.”³⁹ In 1899, Professor Leo Wiener of Harvard University, who had translated a volume of Yiddish poems by Morris Rosenfeld that became a best seller, published Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century, the first history of Yiddish literature in any language.

The 1890s also saw an upsurge of Yiddish literary creativity in Europe as well as a deepening interest in the gathering and publication of Yiddish folklore materials. Both trends, as we shall see, were associated with the figure of Y. L. Peretz, the “father” of modern Yiddish literature.⁴⁰

The phenomenal growth of Yiddish journalism in Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century was spearheaded by the first European Yiddish daily, Der Fraynd, which commenced publication in St. Petersburg in 1903. This newspaper, which was originally pro-Zionist and neutral with regard to Yiddish, gradually veered toward the radical and revolutionary movements and an outspoken Yiddishism. In the United States, where Yiddish dailies had been published since the 1880s, Yiddish journalism had developed into a tremendous social and cultural force.⁴¹ Yiddish newspapers and magazines representing the full gamut of Jewish life were appearing in almost every Jewish settlement on both sides of the Atlantic at the beginning of the century.

A number of outstanding Yiddish writers championed the cause of the language at the beginning of the twentieth century. Abraham Reisen (1876-1953), who was active as an editor and publisher as well as a poet and short story writer, launched a campaign for the recognition of Yiddish as a “national language” of Jewry as early as 1900.⁴²

Baal Makhshoves (Isadore Elyashev, 1873-1924), the most important Yiddish literary critic of the period and an outstanding Zionist publicist, contributed greatly to the growing awareness of the significance of the language. He stressed the value of Yiddish in transmitting new concepts and ideas to the people and in reflecting their inner life and thus enabling them to better understand themselves. Yiddish had become important in effecting a reconciliation between the masses and the intellectuals who had become estranged from the life of their people and were unable to truly comprehend its life.

Those who comfort themselves with the thought that the Jargon is only a temporary means to an end, and one which we will some day rid ourselves of, are in error. A language is not something one bandies about like a shoemaker's awl. History demonstrates more than once how a means may eventually become a primary end. …

A language is a living thing which grows together with the soul of a people. It is enriched when the souls of the people who speak it are enriched. It is a vessel which protects each drop. Everything which previous generations invested in it is protected as if in a lime-pit or a well which rainwater cannot penetrate. It is like a balloon which can be constantly stretched to contain new treasures of human art and thought, and nuances of color, sound and feeling. It is like a layer of skin which surrounds the soul of people who speak it and think in it. It is completely saturated with the spirit of its people from whom it cannot be parted.

The opponents of Jargon who use it temporarily in order to educate the people argue that it is not a language, that it is a horrible misfortune, a demon, a plague foisted upon us by the Exile. It is difficult to debate such opponents. Let them argue as they will. One can only advise them to leaf through the works of Mendele, Peretz, Sholom Aleichem and others; and to penetrate the spirit of Jargon which resounds in the streets and synagogues, in the factories and shops, at weddings, births, parties and funerals, in times of difficulty and sorrow, in minutes of anger, fear, worry and tragedy. Then perhaps the debate may be ended and in the manner to which we alluded above.

The Jargon is a language. Although it is the language of a people driven from its home, it is still a language. As long as we are a people in Exile, we will not divest ourselves of it for it is perfectly suited to our needs.⁴³

At the turn of the century Yiddishism also found eloquent expression in writings by Jews in other languages. In England, for example, the successful Anglo-Jewish writer, Israel Zangwill, was doing much to improve the attitude of British Jewry to Yiddish.⁴⁴ In Germany, Richard Loewe, a Germanics scholar, published an important article in a German Jewish journal in 1904 in which he analyzed the hostility toward Yiddish of his fellow German Jews. In it he wrote:

The antipathy of the Christian European environment to the Jews evoked anti-Semitism on the part of the Jews themselves and the detestation which this environment cultivated towards the language of the Jews also became part of the Jews. It is noteworthy that even in the circles where Jewish identity has been reawakened, this hatred toward the Jargon (as the East European Jew himself refers to the language) continues. Even good Jewish nationalists hold their education responsible for their exchanging their “corrupt” language (so they view their Yiddish) for Russian, Polish, Hungarian or Romanian. It is obvious that this is against the interests of the Jewish people. For as long as Hebrew is unable to replace Yiddish, the latter represents our national tongue. The adoption of the vernaculars of our environments which become our family tongues as we abandon Yiddish betokens the complete triumph of assimilation which may place our future generations in a most difficult national situation.⁴⁵

Concurrent with these stirrings among the scholars and literati, a number of political developments in Jewish life furthered the evolution of Yiddishist sentiment. The Jewish socialist movement, Zionism, and the rebirth of modern Hebrew language and culture that attended it, as well as the struggle for Jewish national rights in Eastern Europe, were all important factors in the development of the Yiddish language and culture in modern times. Consequently, they also contributed to the emergence of Yiddishism. It is to these significant developments that we now turn.

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The emergence of Yiddish as a major factor in Jewish life at the beginning of the twentieth century actually resulted from the confluence of five major forces:

• (1) the growing awareness that the tongue of the East European Jewish masses had developed from a vernacular dialect and corrupt “jargon” to a language of national significance and literary status;
• (2) the large measure of success that the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment movement, had achieved in secularizing and modernizing Jewish life in the nineteenth century;
• (3) the spirit of modern nationalism that was gradually pervading all Jewish parties and movements;
• (4) the growing Jewish working class and the development of the Jewish socialist and revolutionary movements; and
• (5) the flowering of modern Yiddish culture (press, theater, literature, and education).

The arguments that the devotees of Yiddish set forth as the basis for its official recognition by the Jewish people at the beginning of the twentieth century were not unlike those which had been used by the champions of the various Western European vernaculars in the Middle Ages. In 1550, for example, Joachim Du Bellay, in his La Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse, urged the recognition of French and expressed the hope that it might one day equal Greek and Latin. According to Du Bellay, French did not deserve to be called a “barbarian” tongue. While explaining why French was not so rich as the Classical tongues, he also tried to prove that it was not so impoverished as some thought.⁴⁶ The philosopher Johann Gottfried Von Herder (1744-1803), associated with the German romantic movement, believed that language was the essential attribute of each Volk, the fundamental expression of the national soul. He considered it “the organ of social activity and cooperation … the bond of social classes and a means for their integration.”⁴⁷ Similar arguments were used by the leading Yiddishists, but what was a gradual evolutionary process lasting several centuries for the languages of Europe was a radical revolutionary development over a few short decades for Yiddish.

In their attempts to modernize East European Jewry, the Russian and Galician maskilim had discovered that the linguistic program of their predecessors in Germany was ineffective, simplistic, and self-defeating. That program consisted primarily of getting the Jews to adopt the national languages of their respective countries as their own vernaculars. Gradually, the East European maskilim came to an awareness of the fact that only through the medium of the despised “Jargon” could their message reach the masses. Thus, along with Hebrew, Yiddish became a vehicle of Europeanization and secularization among the Jews of Eastern Europe. In turn, it gradually grew in stature and significance among the intellectuals as well as the masses. The success of the Haskalah contributed immeasurably to the emergence of Yiddish as an important cultural factor.

The awareness of the significance of national languages is essentially a product of the growth of modern nationalism. Before the age of nationalism, people were scarcely conscious of the fact that the same language was spoken in a particular territory. Language was rarely stressed as a significant factor in the life of a society.⁴⁸ The attitude of the revolutionary government in France immediately following the Revolution adumbrates the emergence of national languages in many countries. At first it translated official decrees into the minority languages of France and the use of those languages was encouraged. Later, however, the policy was reversed, with the justification that French would become the official language, since it was the language of liberty. “Meanwhile,” said the revolutionaries, “let French become the language of all Frenchmen.”⁴⁹

In modern times, imperialistic nations sought to use national and uniform languages to consolidate their empires while oppressed minorities often linked their struggles for self-determination and sovereignty to their own tongues. At the beginning of the twentieth century, many minorities, including those of the Russian and Austrian empires, were asserting themselves and stressing the values of their own national languages and cultures. Yiddish is not unique in this respect. Its achievements are similar to those of Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukranian, Flemish, Icelandic, and Scottish-Gaelic.⁵⁰ A number of little-known, or dormant, languages developed vigorous and diversified poetry and prose in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, largely as a result of modern nationalism.

Since Jews are linked by many ties, the most important of which is an indigenous religion, language was never a factor of major significance in Jewish life. The modern Jewish political movements began to assert the importance of language on the model of other modern nations. In addition, with the diminishing importance of religion, other factors unifying Jewry had to be emphasized. Hebrew and Yiddish both became factors in the growth of Jewish nationalism which, in turn, increased the significance attached to them.

The growth of the Jewish working class and its gradual modernization made the tongue of the masses the inevitable tool of Jewish socialist and revolutionary movements. As the workers and socialists gradually absorbed the nationalistic mood of the times, and as they met with the opposition to Jewish individuality of their European counterparts, Yiddish became more and more important. For many Jewish workers, Yiddish became the major if not the only distinguishing characteristic of Jewish nationality.

The phenomenal rise of Yiddish literature and the growth of the Yiddish press, theater, and educational trends increased the significance of the language in the twentieth century. Yiddish literature attracted many of the leading literary talents of the Hebrew and Russian press. The works of Mendele, Sholom Aleichem, Peretz, Asch, Pinski, Reisen, Leivick, and other writers became classics of the Jewish heritage, which made the language in which they were written more significant than ever. Yiddish became a valuable expression of Jewish identity for a significant segment of East European Jewry, and one of the most powerful forces linking it to the Jewish people and its historic destiny. Yiddish literature mirrored the diversity and variety of Jewish life and the international character of the Jewish people. By and large, Yiddish literature managed to avoid the pessimism, nihilism, and brutality of much of modern Western literature. It faithfully reflected the traditional values and ethical emphases of Jewish civilization. It strengthened the Jewish will to live and the Jew's commitment to a better future for his people and for mankind as a whole.

The bitter controversy between Yiddishists and Hebraists, despite some of its narrower manifestations, was a sign of the vitality of the Jewish people as it entered the world of the twentieth century. The struggle, symbolizing as it did conflicting interpretations of Jewish history and destiny, unlocked many powers that had been dormant in Jewry for centuries. The major Hebrew and Yiddish writers were bilingual. Their work in one language deepened and enriched their work in the other. Such conflicts have proved to be fruitful many times in history. We may recall that Dante wrote his defense of Italian, De Vulgari Eloquentia, in Latin, and that while he composed “The Divine Comedy” in Italian, he wrote his reflections on politics in the classical tongue.

In the struggle for supremacy between Hebrew and Yiddish, partisans of Hebrew failed to realize that no tongue is “pure,” as no nation or race is “pure,” with the possible exception of minor primitive tribes and their languages.⁵¹ The pleas for special recognition of their favored tongues by Hebraists and Yiddishists frequently sounded like the prayer of the eighteenth-century Russian poet-physicist Michael Lomonosov.

Lord of many languages, the Russian tongue is far superior to all those of Europe, not only by the extent of the countries where it is dominant, but also by its own comprehensiveness and richness. Charles the Fifth, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, said that one ought to speak Spanish to the Deity, French to one's friends, German to one's enemies, and Italian to the fair sex. But had he been acquainted with Russian, he would assuredly have added that one could speak it with each and all; he would have discovered in it the majesty of Spanish, the vivacity of French, the strength of German, the sweetness of Italian, and, in addition, energetic conciseness in its imagery, together with the richness of Greek and Latin.⁵²

Yiddishism scored its greatest triumphs and became a leading force in Jewish life during the first several decades of the twentieth century. It drew its basic strength from the fact that, at the turn of the century, Yiddish was spoken by three out of every four Jews in the world.⁵³ The Yiddish press was the chief medium of enlightenment and entertainment for millions of Jews, their primary source of information and interpretation of Jewish and general life. Yiddish theater and literature were unrivaled as the basic cultural fare of the vast majority of Jews. Yiddish was the language of instruction in the overwhelming majority of tradition-oriented Jewish schools and in the newly emerging Jewish secularist school systems that resulted from the alliance of Yiddishism and the various Jewish political parties. Yiddish culture was also winning the recognition of West European Jews and even of non-Jews who appreciated its authenticity and artistic excellence.

Yiddishism was essentially an ideological movement with a mystique, theory, and program of its own. The ideology of Yiddishism fired the Jewish people's imagination with a new interpretation of Jewish history and destiny. It stimulated the Jew's will to live and his determination to survive as a Jew. It aroused creative potentialities and artistic impulses within Jewry, engendering a cultural renaissance of magnitude and significance. Yiddishism, together with its counterpart, Hebraism, spelled the cultural rebirth of the Jewish people in modern times.

The mystique of Yiddishism derived not only from the unprecedented flowering of Yiddish language and culture. It stemmed principally from the fact that Yiddishism represented the serious attempt of a major portion of Jewry to confront itself, as well as the world of the twentieth century, as a modern, “normal” nation. In this respect, Yiddishism was the product of forces similar to those which gave rise to the Zionist movement in Western Europe. It set out to relieve the unbearable psychological pressure and tension that the Jew experienced as he emerged from a segregated world of outcasts into the spiritual and mental climate of twentieth-century Europe. It was no accident that the four architects of Yiddishism whose contributions we have surveyed were all modern intellectuals who had undergone the processes of secularization and sociocultural assimilation. Nor was it accidental that the field commanders of the Yiddishist campaigns were largely university students who had suffered humiliation, degradation, and ostracism in the course of their attempts to obtain European education.

The mystique of Yiddishism also drew inspiration from the attitudes of the major groupings within Jewry to the Yiddish language.⁵⁴ The religious traditionalists, who constituted the largest portion of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe, viewed Yiddish as an indispensable aspect of the Jewish way of life. They pointed to the fact that Yiddish had been the language of religious study for countless generations, that it had been employed by the great European rabbis and sanctified by the Hassidic leaders. Conservatism and fear of the secularizing influences of European culture motivated traditionalist opposition to the use of European languages by Jews. The traditionalists were convinced that the abandonment of Yiddish would invariably lead to the abandonment of the religious regimen and ultimately to apostasy. The fact that the Haskalah movement had bitterly opposed Yiddish was enough to raise its esteem in their eyes.

The rising Jewish middle class in Eastern Europe actually looked somewhat favorably upon the development of the Yiddish language and culture. It sought to combine a respectful attitude to both Hebrew and Yiddish with knowledge of the national languages of Europe, which had become indispensable to participation and advancement in general society. The Jewish middle class feared the success of assimilation in destroying the ties of the younger generation with the Jewish community. Secular education had created a generation gap between parents and children and seriously threatened the stability of the Jewish home. The middle-class Jewish family was heartened at the sight of young Jews defending the dignity and rights of Yiddish and taking an interest in the works of the Yiddish writers and dramatists.

The conferment of status upon Yiddish was viewed by the Jewish proletariat as symbolic of its own emergence as an important sector of the Jewish community. Jewish workers saw Yiddish as an integral part of their socialist faith and defended its honor as they did their own. The Yiddish language was the principal sign of their Jewishness and the tie that bound them to world Jewry.

The Zionist movement, like the Jewish socialist parties, made Yiddish the chief instrument of its propaganda throughout the world. Zionist opinion at the beginning of the century was veering away from “the negation of the Diaspora” toward the furtherance of Jewish political and cultural objectives wherever Jews lived. The affirmation of the Diaspora of necessity included a significant role for Yiddish. Despite the language controversy within the Zionist camp itself, it was Zionism which, in fact, did most to advance the status and further the development of Yiddish.

Yiddishist theory was intent upon demonstrating that the Yiddish language was a language like all others, deserving of respect and recognition by the people who used it. It also set out to demonstrate the “normalcy” of Jewry and the inevitability of a future for it on the model of the modern nations of Europe. The two most difficult problems that confronted the Yiddishists and with which they were unable to deal objectively without weakening the basic foundations of Yiddishism, were the phenomenon of Hebrew and the landlessness of the Jewish people.

Yiddishism attempted to solve the problem posed by the Hebrew language by drawing an analogy between Hebrew and Yiddish, on the one hand, and Latin and the modern European languages, on the other.⁵⁵ Just as Latin had been gradually replaced by the national languages of Europe, so Yiddish was destined to replace Hebrew as the dominant national language of Jewry. Moreover, just as the victory of the national vernaculars over Latin had signaled the emancipation of the European nations from medievalism, autocracy, and clericalism, so too would the victory of Yiddish signify the emancipation of the Jewish people in Eastern Europe from bondage to otherworldly superstitions, a medieval communal structure, and a leadership unable to cope with the problems of modern, secular civilization. The victory of Yiddish would spell the victory of Jewish modernism and this-worldliness over antiquarianism and provincialism. It would mean the emancipation of Jewry from the bondage of its own past without the surrendering of its integrity and identity to the nations of Europe.

The landlessness of the Jewish people in Eastern Europe was a much more difficult problem. It emerged as the crucial sociopolitical problem of Jewish life in modern times and began to be resolved only with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Yiddishists were unable to suggest any original solutions to this problem or even to unite among themselves on one of the several solutions suggested by other Jewish groups. In the main, they were divided among themselves on this issue and exhibited the full range of ideological approaches to it that were found in Jewish life as a whole.

The program of Yiddishism involved agitation for the acknowledgment by Jews of Yiddish as the national living language of Jewry and the central factor of Jewish life, and its legal recognition by the international community as the official language of the Jewish people. During the period under discussion, Yiddish became an official language of such significant Jewish international welfare agencies as ORT, OZE, HIAS, the Zionist and Jewish Socialist movements, and all Jewish political parties in Eastern Europe. The distinguished Yiddish poet Abraham Walt Lyessin referred to Hebrew as the national language of Jewry, and Yiddish as its international language.⁵⁶ Yiddishists not only involved themselves in the political struggles for the recognition of Yiddish; they also fought for Jewish national rights and, in the Soviet Union, for Jewish national autonomy.

The Yiddishist program also involved the promotion of cultural institutions such as schools, libraries, literary societies, cooperative publishing houses, theaters, drama clubs, folklore circles, and glee clubs. Yiddishism stimulated the attempts of Jewish writers and artists to raise Yiddish literature and theater to the level of the European nations. It encouraged Yiddish scholars in their attempts to purify and refine Yiddish and develop an academic literature in the language.

The mystique of Yiddishism suffered severe setbacks and began to disintegrate as conditions in Eastern Europe once again demonstrated the anomalous position of Jewry. “Normalcy” might be achieved in the distant future in Palestine, or some other national territory. But, in the meantime, anti-Semitism and social, economic, and political discrimination continued to underscore that Jews were indeed different. As the urge to be like others became more and more impractical and therefore diffuse, and as the essential otherness of the Jewish situation became ever more salient, Yiddishism lost its appeal. Zionism and the increasing growth of Jewish national aspirations and romantic sentiments inevitably turned the eyes of Jewry toward Palestine and Hebrew, and away from the ever-disillusioning Golus and Yiddish.

The mystique of Yiddishism also withered as the various sectors of Jewry that had been staunch supporters of Yiddish turned their backs on the language. The overwhelming majority of traditionalists in lands of immigration who made contact with West European Orthodoxy were impressed with the fact that uncompromising religious observance could be maintained by Jews who spoke European languages and were integrated into Western culture. The realities of linguistic assimilation compelled them to adopt the concept of a Western-style, linguistically assimilated orthodoxy as the one hope of holding on to the younger generation. Only traditionalist fringe groups that remained oblivious to the modern development of Yiddish and to the achievements of modern Yiddish culture remained loyal to the language. The traditionalists feared the materialism, secularism, and atheism of avowed leaders of Yiddishism such as Zhitlovsky and their influence on traditionalist youth.

The fascination of middle-class Jewish youth for Yiddish proved evanescent as more and more of them became integrated into the culture of their lands. They became more proficient in the various national languages of Europe and became imbued with the cultural traditions of the countries in which they lived. The Jewish national sentiments of the bourgeoisie found their basic outlet in Zionist work and aliyah to Palestine.

Even the various socialist groups eventually loosened their ties to Yiddish. Their collaboration with socialist groups of other nationalities in the improvement of economic and political conditions for workers, and in the struggle for socialism, necessitated their adoption of the various national languages. As the Jewish worker sought to advance himself professionally, he found it imperative to learn other languages. In America and other lands, Jewish laborers gradually abandoned the labor movement as they became members of the middle class. This often entailed the abandonment of the proletarian culture with which they associated Yiddish.

The successful Hebraization of Palestine ensured the victory of Hebrew over Yiddish in the Zionist movement and increased Zionism's theoretical loyalty to Hebrew in the Diaspora as well. In actuality, the Zionist apparatus adapted itself to linguistic assimilation in the various Jewish settlements outside of Palestine. As Zionists militantly fostered Hebraic education, they knowingly diminished the chances of Yiddish for survival. Unfortunately, it was the various national languages of Europe and America that reaped the major harvest from Zionism's attempt to replace Yiddish with Hebrew.⁵⁷ The prediction of the Yiddishists in this regard was fully validated.

Yiddishist theory failed to come to grips with the complex nature of the relationship of Jewry to Hebrew, which only superficially resembled that of the European nations to Latin. Unlike Latin, which was the sacred language of Christendom but completely divorced from the national aspirations of the peoples of Europe, Hebrew was the historic national language of Jewry. The national awakening of the European peoples was generally associated with the development of their national tongues. The latter were viewed as symbols of national liberation and freedom from foreign domination. For Jewry, however, the hope of national liberation was expressed in the sacred Hebrew texts, and the national revival of the Jewish people had always been associated with the revival of that language. Moreover, unlike Latin, Hebrew was never reserved exclusively for sacred purposes. It served as a major means of communication between Jews of various lands and was even used as the medium of business transactions among Jews. While knowledge of Latin was restricted to the Catholic hierarchy and clergy, every Jew had some knowledge of Hebrew, both because of the frequency of Hebrew words in Yiddish and because traditional Jewish education and culture were based exclusively on Hebrew and Aramaic texts and their translation into Yiddish. Whereas Catholic laymen were forbidden to study the Bible in any language in the thirteenth century, Jews traditionally spent their leisure hours in societies organized for the study of various parts of the Bible or Talmud.

The inability to unite on any program that would lead toward an ultimate solution of the Jewish territorial question was probably the major factor in the decline of Yiddishism after the First World War. The almost unqualified support that Yiddishists throughout the world gave to Soviet attempts to establish an autonomous Yiddish-speaking region in Birobidjan in the 1920s, even though it entailed the complete submission of Yiddish culture to communist dogma, was the closest that Yiddishists ever came to taking a united stand on the territorial issue. Many Yiddishists were deluded into believing that the temporary blossoming of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union in the twenties augured the salvation of Yiddish culture. The disillusionment of the thirties proved to be another severe blow for Yiddishism. The espousal of Yiddishist radicalism by communists tended to discredit even the positive values of Yiddishism and Yiddish culture.

Despite its successes in the linguistic and cultural fields, Yiddishism was never able to compete with other modern Jewish ideologies because it failed to deal with the full range of issues in Jewish life.⁵⁸ Its concentration on language as the sine qua non of modern Jewish existence, which was essentially the application of an alien norm to Jewish life, blinded Yiddishism to the totality of Jewish civilization and the complexity of Jewish problems. Its association with secularism divorced it from the deepest sources and strivings of Jewry and made it suspect among the many Jews who continued to harbor positive sentiments toward the Jewish religion. Birnbaum, Peretz, and Mieses sensed this, while Zhitlovsky, the principal exponent of Yiddishism, became its worst enemy and helped undercut the relevance of Yiddish culture to Jews and Judaism. It was not until the 1940s and 50s that Yiddishist writers and thinkers such as Leybush Lehrer, Samuel Niger, Solomon Simon, Yisroel Efroykin, Abraham Menes, Yudel Mark, and Abraham Golomb stressed the need for a tradition-oriented, nondogmatic Yiddishism. Unlike Hebraism, which always regarded itself as but one aspect of the total Zionist approach to the Jewish question, and which fostered an attachment to Jewish religious values and sancta, Yiddishism painted itself into a linguistic corner and assumed that the solution of the language problem would automatically solve all of the other ills of Jewish life.

The world of Yiddish culture provided a satisfying form of Jewish association and involvement for millions of Jews during the first half of the twentieth century. Only the ever-accelerating pace of linguistic assimilation and the European holocaust were able to radically diminish its power and influence. The integration of Jewry into the body politic of other nations spelled the end of the process of Jewish language creativity that began in antiquity. The new world in which Jewry found itself after the First World War made the maintenance of cultural differentiation in lands of immigration more and more difficult. The German war against the Jewish people resulted in the destruction of the heartland of Ashkenazic Jewry and of the Jewish communities in which Yiddish language and culture had reached their apogee. The holocaust brought an end to that sector of the Jewish world, without which Yiddish remained bereft of the principal source of its vitality and influence. In the Soviet Union, what Hitler failed to accomplish was achieved by Stalin and his henchmen, who viewed Yiddish and Yiddish culture as embodiments of Jewish separatism and internationalism.⁵⁹

The Yiddishists hit upon several significant truths which, as we have seen, they reiterated continually. However, they did not sufficiently examine them or adjust them to the historic realities and contemporary complexities of the Jewish condition. The Yiddish language, they stated, had emerged from the ghetto and become one of the great pillars of Jewish life, a major factor in the modernization of Jewry and a prominent bulwark against the disintegration and erosion of Jewish loyalty and identity. The recognition and development of Yiddish would ensure the survival and growth of Jewry. The flowering of Yiddish culture would spell both a Jewish renaissance and the victory of Jewish self-respect over self-abasement. It would proclaim the entry of the Jewish people into the world of the twentieth century as a nation like all others, with a significant culture of its own that could make a contribution to mankind.

The Yiddishists simply did not realize that, however significant an attribute a habitually spoken language or “mother tongue” may be to an ethnic group, nationality, or nation, it is neither indispensable nor all-sufficient. Moreover, the notion that a language expresses a national or folk soul is essentially mystical and incapable of rational demonstration.⁶⁰ The Yiddishists were guilty of what may be termed “obsessional thinking,” but theirs was a magnificent obsession—one that brought new dignity, vitality, and beauty to the life of Jewry in our time.⁶¹

What is the legacy of Yiddishism to the Jewish people and to mankind? It is, on the one hand, the awareness of the inestimable value of the Yiddish language and culture as bearers of the millennial religio-cultural and humanistic values of the Jewish tradition for all Jews—American and Israeli, Western and Oriental, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, Orthodox and liberal. Those values include the religious quest and Messianic vision of the Jewish people, its Sabbaths and festivals, its heritage of history, learning, and lore, and its attachment to the land of Israel as the ancestral and reclaimed homeland of Jewry. Yiddish language and literature are keys to the understanding of the East European Jewish experience, the Hassidic and Mussar movements, the rise of Jewish socialism, Zionism and Labor Zionism, the Jewish immigrant experience in the United States, Canada, South America, South Africa, Israel, and other lands, the heroism and martyrdom of Jewry during the Holocaust, and the resettlement and readjustment of the surviving remnant.⁶²

On the other hand, Yiddishism points to a future for all mankind in which ethnic, cultural, or religious differentiation will be viewed as a blessing instead of a curse, when man's gregarious and creative instincts will lead to harmony and mutuality, respect and brotherhood. It may be that ethnic groupings and religious or cultural ideologies recognizing the unity of mankind will one day be called upon to extricate us from the drab uniformity imposed by totalitarian regimes or the conformist tendencies of democratic states. Yiddishism, as an enduring expression of Judaism, portends a time when the earth will be filled with a knowledge of the preciousness of all that fosters and enhances man's humanity, enabling him to transcend himself and bring the world closer to the vision of the prophets and the rabbis.⁶³

Notes

1. Kol Mevaser, no. 5 (Odessa, 1862). Cf. A. R. Malachi, “Der Kol-Mevaser un Zayn Redaktor,” Pinkes Far der Forshung fun der Yidisher Literatur un Prese, ed. S. Bickel (New York, 1965), p. 74. See also M. Mandelman, “Tsum Hundert Yorikn Yubiley fun Kol Mevaser,” Di Tsukunft (January 1963), pp. 24-33.

2. Kol Mevaser, no. 19 (1863). Cf. Z. Reisen, Yidishe Literatur un Yidishe Shprakh, Buenos Aires, 1965, p. 28.

3. Kol Mevaser, no. 21 (1863). Cf. A. R. Malachi, p. 74.

4. Mendele Mokher Seforim, “Shtrikhn tsu Mayn Biografye,” Ale Verk 19 (Warsaw, 1928). p. 164f. Translated in “Introduction” to The Parasite by Mendele Mocher Seforim, trans. from the Yiddish by Gerald Stillman (New York, 1956), pp. 10-11.

5. Hatsefirah, no. 5 (1862). Cf. Zinberg, Di Bli-Tkufeh fun der Haskole (New York, 1966), p. 93.

6. Quoted from Yutshenka, no. 37 (Warsaw, 1862), pp. 291-95 in Zinberg, pp. 97, 99.

7. Quoted from Yutshenka, no. 50 (1862) p. 428 in Zinberg, p. 101. Cf. J. Shatzky, Geshikhte fun Yidn in Varshe (New York, 1948), 2:222f.

8. Yidishe Folks-Bibliotek (Kiev, 1899), 2: 18. Cf. S. Niger in Algemeyne Entsiklopedye, Yidn G. (New York, 1942), p. 115.

9. Quoted in Dos Sholom Aleichem Bukh, ed. Y. D. Berkovits (New York, 1926), p. 183.

10. Quoted in N. B. Minkov, Zeks Yidishe Kritiker (Buenos Aires, 1954), pp. 97-98.

11. Y. Lerner, “Di Yidishe Muze,” Hoyzfraynd (St. Petersburg, 1889), 2:182-98. Cf. Minkov, p. 99.

12. Yidishe Folks-Bibliotek, 2:330. Cf. S. Niger, Bleter Geshikhte fun der Yidisher Literatur (New York, 1959), p. 394.

13. Yidishe Folks-Bibliotek, 2:272. Cf. Niger, p. 395.

14. Y. Ravnitsky, “Hebreyish un Yidish (Zhargon),” Hoyzfraynd, vol. 5 (St. Petersburg, 1896). Cf. Minkov, p. 141.

15. Y. H. Ravnitsky, Dor Vesofrav (Tel Aviv, 1937), 2:188-90.

16. (Voskhod, 1886). Cf. N. Mayzel, Tsurikblikn un Perspektivn (Tel Aviv, 1962), pp. 11f, and his Tsum Hundertstn Geboyrnyor fun Shimon Dubnow (New York, 1961), p. 21.

17. (Voskhod, 1888). Cf. Mayzel, Tsurikblikn un Perspektivn, p. 10 and Tsum Hundertstn Geboyrnyor fun Shimon Dubnow, pp. 22-23.

18. S. Dubnow, Nationalism and History (Philadelphia, 1958), pp. 190-91. See also N. Mayzel, Tsum Hundertstn Geboyrntog fun Shimon Dubnow (New York, 1961); Y. Mark, Shimon Dubnow (New York, 1962); J. Rothenberg, Shimon Dubnow tsu Zayn Hundert Yorikn Geeboyrntog (New York, 1961); S. Goodman, “Simon Dubnow—A Reevaluation,” Commentary (December 1960); R. Mahler, Historiker un Vegvayzer (Tel Aviv, 1967), pp. 68-99; S. Rawidowicz, ed., Sefer Shimon Dubnow (London, 1954); A. Steinberg, ed., Simon Dubnow—The Man and His Work (London, 1961).

19. See G. Kresel, “A Historisher Polemik Vegn der Yidisher Literatur,” Di Goldene Keyt, no. 20 (Tel Aviv, 1954), pp. 338-55.

20. E. L. Levinsky, “Sefat Ever Usefat Yehudit Hameduberet,” Hamelitz, nos. 58, 59 (St. Petersburg, 1889). Cf. Kresel, p. 339.

21. Cf. A. Novershtern, “Sholem Aleichem un Zayn Shtelung tsu der Shprakhn-Frage,” Di Goldene Keyt, no. 74 (Tel Aviv, 1971), pp. 164-88.

22. Sholom Aleichem, “Lisheelat Hasafah,” Hamelitz, no. 80 (1889). Cf. Kresel, pp. 340f.

23. Y. H. Ravnitsky, “Hayesh Tsorekh Basifrut Hazhargohit?” Hamelitz, nos. 96-98 (1889). Cf. Kresel, pp. 342f.

24. E. L. Levinsky, “Hayey Olam Vehayey Shaa,” Hamelitz, nos. 104-6 (1889), and “Yohanan Hasandlar Lefanim Veata,” Hamelitz, no. 113 (1889). Cf. Kresel, pp. 345f.

25. Y. L. Gamzu, “Teshuva Kahalakha,” Hamelitz, no. 119. (1889). Cf. Kresel, pp. 348f.

26. Sholom Aleichem, Shomers Mishpet, Berdichev (1888). See also R. Shomer-Batshelis, Undzer Foter Shomer (New York, 1950).

27. Y. H. Ravnitsky, “Od Bizehut Sifrut Haam,” Hamelitz, nos. 130-31 (1889). Cf. Kresel, pp 350f.

28. S. Skomorovsky, “Eeneh Af Ani Helki,” Hamelitz, no. 133 (1889). Cf. Kresel, p. 352.

29. Quoted by J. Shatzky in Algemeyne Entsiklopedye, Yidn G, p. 229.

30. Y. Luria, “Yidish un Zayn Natsyonaler Batayt,” Fraynd (St. Petersburg, 1906). Cf. S. Rozenhek, “Hebreyish-Yidish,” Di Goldene Keyt, no. 66 (Tel. Aviv. 1969), p. 160.

31. Y. Luria. Cf. Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur (New York, 1963), 5:26.

32. S. Bernfeld, “Dos Folk un di Inteligents,” Der Yid, no. 2 (Cracow, 1900). Cf. Z. Reisen, p. 32.

33. Y. Lubetsky, “Vegn a Muzeum,” Di Velt (Vienna, 1900). Cf. Reisen, pp. 33-34.

34. M. Hakohen, “Sefat Hagalut,” Luah Ahiasaf (5663) (1903). Cf. Kitvey M. Y. Berdichevsky (Tel Aviv, 1960), 2:188.

35. Quoted in J. L. Baron, ed. A Treasury of Jewish Quotations (New York, 1956), p. 558.

36. M. Y. Berdichevsky, pp. 185, 187: See also N. Mayzel, “Der Yidisher Mikha Yosef Berdichevsky,” Yidishe Kultur (November 1965), pp. 18-21; W. Glicksman, “M. Y. Berdichevsky,” Di Zukunft (February 1966), pp. 60-61; S Bickel, Shravber fun Mayn Dor (Tel Aviv, 1970) 3:403-5.

37. See M. Doroshkin, Yiddish in America: Social and Cultural Foundations (Rutherford, N.J., 1969); E. Schulman, Di Geshikhte fun der Yidisher Literatur in Amerike (New York, 1943); K. Marmor, Der Onhoyb fun der Yidisher Literatur in Amerike (New York, 1944).

38. Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur (New York, 1960), 3:82.

39. Reisen, p. 39.

40. Cf. S. Niger, Dertseylers un Romanistn (New York, 1946), pp. 106f.

41. See M. Soltes, The Yiddish Press: An Americanizing Agency (Philadelphia, 1925).

42. Z. Reisen, pp. 35f. On Abraham Reisen see also S. Slutsky, Abraham Reisen—Bibliografye (New York, 1956); A. Reisen, Lider, Dertseylungen, Zikhroynes, ed., S. Rozhanski (Buenos Aires, 1966); J. Botoshansky, Ophandlungen yn Rayze Ayndrukn (Buenos Aires, 1967); S. Bickel, Shrayber fun Mayn Dor, vol. 1 (New York, 1958); L. Domankevitsh, Fun Aktueln un Eybikin (Paris, 1954); J. Glatstein, In Tokh Genumen, vol. 1 (New York, 1947), vol. 2 (New York, 1956); M. Joffe, Ringen in der Keyt (New York, 1939); N. B. Minkov, Yidishe Klasiker Poetn (New York, 1937); S. Niger, Yidishe Shrayber in Tsvantsikstn Yorhundert, vol. 1 (New York, 1972); M. Olgin, In der Velt fun Gezangen (New York, 1919); J. Pat, Shmuesn mit Yidishe Shrayber (New York, 1954); B. Rivkin, Yidishe Dikhter in Amerike, vol. 1 (New York, 1947); B. Green, Fun Dor tsu Dor; Literarishe Eseyen (New York, 1971); D. Leybl, “Der Dikhter fun Mentshlekhn Leyd,” Di Goldene Keyt, no. 9 (1951); Y. Paner, “Abraham Reisen,“Di Goldene Keyt, no. 9 (1951).

43. Baal Makhshoves, Geklibene Shriftn (Vilna, 1910), 1:11-13.

44. See I. Zangwill, The Voice of Jerusalem (New York, 1921), pp. 254-62: J. Leftwich, Israel Zangwill (New York, 1957); and M. Wohlgelernter, Israel Zangwill: A Study (New York, 1964).

45. Quoted in Z. Reisen, pp. 36f.

46. See H. Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism (New York, 1944), p.131 and Y. Elzet, “Undzer Folks-Oyster,” Yidish Amerike, ed. N. Steinberg (New York, 1929), pp. 244-45.

47. Cf. K. R. Minogue, Nationalism (New York, 1967), pp. 57-62.

48. H. Kohn, pp. 6, 7.

49. M. Pei, The Story of Language, Mentor Book (New York, 1949), p. 219.

50. A. Rannit, “Speaking of Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian …,” The New York Times Book Review, November 16, 1969, p. 2.

51. M. Pei, p. 136.

52. Ibid., p. 159.

53. A. Tartakover, Hahevrah Hayehudit (Tel Aviv, 5717), pp. 210f.

54. Cf. Zvi Woislawski, ““Esrim Shanah Le-Tshernovits,” Hatekufah 25 (1928): 613-20.

55. See L. Lehrer, Yidishkayt un Andere Problemen (New York, 1940), pp. 74f.; R. Mahler, “Yidish Ve-Ivrit Leor Hametsiut shel Yameynu,” Klal Yisrael, ed. B. Dinur, A. Tartakover, Y. Lestchinsky (Jerusalem, 1954), pp. 374-76; A. Tartakover, p. 221.

56. Quoted by R. Mahler, p. 375. Lyessin penned the most celebrated poem about the Yiddish language. See his Lider un Poemen (New York, 1938) 1:13-18. Cf. also the anthology of poems about Yiddish edited by S. Rozhanski, Yidish in Lid (Buenos Aires, 1967).

57. Cf. H. Leivick, “The Individual Jew,” trans. E. S. Goldsmith, Reconstructionist, 23, no. 17 (December 27, 1957), p. 10.

58. Cf. L. Lehrer, pp. 63, 82, and “Yidish un Yidishizm” in L. Lehrer, In Gayst fun Traditsye (Tel Aviv, 1966), pp. 341-49.

59. On the liquidation of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union, see the following: S. W. Baron, The Russian Jew Under Tsars and Soviets (New York, 1964); Y. Gilboa, Al Horvot Hatarbut Hayehudit Bivrit Hamoatsot (Tel Aviv, 1959); Y. Gilboa, The Black Years of Soviet Jewry, 1939-1953 (Boston, 1971); B. Z. Goldberg, The Jewish Problem in the Soviet Union (New York, 1961); N. Mayzel, Dos Yidishe Shafn un der Yidisher Shrayber in Sovetnfarband (New York, 1959); A. Pomerantz, Di Sovetishe Harugey-Malkhes (Buenos Aires, 1962); N. Rozntal, Yidish Lebn in Ratnfarband (Tel Aviv, 1971); Ch. Shmeruk. Introduction to A Shpigl oyf a Shteyn, ed. B. Hrushovski, Ch. Shmeruk, A. Sutskever (Tel Aviv, 1964); S. Schwarz, Di Yidn in Sovetn-Farband (New York, 1967); Y. Yanasovitsh, Mit Yidishe Shrayber in Rusland (Buenos Aires, 1959); S. Niger, Yidishe Shrayber in Sovet-Rusland (New York, 1958); L. Kochan, ed., The Jews in Soviet Russia Since 1917 (London, 1970); G. Aronson, J. Frumkin, A. Goldenweiser, J. Lewitan, eds. Russian Jewry, 1917-1967 (New York, 1969); A. Tartakover, Shivtey Yisrael, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 1966); E. Schulman, Di Sovetish-Yidishe Literatur (New York, 1971), and A History of Jewish Education in the Soviet Union (New York, 1971). See also J. Rothenberg, The Jewish Religion in the Soviet Union (New York, 1971).

60. Cf. B. Akzin, States and Nations, Anchor Book ed. (New York, 1966), pp. 141, 143, and Minogue, p. 124.

61. See K. Mannheim, Diagnosis of our Time (London, 1943), pp. 89f. Contemporary Yiddishist and neo-Yiddishist writings exhibit a wide diversity of viewpoints. See for example: E. Auerbach, Getrakht mit Ivri-Taytsh (New York, 1955), pp. 100-108; H. Bass, Shrayber un Verk (Tel Aviv, 1971), pp. 91-104, 548-59; S. Birnbaum, “Judaism and Yiddish,” The Way We Think, ed. J. Leftwich (New York, 1969) 2:513-18; M. Boreisho, Eseyen (Buenos Aires, 1956); J. Botoshansky, Mame Yidish (Buenos Aires, 1949); L. S. Dawidowicz, “Yiddish: Past, Present and Perfect,” Commentary, May 1962, pp. 375-85; L. Domankevitsh, Verter un Vertn (Tel Aviv, 1965), pp. 11-26; Y. Entin, Yidishe Dertsiung (New York, 1960); L. Finkelstein, Loshn Yidish un Yidisher Kiyum (Mexico, 1954); J. Glatstein, In der Velt mit Yidish (New York, 1972); Oyf Greyte Temes (Tel Aviv, 1967); A. Golomb, Tsu di Heykhn fun Yidishn Gayst (Paris, 1971); Tsvishn Tkufes (Tel Aviv, 1968); Eybike Vegn fun Eybikn Folk (Mexico, 1964); Undzer Gang Tsvishn Felker (Buenos Aires, 1961); Oyf di Vegn fun Kiyum (Buenos Aires, 1959); E. S. Goldsmith, “Yiddish in Modern Judaism,” Reconstructionist, June 2, 1961; S. Goodman, Traditsye un Banayung (New York, 1967); M. Gross-Zimerman, Intimer Videranand (Tel Aviv, 1964), pp. 310-20; Y. Hofer, Mit Yenem un mit Zikh (Tel Aviv, 1964), pp. 11-95; A. Koralnik, “Without Mazl,” Voices from the Yiddish, ed. I. Howe and E. Greenberg (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1972), pp. 326-28; L. Kenig, Folk un Literatur (London, 1947); Dos Bukh fun Lesterungen (London, 1948); J. C. Landis, “Who Needs Yiddish?” Judaism (Fall 1964); “The Relevance of Yiddish,” Jewish Heritage (Fall 1969); L. Lehrer, In Gayst fun Traditsye (Tel Aviv, 1966); Azoy Zenen Yidn (New York, 1959); Fun Dor tsu Dor (New York, 1959); Mentsh un Ideye (New York, 1960); Yidishkayt un Andere Problemen (New York, 1940); Di Moderne Yidishe Shul (New York, 1927); H. Leivick, Eseyen un Redes (New York, 1963); A. Lis, In Zkhus fun Vort (Tel Aviv, 1969), pp. 315-31; S. Margoshes, In Gang fun Doyres (Tel Aviv, 1970); Y. Mark, “Veltlekhe Yidishkayt,” Forverts, May 21, 1972; “The Yiddish Language: Its Cultural Impact,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly (December 1969); “Trakhtenishn Vegn Kiyum Ha-ume,” Di Tsukunft (May-June, 1973); N. Mayzel, Tsurikblikn un Perspektivn (Tel Aviv, 1962); W. Nathanson, Tsu der Revizye fun Natsyonal-Radikaln Gedank (Chicago, 1935); S. Niger, Fun Mayn Togbukh (New York, 1973); J. Opatoshu, Yidn un Yidishkayt (Rio de Janeiro, 1952); J. Pat, Shmuesn mit Yidishe Shrayber (New York, 1954); Shmuesn mit Shrayber in Yisroel (New York, 1960); Y. Rapoport, Zoymen in Vint (Buenos Aires, 1961), pp. 251-310; M. Ravitsh, Eynems Yidishe Makhshoves in Tsvantsikstn Yorhundert (Buenos Aires, 1949); A. A. Roback, Di Imperye Yidish (Mexico, 1958); Di Folksgayst in der Yidisher Shprakh (Paris, 1964); M. Samuel, The Professor and the Fossil (New York, 1956), pp. 40-45; In Praise of Yiddish (New York, 1971); E. Schulman, Sugyot Betoldot Sifrut Yidish (Tel Aviv, 1969); Yisroel Tsinberg: Zayn Lebn un Shafn (Paris, 1971); M. Shtrigler, Shmuesn mit der Tsayt (Buenos Aires, 1961) 2:7-76; Y. Shpigl, Geshtaltn un Profiln (Tel Aviv, 1971), pp. 254-9; H. Steinhart, In Kamf far Yidish (New York, 1954); D. Sadan, Heymishe Ksovim, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 1972); S. Simon, Tokh Yidishkayt (Buenos Aires, 1954); Emune fun a Dor (New York, 1970); Yidn Tsuvishn Felker (New York,, 1949); H. Sloves, In un Arum (New York 1970), pp. 230-96; “Yidish un Moderne Yidishkayt,” Yidishe Kultur, January 1971; J. S. Taubes, Yidish—Nisht Hebreyish (New York, 1952); J. I. Trunk, Kvaln un Beymer (New York, 1958), pp. 407-53; M. Tsanin, Oyf di Vegn fun Yidishn Goyrl (Tel Aviv, 1966); M. Weinreich, “Yidishkayt and Yiddish,” Mordecai M. Kaplan Jobilee Volume (English Section) (New York, 1953); A. Zeitlin, “Yidish un Yidishkayt,” Der Tog-Morgn Zhurnal, February 11, 1959; “Yisroels Manger Prayz far Shafung oyf Yidish,” Der Tog-Morgn Zhurnal, April 18, 1969; Y. Efroykin, A Kheshbn Hanefesh (Paris, 1948); Oyfkum un Umkum fun Yidishe Golus Shprakhn un Dialektn (Paris, 1951); Y. Goldkorn, “Yidish farn Vendpunkt,” Di Tsukunft (May-June 1974); W. Glicksman, “Yidish Loshn, Der Driter Khurbn un Klal Yisroel,” Di Tsukunft, March 1964; M. Zeldner, “Yiddish—A Living Language,” Jewish Frontier, April 1974; A. Menes, Der Yidisher Gedank in der Nayer Tsayt (New York, 1957); Shabes un Yontev (Tel Aviv, 1973); H. Lieberman, In Kamf far Yidisher Dertsiung (New York, 1941); Bikher un Shrayber (New York, 1933); A. Zak, Geven a Yidish Poyln (Buenos Aires, 1968); In Opshayn fun Doyres (Buenos Aires, 1973); Y. Horn, Arum Yidisher Literatur un Yidishe Shrayber (Buenos Aires, 1973); P. Rubin, “The Vitality of Yiddish,” Congress Weekly, March 4, 1957; J. L. Teller, “Secular Hebrew and Esoteric Yiddish,” Commentary, June 1956; A. Glantz-Leyeles, “Der Koyekh fun Yidish,” Der Tog-Morgn Zhurnal, Dec. 7, 1957; “Mizrekh un Mayrev,” Der Tog-Morgn Zhurnal, Dec. 14, 1957; L. Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish (New York, 1968); L. M. Feinsilver, The Taste of Yiddish (New York, 1970); Y. Yanasovitsh, On Oysruf-Tseykhns (Tel Aviv, 1975), pp. 153-59.

62. On Mussar see L. Eckman, The History of the Musar Movement, 1840-1945 (New York, 1975); L. Ginzberg, Students, Scholars and Saints (Philadelphia, 1928), pp. 145-94; M. G. Glenn, Israel Salanter, Religous-Ethical Thinker (New York, 1953); C. Grade, Musarnikes (Vilna, 1939), The Seven Little Lanes (New York, 1972), Tsemakh Atlas (Di Yeshive), 2 vols. (New York, 1967-68); D. Katz, Tenuat Hamusar, 5 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1952-63); J. Mark, Gedoylim fun Undzer Tsayt (New York, 1927); Z. F. Ury, The Musar Movement (New York, 1970); J. J. Weinberg, “Lithuanian Mussar” in Men of the Spirit, ed. L. Jung (New York, 1964), pp. 213-83.

63. Cf. K. E. Boulding, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century (New York, 1964), pp. 19-20, and M. M. Kaplan, The Religion of Ethical Nationhood: Judaism's Contribution to World Peace (New York, 1970).