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To understand the effects Zionism has had on Jewish linguistics, one must first have some background on Jewish linguistics itself.
Hebrew has been considered a dead language since around 200-400 CE, after Mishnaic Hebrew (or Early Rabbinic Hebrew, the language of the ancient sages and scholars) became an exclusively written language instead of a spoken one. Hebrew was still used by Jews around the world as a lingua franca. A lingua franca a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different. Hebrew was also used for both secular and religious literature, including spoken prayers, but it was no longer the primary means of communication within Jewish communities. Obviously, the importance of Hebrew shouldn't be understated, but it must be understood that historically, Hebrew as we know it did not exist until the late 19th century. After the "death" of Hebrew, Aramaic became another lingua franca for Jews in and out of Palestine, as well as a primary means of communication with their non-Jewish neighbors. The Talmud and the Zohar (the primary text of Jewish mysticism) are both written in Aramaic, as well as a multitude of important prayers. In addition to the widespread usage of Aramaic, diaspora languages had begun to pop up. The oldest is Yevanic (also called Judeo-Greek or Romaniyot), which is first documented to have been used in the Second Temple period (between 516 BCE and 70 CE). There are dozens of Jewish diaspora languages, unique to the region they come from and the Jews living there. Many are, unfortunately, now extinct and it's a race against time to preserve as many as possible. If you or a family member or person in your community speaks a Jewish language, even more "common" ones, I recommend reaching out to the Jewish Language Project. There are two that I'll put links to at the end of this post, one operated by Wikitongues and another by HUC-JIR. Both have opportunities to get involved, including interviewing and filming speakers of these heavily endangered languages, as well as documentation efforts. The extinction of these languages has multiple causes, but I'll start with the main focus of this post, the invention of modern Hebrew and Zionism. Early and modern Zionists alike have pushed for modern Hebrew to be treated as the language of Jews, rather than one of many. This initiative was started by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a secular, proto-Zionist linguist, who attempted to attract Old Yishuv Jews in Palestine to his movement for Jewish nationalism by dressing up as an Orthodox Jew. Ben-Yehuda was initially rejected by Old Yishuvim, who used Hebrew only for religious purposes and infrequently as a lingua franca with Jews outside of Palestine, and spoke Arabic, French, and Yiddish with their communities. They even declared cherem on Ben-Yehuda (a concept relatively close to excommunication). This did not stop him, though, and Ben-Yehuda raised his children in a household exclusively speaking Hebrew. He attempted to prevent his son from interacting with other children or hearing other languages spoken, even chastising his wife for singing a lullaby in Russian. Ben-Yehuda's Hebrew lexicon was comprised of the medieval Hebrew used as a lingua franca, with Arabic, Yiddish, Canaanite, Aramaic, and Egyptian linguistic analogies. By the time of his death in 1922, Ben-Yehuda's project to revive Hebrew was successful enough for British authorities to recognize Hebrew as an official language of Jews in Palestine. This revival of Hebrew, born of Jewish nationalism, created strong resentment for diaspora Jews amongst early settlers in Palestine, sentiments that still exist in Israel today. Language was a big part of this internal culture war and Yiddish was a primary target, most likely because it was the most widely spoken diaspora language at the time. In 1923, an organization called the Language Defenders Battalion was formed to enforce modern Hebrew as the only language of Jews in Palestine. In 1927, after the Hebrew University of Jerusalem sought to install a Chair of Yiddish Literature, the Language Defenders Battalion launched a riot in the streets and attacked multiple staff members, badly wounding multiple people. Their often-violent protests shut down Yiddish theatre performances, lectures, and publications, including the firebombing of a publishing house in the 1930s for reproducing Yiddish literature. The Language Defenders Battalion was not the only organization that targeted Yiddish, either. The Union for the Imposition of Hebrew sent threatening letters to printing presses in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, one of which reads: “We have just been informed that you are preparing to publish or print a newspaper in Yiddish… We warn you not to do this thing and not to assist those who dishonor the Hebrew language, which would lead to conflict and unrest and bring about the involvement of the police. The responsibility for the consequences will be yours. Stop the typesetting of the newspaper immediately.” From a Forward article from 1938: "There’s a second battle brewing in the Land of Israel, and it’s not between the Arabs and the British, nor is it between the Arabs and the Jews. It’s between the Jews and the Jews. There are those in the Yishuv who would like to do away with Yiddish completely, and then there are those who would like to use the language with which they grew up. And these groups are at war. The former, which appears to be in control of the situation, refuses to allow newsstands to display Yiddish papers. It also refuses to permit public meetings at which Yiddish is spoken, nor does it allow Yiddish theater to be performed legally. The latter group would simply like for this ban on Yiddish to be rescinded, and for the works of Mendele, Peretz and Sholem Aleichem, and the literature of 15 million Yiddish-speaking Jews throughout the world, to be acceptable as culture in the Land of Israel." Central figures in the Zionist movement also had quite a lot to say about Yiddish, including David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel. Ben-Gurion referred to Yiddish, of which he was a native speaker, as "a grating, foreign language" in 1945. Theodor Herzl, the father of contemporary Zionism, said this about diaspora languages in general: "We will rid ourselves of the ugly and stunted jargons, those ghetto languages of which we now make use. They were the furtive languages of prisoners." These statements outline the primary reason why Zionists despised Yiddish. To them, it represented the mere concept of diasporic identity, something that would not give Zionism power, and it had to be diminished. It was because of this need to dominate the narrative on Jewish cultural identity that legislative bans on Yiddish theatre and publications persisted until 1951. It is for the same reason that Yiddish speakers are still looked down on in Israel. Rokhl Kafrissen for Tablet Magazine writes, "My own experience with (non-Yiddishist) Israelis has found that even among those who are the most critical of the state and/or Zionism, the topic of Yiddish (and Eastern Europe) is almost invariably met with benign disgust, if not outright contempt." The other, blatantly obvious reason for the decline of Yiddish and other Jewish languages is the Holocaust, which decimated both the Yiddish and Ladino-speaking populations of the world. About 75% of the global Yiddish-speaking population were killed in the Holocaust, and Yiddish speakers accounted for over 85% of Jewish Holocaust victims. It is, however, an undeniable fact that Jewish diaspora languages as a whole have diminished significantly because of the Israeli regime. Judeo-Arabic, for instance, was widely used until the middle of the 20th century and speakers of Judeo-Arabic vastly outnumbered Yiddish speakers in the Middle Ages. Today, after the majority of Middle Eastern and North African Jews immigrated to Israel or France, Judeo-Arabic and all of its dialects are either endangered or extinct. Hebrew is taught to Jewish children around the world regardless of what language their family would have spoken in the past because of its ties to Israel, with the exception of Hasidic communities that still use Yiddish as a primary language. For diaspora to be associated with weakness and cowardice instead of strength and resilience is ludicrous considering our people's history of perseverance predates the Zionist project more than 30 times over. The celebration of diaspora cultures threatens the Zionist myths that Israel as a nation is inextricable from Jewish identity, or that we can never hope for a better world where our diverse global communities thrive. It is because of this threat that Israel has attempted to fully snuff out Yiddish in the past and jeers at it in the present, as well as erase and target the cultural and linguistic identities of Jews from all parts of the world. I wanted also to include some links to videos of Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and some other diaspora languages being spoken. They are so beautiful and deserve to be heard. Again, there are links to both Jewish language projects below and I urge anyone with the ability to do so to offer support with donations or linguistic contributions or even simply spreading the word that these initiatives exist. Yiddish: Speaking Yiddish On The Street - Yiddish Book Center Nitsokhn Lid - Victory Song (Yiddish Anti-Fascist Song) Oy Ir Narishe Tsienistn - Daniel Kahn Ladino: The Ladino Language, Casually Spoken - Wikitongues Kuando el Ray Nimrod - Sephardi Ladino Song El Sueño de la Hija del Rey - Sephardic Ladino Song Haketia: Bellida - Moroccan Jews Song in Haquetia - by LALA Tamar Alicia Sisso Raz - Haketia What is Haketia (Western Judeo-Spanish)? Egyptian Judeo-Arabic: The Judeo-Arabic Language of Egyptian Jews - Wikitongues Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic: Joseph Speaking Baghdadi Jewish Arabic - Wikitongues Jewish Neo-Aramaic: Jewish Neo-Aramaic - Jewish Languages Project Juhuri: The Juhuri Language, Casually Spoken - Wikitongues Judeo-Malayalam: Listen to the Language of Cochin Jews - Wikitongues Resources for Jewish languages: - Wikitongues | ... - Jewish Languages Sources: - Jewish Languages: From Aramaic to Yiddish | My Jewish Learning - How Yiddish became a ‘foreign language’ in Israel despite being spoken there since the 1400s – The Forward - Palestinian Yiddish | YIVO Institute for Jewish Research - Yiddish in Israel | The Strange Side of Jewish History - The History of Yiddish | My Jewish Learning - Yiddish in Israel - Tablet Magazine - Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and the Making of Modern Hebrew | My Jewish Learning - Recovering Judeo-Arabic | The Jewish Standard (timesofisrael.com)
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AuthorAn anti-Zionist, socialist, Ashkenazi Jew who writes essays on social and humanitarian issues, especially Jewish subjects. ArchivesCategories
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