Treasuring-Yiddish for the_Right Reasons
Dora Horn
I
Dara Horn is a doctoral
candidate in Hebrew
have often wondered if there is any language
language spoken by real people (and the number
in the world that is as cherished as Yiddish—
of Yiddish speakers today is actually growing,
that is, by people who can't speak or read a
thanks to the demographics of religious commu-
word of it. Few Jewish writers in America today
nities that still speak it), Yiddish has become a
know Yiddish, and as a freakish 26-year-old
shorthand, a romantic metaphor for loss. It's the
exception to this rule, I find myself fielding all
perfect literary device, of course. In literature,
kinds of questions from intrigued parties, rang-
unlike in life, a dead language is a beautiful thing,
ing from the inane to the profound. "Is Yiddish a
giving the writer's work a free poignancy and -
real language?" (Yes.)' "Isn't it just a dialect of
pathos that the writer no longer has to bother
German?" (Only if you think English, Dutch and
creating himself. And there is a further benefit to
Flemish are.) "Did you speak it growing up?"
using Yiddish as a metaphor. It absolves one of
(No.) "Why would you want to learn a language
the need to actually learn it.
no one speaks?" (Where do I begin?) But among
Yet there is something degrading about turn-
people my parents' age and older, I hear the same
ing an entire civilization into a metaphor –
remark again and again: "My parents spoke
particularly today, when translations of Yiddish
Yiddish, but only when they didn't want me to
works are regularly published by major American
understand them."
presses, when opportunities to learn the language
It's a common enough experience among peo-
are unprecedented in the past forty years, when
ple of a certain age, and in my mind, a tragic one.
Yiddish literature will soon become the first liter-
But when people tell me this, what I notice most
ary canon to be completely digitized and instantly
is that they invariably laugh. I wonder why. It is
available, and when Yiddish language textbooks
as if the deliberate destruction of a language is
are an internet click away from every doorstep in
somehow amusing, or, more likely, as if Yiddish
the world. It is degrading because it suggests, in
itself is somehow inherently hilarious—a ridicu-
its proud and poignant and pious choice of
lous language best known for . its humor, as if
metaphor over reality, that the only thing worth
words themselves could be funny without speak-
knowing about Yiddish culture is that it is dead-.
ers or writers to breathe humor into them. It is
and Yiddish literature
true, of course, that some of the greatest
at Harvard. Her
Yiddish writers were humorists. Yet for Jews
novel, In the Image
(W.W.. Norton, 2002),
has just been released : ,
in paperback.
whose Yiddish is limited to overheard curse
"Most American Jewish
words, the greatest joke isn't any specific com-
readers under 60, I think,
edy from the Yiddish literary canon (since they
haven't read any), but Yiddish itself. Just say
could probably name three
the worc_roy," and people laugh.
concentration camps. But
While their readers usually think of Yiddish
only as a joke, American Jewish writers today
how many of those readers
often refer to Yiddish with great fondness. But
could name three Yiddish
for many of these writers, too—few of whom
can • speak the language, and almost none of
whom can read it—Yiddish has taken on a
peculiar new meaning. Rather than being a
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NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CULTURE