Yiddishism[a] is a cultural and linguistic movement that advocates and promotes the use of theYiddish language. It began amongJews inEastern Europe during the latter part of the 19th century.[1] Some of the leading founders of this movement wereMendele Mocher Sforim,[2]I. L. Peretz, andSholem Aleichem.[3] The Yiddishist movement gained popularity alongside the growth of theJewish Labor Bund and other Jewish political movements, particularly in theRussian Empire andUnited States.[4] The movement declined during much of the 20th century because of therevival of the Hebrew language, and the negative associations with the Yiddish language, before experiencing a renaissance towards the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century.
TheHaskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, movement that arose in the late 18th century played a large role in rejecting Yiddish as a Jewish language. However, manymaskilim, particularly in the Russian Empire, expanded the Yiddish press to use it as a tool to spread their enlightenment ideas, thereby building a platform for future Yiddishists.Aleksander Zederbaum, a prominent member of the Haskalah, founded the influential Yiddish periodicalKol Mevasser, which would become a mainstay of the Yiddish press, including not only news but also stories and several novels in serialization.[5]
Joshua Mordechai Lifshitz, who is considered the father of Yiddishism and Yiddish lexicography, circulated an essay entitled “The Four Classes” (Yiddish:די פיר קלאַסן,romanized: Di fir Klasn) in 1861 in which he referred to Yiddish as a completely separate language from bothGerman andHebrew, and in the European context of his audience, the "mother tongue" of the Jewish people.[6] In the essay, which was eventually published in 1863 in an early issue of the influential Yiddish periodicalKol Mevasser, he contended that the refinement and development of Yiddish were indispensable for the humanization and education of Jews.[6] In a subsequent essay published in the same periodical, he also proposed Yiddish as a bridge linking Jewish and European cultures.[6] ScholarMordkhe Schaechter characterizes Lifshitz as "[t]he first conscious, goal-oriented language reformer" in the field of Yiddish, and highlights his pivotal role in countering the negative attitudes toward the language propagated within theHaskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment movement:
Although an adherent of the Enlightenment, [Lifshitz] broke with its sterile anti-Yiddish philosophy, to become an early ideologue of Yiddishism and of Yiddish-language planning. He courageously stood up for the denigrated folk tongue, calling for its elevation and cultivation. He did this in the form of articles in the weeklyKol-mevaser (in the 1860s) and in his excellent Russian-Yiddish and Yiddish-Russian dictionaries [...].[7]
Several prominent Yiddish authors also emerged in this time, transforming the perception of Yiddish from a "jargon" of no literary value into an accepted artistic language. Mendele Mocher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, and I. L. Peretz are now seen as the basis for classicYiddish fiction and are thereby highly influential in the Yiddishist movement.[8][9]
 Group photo of some participants of the conference | |
| Native name | טשערנאָוויצער קאָנפֿערענץ |
|---|---|
| Date | August 30 – September 4, 1908 (1908-08-30 –1908-09-04) |
| Location | Czernowitz,Austria-Hungary |
| Theme | Status of Yiddish as the language of the Jewish people |
| Organised by | Nathan Birnbaum and theUniversity of Vienna Yiddish club |
| Participants | 70 |
TheConference for the Yiddish Language (קאָנפֿערענץ פֿאָר דער ייִדישער שפּראַך,Konferents for der Yidisher Shprakh), commonly known as theCzernowitz Conference (טשערנאָוויצער קאָנפֿערענץ,Tshernovitser Konferents) was held from August 30 to September 4, 1908 in the Austro-Hungarian city ofCzernowitz,Bukovina (now Chernivtsi,Ukraine). The conference, which proclaimed Yiddish a modern language with a developinghigh culture, was proposed byNathan Birnbaum, and organized by members of theUniversity of Vienna's Yiddish club, which he founded. He promoted the conference in a 1908 trip to America.[10][11]Jacob Gordin,David Pinski,Chaim Zhitlowsky, and A. M. Evalenko endorsed the plan and also assisted.[12] The organizers urgently stated that Yiddish was a unifying force inEastern European Jewry, but needed support because people were ashamed of the language, and it was disorganized.[11]
There was nopolitical party or organizational affiliation, and invitations were distributed by geographic proximity. TheGeneral Jewish Labour Bund was underrepresented, while local Zionist groups, such asPoale Zion were overrepresented.[10][13] The conference hosted seventy delegates from various sectors of Jewish life.[11] The only classic Yiddish writer to attend wasI. L. Peretz, asSholem Aleichem andMendele Mocher Sforim were sick at the time.[12] However many younger Yiddish writers were present, notablySholem Asch,Avrom Reyzen, andHersh Dovid Nomberg. Their attendance help attain publicity in newspapers for the conference.[10] Other notable delegates includedNoach Pryłucki,Matthias Mieses,Mordecai Spector, andGershom Bader.[12]
Solomon Birnbaum, Nathan's son, kept theminutes, which were lost or destroyed duringWorld War I. The agenda attempted to avoid politics, but was wide in scope, advocating the promotion of Yiddish teachers, schools,press,literature, andtheatre. It also sought to reverse the trends among young people toward Hebrew and other local national languages, translate theBible into the language, and standardize theorthography.[10][12] Peretz gave an ambitious and authoritative speech about the future aspirations of Yiddish, which was taken with "spiritual hunger" by the attendees, according to Mieses.[14]
Pinski correctly expected there would be a question of thestatus of Yiddish. Attendees questioned if Yiddish was only "a" national language of the Jewish people, or if it was "the" national language. This topic soon dominated the discussion at the expense of the rest of theagenda. Even among the two sides were varying motivations.Esther Frumkin felt that the conference was notclass conscious and would reject the Bundist view that Yiddish wasthe language of the Jewish people. She walked out of abanquet when fellow delegates were not seated because they did not wearsuit jackets. The Bund later maintained that the conference was a minor event and did not start a Yiddishist movement. Attendees fromGalicia had hoped the conference would adopt Yiddish asthe national language of the Jewish people, expecting a language question in the1910 Austro-Hungarian census.[10]
Meanwhile, Zionist and religious attendees felt that pro-Yiddish sentiments impacted therevival of Hebrew. Some were deeply upset when Hebrew was deemed a "putrefying cadaver", a relic of the past and of prayer.[10][12] Religious delegates also felt the conference was too secular.[11]
Nomberg proposed a resolution that was ultimately adopted, which deemed Yiddish wasa national language of the Jewish people. It was a compromise view, but still left many dissatisfied.[10][13] Birnbaum was tapped to run an organization birthed from the conference, which was to promote speakers, publish books, establish schools and courses, promote music and theatre, and plan future international conferences. However, the position was unpaid and fundraising was limited and he turned toAgudat Yisrael to preserve and unify the Jewish people.[10] Asch, Nomberg, Peretz, and Reyzen, and Nomberg toured Jewish communities of Galicia and Bukovina to promote interest in Yiddish language, literature, and culture.[12]
The conference ultimately only had a symbolic value, but marked a high point of developing Yiddish culture, increasing its prestige. It did not lead directly to any of the subsequent organizations that promoted Yiddishism, such as theCentral Yiddish School Organization in 1921,YIVO in 1925, and the post-HolocaustCongress for Jewish Culture in 1948, but laid the groundwork for them.[10]Hillel Zeitlin,Reuben Brainin, andMorris Rosenfeld criticized it,Ahad Ha'am ridiculed the conference as a "Purim spectacle". However,Shmuel Niger andIsrael Isidor Elyashev considered it a historic achievement.[12]
Modern scholarly assessment varies, with Philip Kutner noting the conference was a failure, but also held that it legitimized what was until then "a language of the streets". Emanuel Goldsmith stated in an interview withJewish Currents that the conference put not Yiddish, but Yiddishism, "on the map": the idea to preserve, sustain, develop, and encourage culture in the language.[15] Ruth Kaswan wrote that the conference "was a landmark occasion in the rise of Jewish consciousness and liberation...[and] a declaration of solidarity with the Jewish masses that was by definition a revolutionary act." She cited the creation of a school system, and an almost parallel state within the states of Eastern Europe, during theinterbellum, as well as a "sense of pride and identity".[16]
According to professor Iosif Vaisman, the conference also increased the prominence of the city of Czernowitz, and inspired similar conferences forHebrew andCatalan. He also noted that it led to the creation of secular Jewish schools, teaching of thegrammar and literature, as well as an increase in Yiddish writers and books. He contends that it helped develop the Bund movement, and discussions on the rights of minorities even influenced theTreaty of Versailles.[17]
The conference was commemorated nearly every decade since it was held, notably in 1928. A fiftieth anniversary gathering was held inMontreal.[18] Gatherings were held around the world for the 100th anniversary, inLa Jolla, California, Czernowitz itself, and atYork University inToronto where a conference was held on April 13–14, 2008, titled "Czernowitz at 100: The First Yiddish Language Conference in Historical Perspective".[17][19]
YIVO (Yiddish Scientific Institute) was established inWilno, Poland (Vilnius, now part ofLithuania) in 1925. YIVO was initially proposed by Yiddish linguist and writerNochum Shtif. He characterized his advocacy of Yiddish as "realistic" Jewish nationalism, contrasted to the "visionary" Hebraists, and the "self-hating"assimilationists who adopted German, Russian, or Polish. YIVO’s work was largely secular in nature, reflecting its original members. The Division of Philology, which includedMax Weinreich, standardized Yiddish orthography under YIVO. Simultaneously, the Division of History, originally headed byElias Tcherikower, translated major works from Russian to Yiddish and conducted further research on historical topics.[20]
TheGeneral Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, a secular Jewish socialist party in theRussian Empire, was founded in Vilnius in 1897, and active through 1920, promoted the use of Yiddish as a Jewish national language, and to some extent opposed the Zionist project of reviving Hebrew.[21] Moreover, beyond the Labour Bund group in Poland, theInternational Jewish Labor Bund regarded Yiddish as the Jewish national language.
In the Soviet Union during the 1920s, Yiddish was promoted as the language of the Jewish proletariat.[22] It became one of the official languages in theUkrainian People's Republic and in some of theSoviet republics, such as theBelarusian Soviet Socialist Republic and theGalician Soviet Socialist Republic. A few of the republics included Yiddish public institutions like post offices and courts. A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions. Advanced research institutions and Yiddish publishing houses began to open throughout the Soviet Union. At the same time, Hebrew was considered a bourgeois language and its use was generally discouraged.
The Soviet Union created theJewish Autonomous Oblast in 1928. Located in theRussian Far East and bordering China, itsadministrative center was the town ofBirobidzhan. There, the Soviets envisaged setting up a new "Soviet Zion", where a proletarianJewish culture could be developed. Yiddish, rather thanHebrew, would be the national language, although, concurrently, the Soviets made immigration to Birobidzhan very difficult. Ultimately, the vast majority of the Yiddish-language cultural institutions in the Soviet Union were closed in the late 1930s.
By the mid-1930s, Soviet rule forced scholars to work under intense restrictions. Soviet legislation dictated the content, vocabulary, and spelling of Yiddish scholarship. Before long, leading Yiddish writers and scholars were arrested and executed in 1937. Stalinist orders then gradually closed down the remaining publishing houses, research academies, and schools. Growing persecution of surviving Yiddish authors ultimately came to an end on August 12, 1952. Stalin ordered theexecution of twenty-four prominent Yiddish scholars and artists in the Soviet Union all in a single night.[5][23]
As many Eastern European Jews began to emigrate to theUnited States, the movement became very active there, especially inNew York City.[24] One aspect of this became known asYiddish Theatre,[25] and involved authors such asBen Hecht andClifford Odets.[26]
Yiddish also became the language of Jewish labor and political movements in the US. The majority of the Yiddish-speaking political parties from the Pale of Settlement had equivalents in the United States. Notably, even the Zionist parties, like the North-American branch ofPoale Zion, published much of their material in Yiddish rather than Hebrew.[27] American Jewish radicals also printed many political newspapers and other materials in Yiddish at the beginning of the 20th century. These included the newspaperForverts, which began as a socialist endeavor, and theFraye Arbeter Shtime founded by anarchists.[28]
The Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews who came to the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were often felt underpaid and overworked in unsafe conditions, and created many Jewish unions. TheUnited Hebrew Trades, a collective of labor unions founded in 1888, eventually represented over 250,000 members. Forverts, and other leftist Yiddish newspapers, were instrumental in organizing and recruiting for these organizations.[29]
Owing in a large part to the efforts of the Yiddishist movement,Yiddish, beforeWorld War II, was becoming a major language, spoken by over 11,000,000 people.[30]
However,the Holocaust's destruction of the extensive European Jewish Yiddish-speaking communities, both secular and religious led to a large decline in the use of Yiddish. Around five million, or 85%, of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, were speakers of Yiddish.[31] The decline of secular Yiddish education after the Holocaust encouraged the creation of summer programs and university courses at more than 50 institutions, which cater to Yiddish learning.[32] Scholars includingUriel Weinreich,Mordkhe Schaechter, andMarvin Herzog were especially influential in establishing American academic Yiddish programs.
Additionally, the revival of the Hebrew language as the national language ofIsrael, caused a significant decline in the use of Yiddish in daily Jewish life.[33] To some, Yiddish was seen as the language of the Jewish people in diaspora and believed its use should be extinguished in the early establishment of Israel.[34]Di Goldene Keyt was a literary journal started byAbraham Sutzkever in 1949 in an attempt to bridge the gap between Yiddish and Hebrew literature.[35] In this journal, Yiddish and Hebrew poems and pieces of literature were published but much of Sutzkever’s work went unrecognized until the 1980s because of the fierce rivalry between Hebraists and Yiddishists.
However, Yiddish did not become a completely “dead” language after the Holocaust. TheYugntruf movement was established for young Yiddish speakers in the mid 20th century, and still continues today. The movement also founded the Yiddish Farm in 2012, a farm in New York which offers an immersive education for students to learn and speak in Yiddish. Yiddish is also now offered as a language onDuolingo, used by Jews and others on social media platforms, and offered as a language in schools, on an international scale.[36]