Jerusalem – After years of Yiddish being viewed as a “Diaspora” language, inappropriate for use in the newly independent State of Israel, the mamaloshen is making its way into the Knesset.
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Next week, top politicians will pay their respects to the language once spoken by over 12 million Jews, with Yiddish Language and Culture Day at the parliament.
It is especially important now that the generation of Yiddish speakers is disappearing, said event sponsor MK Lia Shemtov (Israel Beiteinu), to officially welcome the language within the walls of the Hebrew-speaking legislature.
Shemtov herself grew up in a Yiddish-speaking family in Ukraine, in a town where “many people spoke Yiddish on a daily basis,” even in the years following World War II.
She is not the only MK to remember her childhood in shades of Yiddish.
Israel Beiteinu chairman and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman spoke exclusively Yiddish until the age of six, said Shemtov. Lieberman is expected to participate in the festivities planned for next Tuesday, when the Yiddishpiel Theater will present theatrical selections in the Knesset auditorium.
A third Israel Beiteinu MK – David Rotem – also speaks Yiddish, making the right-wing party the second-most Yiddish-speaking party after United Torah Judaism.
Minority Affairs Minister Avishai Braverman (Labor), MK Shai Hermesh (Kadima) and National Union chairman Ya’acov Katz also list Yiddish among the languages they speak.
The number of Yiddish-speakers in the parliament hit a 15-year peak of 12 in the last Knesset – a far cry from the early days of statehood, in which almost all of the MKs could speak the language.
Shemtov explained that in the 17th Knesset, she had established a forum for Yiddish language and culture, but it was only in this Knesset that she had managed to arrange a Yiddish day in the parliament.
“It is sad that here in Israel, of all places, the language is disappearing – but it is imperative that the memory live on,” said Shemtov.
She added that she had been pleasantly surprised by the number of citizens who expressed interest in the activities surrounding Yiddish day, which will open with a joint meeting of the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee – which Shemtov chairs – and the Education Committee.
“People are thirsty for the language and culture,” Shemtov added. Recognition of Yiddish culture in Israel, she said, still has a long way to go.
“There is a statue of Shalom Aleichem in Kiev, and practically every city in the Ukraine has a road named after him,” she said. “If only that were true here as well.”
Gevald! Only the non frum jesw in the knesset care about this??? Where were the holy memebers from the frum parties all this years?? What a SHANDE!! Did they not learn the basics of yiddishketi SHELO SHINI ES LESHONOM!
It’s funny that holding “memorials” to yiddish has become a trend. Yiddish lives and thrives in many jewish centers around the world.Yet, it’s totally ignored in so-called academic and cultural circles.
It’s funny that holding “memorials” to yiddish has become a trend. Yiddish lives and thrives in many jewish centers around the world.Yet, it’s totally ignored in so-called academic and cultural circles.
It is very stupid that these apikorsim picked this langauge of lushon hakodesh for their primary langauge to begin with. Jewish people always used lushon hakodah words to hide from the goy, i guess now we should use aramish.BTW yidish if used right is a geshmakeaka zaftiga shprach.
This is really very nice for a PORTION OF ISRAELIS but what about those of us for whom it’s not the Mamaloshen? The “Yidden” are in no means the majority of ethnicities here and I think we should focus on our new language, Hebrew. I’m sorry but Yiddish IS a Diaspora language much as English or Spanish or Ladino or Italian or Amharic are Diaspora languages. Anglos, who come out of Yiddish speaking homes are among the slowest to learn Hebrew when they make aliyah. Many never got to the point of being able to buy groceries or go to the bank, let alone talk to a doctor or deal with the bureaucracy. How do we ever build those bridges and break down the barriers between Sephardi and Ashkenazi if we can’t speak to each other in a common “lashon.” Ashkenazi friends, teach your children Yiddish as part of their culture but please start embracing the TRUE mamalashon, or maybe I should say ABBA lashon because Hashem, our Abba, gave us Torah not in Yiddish but in Hebrew.
To be honest Yiddish is a language that makes you feel as a fool! It’s not a language at all! It’s only a reminder that we was in in exile in “germane”!!!
a shande !
Put away the hankie and let’s stop being nostalgic. This Yiddish frenzy is for those that are trying to find their way towards cultural Judaism. Let’s go back 1,000 years ago and realize that the Jews of Europe did not speak this language then. It was perhaps a slow and evolutionary process.
Let’s try to speak Hebrew, it will help our children with mastering the Torah Texts, it will allow the Jews of the diaspora to get a little closer to their brethren in the Israel and maybe it will allow us the possibility to shake off the mentality of Eastern Europe of 150 years ago.
The “apikorsim” picked lushen kodesh as their language because it is their language as well as the language of all yidden. Yiddish is 90% corrupted german with 10% corrupted lushen kodesh thrown in. Ivrit is 90% lushen kodesh with 10% mostly english. So which language is holier? Yes yiddish has been used for the past 1000 years to learn torah and it definitely has a place in our world. But that’s the european heritage world. You can’t look askance at people born and living in israel as all being apikorsim because they only speak ivrit. Walk into many chasidic shtieblach in israel and all you hear is ivrit. and you can’t say that the whole very frum sefardi community is apikorsish. Israel is a sovereign nation with an official language, ivrit.
Yiddish is a beautiful language! “Mach ess nisht aveck”! It is so nice when our Russian Jewish brethren come to the US & we have a common language to communicate with… The Yiddish language has been used by Jews in many countries of the world. After all, it IS part of our history!
they should honor some members of neturei katrta for yidish speaking
As former PM golda mair seid :”di vus raiden nisht yiddish zynen nisht kyn yidden”(!)
This is a good step, we should speak Yiddish and Loshon koidesh (Ashkenazis).
That means to say Knesses, not Knesset. If someone is Sephardi that is one thing, but otherwise one should speak in Ashkenazis like our heilige mesoireh. That means to say and write Shabbos, Knesses, etc..not Shabbat and Knesset.
The knesset shouldn’t spend time on memorial for a gemanic language, instead they should invest it in correcting Ben Yehudas “shtusim” (pun intended) and bring it back to the Holy source (this includes vocabulary, dikduk and pronunciation).
What is the issue here? In Israel you can speak Hebrew, Yiddish, English, Arabic, French. But you should only have one “official” language.
Yiddish is wonderful to know and speak but it has never been the “official” language in any country, ever. Nobody is saying people shouldn’t speak Yiddish.
In America you have millions of illegals and immigrants speaking Spanish, but that does not mean we have to make Spanish the official language. (Even though every sign you see, every product you buy, has instructions in Spanish to protect the manufacturer when an illegal buys it and hurts himself and sues claiming they had the obligation to put the directions in Spanish).
When our zaydes came to America, they learned to speak English but they still spoke Yiddish. It’s a benefit to know more than one language. How many times do you see in Rashi where he puts the taitch in loshon “blaz” giving the old French definition of the word. Must be that Rashi spoke the language of the place he lived.
to some, Yiddish has more value and importance, then Yiddish-Keit.
I’m not going to jump into this one other than to say I’m a proud Yiddish speaker (and one of the few young ones who isn’t frum, although I have many frum friends). First of all, Yiddish was an official language of five countries prior to WW2. Today it is an official language of Swedeen, Moldova, Holand, and a few other countries. Also, interestingly the USA has no official language. Some states do but the federal government doesn’t. Since my state doesn’t have an official tongue I’ve declared Yiddish official in my family (kidding).
Corrupt German: If you knew any German or Yiddish you’d know that one isn’t a corrupt version of the other. Many different languages were spoken in Germany and Austria 1000 years ago. The language of Hannover became standard German and the German government worked to eliminate the other dialects and languages. Several southern German dialects emerged into Yiddish. German was subscuently altered by French (word order, pronunciation, words), Yiddish was subsecuently altered by Slavic languages and of course Hebrew. They’re both “corrupted” in terms of what the language was like 1000 years ago but one is not a corrupted version of the other. The Hebrew/Lushn (it’s Lushn how I say it!, Lashan in Israeli Hebrew), isn’t corrupted either. No one knows what Hebrew really sounded like in Biblical times. It changed drastically in pronunciation over several thousand years of golus and varied from place to place. The Hebrew/Aramaic component of Yiddish is the Ashkenazi pronuciation. One Sephardic pronuciation of Hebrew was chosen to become Israeli Hebrew. This doesn’t make that one “correct” in terms of a language for praying (liturgical). Shabat is correct for Israeli Hebrew, shabbes is correct for Ashkenazi and Yiddish. Neither is corrupt or wrong. If you want a language that is “corrupted”, look at English. Most of the French in English is so changed that no American or French person could understood the same word used in the other language unless they were written. But no one calls English corrupt because it’s the most economically important language in the world. A Yiddish linguist once said “A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un a flot” (a language is a dialect with an army and a navy). i.e. whatever is official has prestige. When Yiddish had 11 million speakers it had more prestige than today.
Yiddish being more “Jewish”: Sort of. I’d say any Jewish language other than Israeli Hebrew is more “Jewish” because Israeli Hebrew was established to be a break from anything that is Jewish (ie diaspora) to be replaced with the invented culture of Israel. Since Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Aramaic evolved over centuries without artificial influence unlike Hebrew which was largely crafted by an academy, they’re both more “Jewish” and authentic than modern Ivrit. Ivrit is more “Israeli” than Yiddish but the diaspora languages are certainly more “Jewish”.